Saturday 29th March
We got up and packed our bags ahead of getting the bus back to Phnom Penh at 12.30. We went for breakfast once again to the 'Epic Arts Cafe' and enjoyed more of their tasty food. A tuk-tuk picked us up from the guesthouse at 12.15, and we boarded the bus, leaving for the capital at 12.30.
The journey was fine, taking about four hours in total. It was fairly uneventful and not as packed as some of the other buses we had been on. There was a group of other backpackers, guys from Europe and North America, who were obviously taking the whole budget thing to the extreme as it seemed like buying soap or deodorant stretched beyond their means because they stank the place out (something which we thought was slightly anti-social because smelling bad was something you could never pin on the locals!).
We got back to Phnom Penh and checked into the 'Mekong Palace Hotel', the same place on the riverfront that we had stayed on our previous visit to town. We got a twin room for $20, got changed and went for dinner to the 'Garden Cafe Centre' – go with what you know! – and tucked into their excellent cheeseburgers. We hadn't eaten much since breakfast and we were starving. Again, it was almost empty, a fact that continued to really puzzle us.
I was feeling very tired and a bit grumpy, so I headed back to the hotel to relax and watch some TV while Maria did some shopping. I settled down in front of the Bolton-Arsenal game, which ended up being a decent game, but couldn't fight the tiredness long enough to stay up for the United-Villa match, and felt that I needed sleep more than anything else, especially considering that we had a long enough journey to Vietnam the next day.
