Poipet not such an armpit

Chilling in Poipet on the Thai border - this was a dusty shithole back in 2005 when I passed through but seems to have cleaned up. Da grew up here - we are staying at a decent hotel ($12 per night) with A/C, elevator and hot water - what more could we want - basically across the street from where she used to live and where her sister and husband have a metal fabrication business. Da went into Thail;and to the market this morning but as it cost her fifty cents for a day pass whereas we would have had to pass through immigration and then pay $20 for another Cambodian visa we gave it a pass. The road from Siem Reap which was a potholed dirt track in 2005 and which took 8 hours to go 65 miles is now a perfect straight high class road which correspondingly has a nice high speed to it. Wes stopped off at another of her sisters in Sisophon for lunch and visited the family shrine to their parents and the wat where they were cremated - poignant even to a cynical bastard like me.

Tomorrow an 8 hour bus ride ($6) back to Phnom Penh. Maybe then i can get pictures and/or video uploaded.