The nap helped, as I woke up around 10pm for a night of partying that woud later ensue.  The occasion was a colleague from Shanghai flying in.  He is a pro with Cambodia and he would help show me more of the ropes.   But his plane was delayed and it caused arrival at peak time with immigration.  Trying to fill some time, I found out my Beer Bus friends from Australia were celebrating a national holiday.  A good time was had at the bar, and I bought everyone several rounds of drafts to which the favor was returned.  Overall some really nice people.  I also got introduced to teachers from South Africa.  Following the advice of my life coach, I wanted to take the opportunity to do as many of these informal networking chats with teachers as possible.  The bar was the perfect venue for it.  

The beer bus organizers saw all this and asked me straight up, "So when are you coming to Cambodia man?  Things are booming here."  I sighed.  Yes, I could tell, this was obvious.  The continued by asking, "What's stopping you?  The low pay?  How much pay do you need bro?  The locals here survive on $100 a month and much of their life has still been decimated by the Khmer Rouge."  The conversation then veered towards some holdouts of the regime who, apparently, kept surviving until covid took out the last remnants.  Crazy stuff really, if true. 

Later the party ended and my colleague arrived from the airport along with his main contact, otherwise known as "Big Mike".  All three of us headed straight to the casino and enjoyed some late night food.  I tried to explain my losses and, spoken like a true teacher, my colleague said, "You didn't follow instructions properly, you were supposed to play poker, not slots."  He was knackered from his flight and we all left after the meal and a few short rounds of gambling where I lost some more.

The next day, they were both gobsmacked when I explained the plan to ride a bicycle from here to Pattaya.  Apparently this makes me Iron Man.  Such reactions are perfectly understandable.  It takes time and experience to do a few cycle tours, but then you realize it's not as hard as it sounds.  The usual questions like my friend at CrossFit asks, 'Where the fuck are you going to stay' and 'What happens if you get a flat tire' and 'What about a support vehicle and all that' are valid, but the truth is you figure out all that shit as you go.

One thing is for sure, Cambodia was proving to be far more expensive than I realized.  I was blowing through my budget at a furious pace, and decided it was going to be time to leave soon.