But I’d learned my lesson. I stayed with Dara and didn’t go with any other girls, even though they now pushed themselves on me. More jealousy arose and some girls tried to split us apart. They didn’t succeed, though they tried hard.
On one of the last nights I went out with Dara and Rosie. We hopped in a tuk tuk and went to Dara’s house first so she could change clothes. She lived in a small concrete shack with her family, it must have been two by five meters at most, including a small kitchen and bathroom, and there were six people living there. I wondered where all the money went. Dara’s older sister had done the same work for years and had an American boyfriend/money-sender, you’d expect that the family could live a lot more comfortably with all that money coming in. Their combined income must have been at least ten to fifteen times the average Cambodian salary, yet they were still crammed into that tiny building. It really is a different world out there. I’d been to Nina’s place too: she lived in a small room a short bike ride away from the Nr 9 guesthouse, and it wasn’t an improvement on Dara’s place.
Dara stayed with me till the day my visa ran out and I had to leave the country. We said goodbye early in the morning and I went to on my way.
How the hell did I pull this off? As you can read, I didn’t spend much money, I had no luxurious room with air-conditioning, I didn’t take girls to classy restaurants or buy them clothes or gifts. I didn’t throw money around in clubs and was stoned as fuck most of the time. The answer? I have no idea. Sometimes I still wonder myself.
Laos
On the bus to Laos I started reading a book for the first time in ages. The book, recommended to me by many people, was Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist. Although it was an interesting read, after all I’d heard about it I expected more from it. It was not a life-changer the way many people had told me. The real life-changing happened in the weeks before when I went from a shy regular backpacker to a womanizing bastard, and had nothing to do with that book.
I spent some time at Don Det, one of the 4000 islands in the Mekong River. I needed some rest and enjoyed being on my own for a while. I spend one night with a German girl, but no bang. After five days I moved on to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
While I was there I decided to get things in order for going to Myanmar next. Getting a visa at the Myanmar embassy was a major hassle for the girl I went to the embassy with but a piece of cake for me. Burma, or Myanmar as it now called, is a military dictatorship that’s a bit afraid of researchers and journalists. Since I had already seventeen pages of stamps in my passport, it was obvious I was just a traveler, but she was a different case, and they took a really long look at her. When I say it was easy for me, though, I should mention that it still took five days, during which I was stuck in this boring city. I went to the riverside bar a couple of times but except for Russian girls and Cambodian hookers, my game was still much undeveloped. Oh, how I wish to walk into that bar now, when I’m usually fearless and have pretty tight game.
It was time to visit the big backpacker trap named Vang Vieng, a place every backpacker in South East Asia will end up at some point. When I walked off the bus I saw two English-speaking white guys walking barefoot. I don’t know what their idea was; maybe they were planning to write a book named “Around the world barefoot”, but it looked disgusting.
The biggest reason backpackers go to Vang Vieng is the tubing down the river. It’s a debauched carnival of drunk and drugged-up 21-year-old backpackers. During the day people go tubing and get drunk at one of the many bars on the side of the river. The river and its bars have a sort of Mad Max look and when you’re there for the first time it’s fun to do. When you’re out on an inner tube, Laotian guys will throw ropes and pull you into the bar area, where loads of people are getting drunk on cheap cocktails. There were slides and zip lines, and everyone had paint on their body saying things like that they were sluts or took it up the ass. I felt old and not at ease there. It clearly wasn’t my scene. Girls would climb up the rocks or go to the bar and scream “wooohooo!!” every two minutes for the rest of the day. After about five times you just wanted to toss a bottle at them.
At night, all the bars were open and people got drunk over many drinking games and rounds of free drinks. I tried to pick up some girls, but the girls there had an attention span of one minute until the next woohooo and I had no verbally strong game, so I didn’t bother too much. When the bars closed people moved to the riverside bars and drank buckets of Vodka Red Bull. I got drunk here a few times but usually not too much because I hate hangovers.
There were shitloads of restaurants in Vang Vieng, all playing the same two television shows. No matter where you went, it was either Family Guy or Friends. If I have to choose between those two I’m more of a Friends person, so I usually ended up in the same place. One day I made a lot of eye contact with a cute girl but she left soon after with her girlfriends. The next time I saw her she was wearing a long dress, but when she sat down her dress moved up and showed some disgustingly hairy legs. I lost my appetite immediately and gave her an obvious dirty look. She should learn to behave like a woman. It only convinced me even more that white backpacker girls are not for me. Most of them dress poorly and don’t take care of themselves, but they still walk around thinking like they’re the main prize. I ran into a similar situation in Bolivia a year later.
I killed my time with reading some pick-up info, watching movies during the day and going out at night. Some people were really fucked up on drugs and acted crazy and made complete fools of themselves in front of everyone. I took it easy with the mushroom shakes and smoked some opium instead. The drug prices were complete rip-offs and I’d say half of the stuff was fake anyway.
I can’t believe I stayed ten days here but I did. Like I said before I didn’t feel at ease in this scene and decided to go back to Cambodia where I would be a somebody again. Dara and Nina had both been emailing me, asking when I’d return.
I had to go to Bangkok first, to cross the Thai/Cambodian border in the east. It was not possible to go from Laos to Cambodia without a Cambodian visa from the embassy, even though the other way around is possible. And thus began one of the worst bus rides of my trip.
The bus went from the north of Laos to Bangkok; this meant changing coaches four times and barely any sleep. The bus company in Vang Vieng promised us a sleeper bus, but the seats didn’t even recline so I barely slept the whole ride. My stomach is always my biggest enemy when travelling and I thought it would be best to eat as little as possible so that I wouldn’t have to take a shit on the bus. There was no good food along the way so I ended up with only a bag of chips and some candy. And after all that, at arrival in Bangkok I was very sick. Of course I wanted to find a place to stay as soon as possible. I found a dirty shoebox of room close to Khao San Road for five dollars a night. It was a shitty place, but at least I had a place to stay after asking at several other places. Khao San Road is a horrible tourist place with far too many street hawkers and fat couples. I barely left my room because I had some serious food poisoning and nearly vomited when I walked down the street and smelled the sewage and looked at the food at the food stands. I played it safe and only ate at Subway and McDonalds and stayed away from street food, but I still had to run for the toilet a few times.
I bought some new T-shirts and shorts on the streets, a decent pair of (fake) Diesel Flip Flops, some cool bracelets and a brand new pair of earrings. The earrings look expensive but I only paid six dollars for them. People seem to think they’re diamonds. I still wear them. According to my pick-up books I had to “gear up and look cool”. Not bad advice, of course, but I wasn’t exactly unpopular my last time in Cambodia when I was wearing ugly white shorts, stupid t–shirts and a pair of old worn down slippers. I still picked up a lot of girls and figured it must have been something else that attracted them.
Phnom Penh – second visit
A couple days later I headed back to Phnom Penh. I left early in the morning because I wanted to get
there in a single day. It was a gruesome and bumpy fourteen-hour ride including yet more long border formalities, but when I arrived at Guesthouse Nr 9 the guy working at the reception was happy to see me again and shouted out: “The ladies’ man is back!” Then he said to me, “You good guy, always many ladies in your room”, and the girls working in the kitchen came out and were smiling at me. It was a major ego boost: the guards and tuk tuk drivers outside had been joking and cheering too. One guy shouted “He fuck all girls!” I can’t say it didn’t give me an ego boost. I was known here.
I took a room on the side of the guesthouse, showered the sweat and dirt off of me and walked out again. I couldn’t wait to see the all the people again I met the last time I was there. As I walked to the pool table area I felt great and heard Darth Vader’s Imperial March playing in my mind. It’s better to have some outrageous inner game than feel self-conscious the way I did in Vang Vieng among all those ultra-young backpackers.
Tina, a girl I met my first time in Phnom Penh but haven’t mentioned yet, shouted “Neilllll!!” and jumped in my arms. Her French boyfriend was looking grumpy and I didn’t understand why at the time; later Tina told me he was pissed off because she only gave him a kiss on the cheek when he arrived at Phnom Penh airport.
Despite all the drama and the fight between two girls over me the last time, I had a fun time and wanted to relive those days of being a popular and wanted guy. I said to myself, OK, take it easy this time. Both Dara and Nina have emailed you and want to be with you. Nothing to worry about – and by God, take it easy this time. But no, the last time turned out to only be a warm-up… I just had to fuck things up again.
The first few days it was just fun to see everyone again. I smoked some weed with Nakry and Lisa, two older girls always staying in guesthouse Nr 9’s bar area. I usually gave them five dollars so they could buy weed and some mangos. They would roll the joints and cut up the mangos for me. I didn’t mind them smoking my dope too because for two or three dollars they could buy a pretty big bag of weed. If I had to buy it myself I would’ve paid at least eight to twelve dollars for the same bag. As I said, these days were OK and it was fun to hang out with some friends again but I didn’t see Dara or Nina. I’d already texted them a few times to let them know I was back, but never heard anything in return. Some girls told me that they were angry with me but I couldn’t figure out why. Everything was OK when I said goodbye to Dara.
It got me thinking of leaving to another city if things didn’t change soon. One day, a young girl named Jorani was paying a lot of attention to me. Now, this girl was aiming some other dudes too, but she wasn’t good in English and was pretty stupid. I played pool with her a few times and gave her a beer. The words “let’s go to my room” were enough to convince her. It was early but she was already drunk. I made her take a shower and had sex with her afterwards. At the time I was completely numbed and didn’t care much about anything else than myself.
It was still early in the evening and I was checking my email in the Internet café across the street. Suddenly someone tapped on my shoulder, and when I looked up it was Dara, who wanted to have a word with me. It’s hard sometimes to understand those girls because of their limited knowledge of the English language, but I found out that there was a lot of bullshit being said about me. Two Vietnamese girls, Bian and another one whom I’ll call Nhu, had been telling bullshit stories about something I was supposed to have said. I got angry and told Dara this was a complete lie and that I wanted to talk to those girls first. I went with Dara to the Heart of Darkness club.
I met both other girls outside the club and we talked it out. It seemed that Nhu had told some lies to Dara. When this came out, weirdly it was Bian rather than Dara who got really angry with Nhu. She started shouting at her, and since this was all in Vietnamese I couldn’t understand anything, but I heard my name “Long Hair” a few times. Bian was furious about Nhu lying to her and slapped her hard in the face. Nhu pushed her back and Bian took off her shoes and tried to swing at Nhu with her four inch heels. I had to duck for cover a few times not to get my head bashed in with a heel when I tried to separate them. At least fifty people were watching it and some stupid old fat white guys were cheering. I told the one closest to me to shut up or he would be the one eating street pavement. He ran off. He didn’t even walk, no, he ran off, the yellow coward.
I got the girls to stop fighting by pulling them apart, and Dara took Bian inside Heart of Darkness. She was still kicking and screaming – not only was she very beautiful, she was a hot pepper too. Meanwhile I took Nhu to Guesthouse Nr 9 with a motor taxi. She grabbed me around my waist and tried to cuddle on the way there but I told her to let me go. After all, she was the one who’d been talking shit about me. I was angry because when I finally saw Dara again, she was angry with me and then there’d been another girl fight over me. Less than three days after me returning to Phnom Penh.
Arriving at Nr 9 Nhu couldn’t stop crying and wanted to hold me all the time. Her face was still red from being slapped so hard by Bian. Of course all people in Nr 9 were staring at me again and asked what was wrong this time. I just said “Another fight over me”, and the gossip machine started rolling again. Some backpacker guys were asking about me and of course the “crazy girl jumping in the water and fighting for me” story came up and was immediately told by some others.
But Nhu was still crying, and a girl in tears is a genuine weak spot of mine. I felt sorry for her and realized that due to all the communication problems I would probably never completely find out what all the fuss was about. I took her to my room to get the attention away from us and she wanted to have sex with me. After some refusal, I caved in. It were her massive dick-sucking lips that turned me on. I had sex with her just four hours after I banged the young girl, Jorani.
The next day I saw Dara, but she didn’t say much to me, still pissed that there was a fight again concerning me. She had been planning on coming back to me, but the fight changed her mind. It really pissed me off because the stunningly beautiful nineteen year-old Dara was the main reason I’d come back to Phnom Penh in the first place. Bian and Nhu had already made up and everything was all right between them. The only one who got screwed was me.
In the evening I met two German guys, one of whom really seemed to like Nhu. She looked at me and whispered that she needed money to pay her twenty-dollar rent. She knew she wasn’t getting money from me and asked if I’d mind if she went with the German guy for one night to get twenty or thirty dollars from him. I’d already banged her five times, so I didn’t care so much.
A day later I saw Dara again. She came to Nr 9 with her little brother, the one I had seen at her house when I went to Phnom Penh the first time. We talked a bit and she said she just wanted to be friends now. Dara was the only one I cared a lot in Cambodia, about but unfortunately someone else fucked that up for me.
In the meantime, there was a girl orbiting me all day named Ary, and she was determined to get with me. She wouldn’t leave my side and came on to me all the time, so I took her to Heart of Darkness and danced with her a bit. Afterwards we went back to my room and we had sex there. She was pretty good in bed but didn’t have a clue about giving a blowjob. Maybe I was just spoiled because Nhu was great at it and had big dick-sucking lips.
When I woke up the next morning and Nhu saw me with Ary, they immediately started arguing about who could be with me. What a life I had back then! It’s not one to be proud of, but it felt pretty damn good getting treated like a popular rock star. Ary was a jealous girl and a bit crazy, and she was soon driving me and Nhu up the wall. At one point they were yelling at each other again and I shouted out: “Hey take it easy, shut up!” They became quiet as a mouse and a lot of people laughed about it.
Some English backpacker girls were asking about me and showed some interest, but I couldn’t care less about their fat white asses and ignored them. I was busy enough as it was. Nhu was desperate for my attention, massaged me in front of everyone
and then pushed her half naked breasts in my face. That became so awkward that I took her to my room again.
At this point I was the fucking boss around there. There were at least four or five girls I had banged around me at any time of the day. Guys were jealous and trying to get me to leave. Nhu or the two older Cambodian girls would roll a joint for me or massage me when I complained about a sore back or neck. It’s hard to imagine all this went down without paying a dime, but it did.
About seventy percent of people in the bar/restaurant and pool table area were non-guests of the guesthouse. There was a Thai girl with whom I flirted a bit, but she was always with friends. I had met her before in January but she was with an older girl who irritated the crap out of me with passive cock-blocking and annoying bad English.
For some reason I was not much attracted to Thai girls while I was in Thailand, but Areva looked more Chinese than Thai. Picking her up was a piece of cake. It just took some pool table gaming. Most guys get all serious when playing pool and don’t understand it’s the fun while playing that the girls like. Areva and I sat down at the waterside on the wooden deck and I made out with her. She was shy at first but I drove her crazy. An hour later I took her to my room and banged her there. Areva was already thirty-eight but had the body of a twenty year-old. Her skin felt like silk. Only thing I didn’t like about her body was that she was flat-chested. Dara’s massive Playboy boobs were too beautiful to easily forget and I would compare all girls to her. Dara had gone off the radar a bit and didn’t visit Nr 9 much anymore. I’d hit the jackpot with Areva without knowing it. I can’t say too much about it, but she had a good job as a manager and was in charge of some important project in Phnom Penh.
The next two days I slept at her place and we had sex all the time. Her apartment was very fancy and had air conditioning, a gift from above in this country. She also had a king-size boxspring bed, a flatscreen TV, an iPod, two Blackberries and a MacBook. Dara’s family shack this was not. The hot shower was a warm welcome after nearly two months of cold showers.
Around the World in 80 Girls: The Epic 3 Year Trip of a Backpacking Casanova Page 15