Never Running in Cambodia Ever Again. Ever

So I was gonna write about how miserable the minibus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was - I felt like Shaq on an airplane - and then about the city of PP but instead I've got 12 minutes to write about my ridiculous run today in the little beach town of Sihanoukville.

Let me start by repeating that it's a beach town.  And it's barely stopped raining since we got here and is monsooning as I write this.  There's nothing to do here except go to the beach.  So I decided to run.  Bad idea.

I figured it was cool enough for a 45minute run.  I brought my iPod thinking there wasn't much to see anyway and it would help me run well.  The first 3 miles were great.  I ran along the pretty white sand beaches for a bit all the way up to the secluded Independence Beach that was occupied only by a few pale middle-aged men in Speedos.  Then I ran up some steps to a beautiful, ocean view hotel.  I decided that was far enough out and I would try to head back but via an inland route.  I had brought a map and 5000 riel in case I needed anything.

On the way down the hill from the hotel I noticed some people in the street taking pictures of the jungle.  I stopped, pretty confused because I didn't see anything noteworthy in the trees.  I soon realized there was a family of monkeys along the fencetop playing and eating bananas.  They were really cute.  I watched them for a while.  Then I continued on.  A half mile later, I came across a herd of cattle waltzing down the middle of the street - with no apparent supervision.  I navigated my way between the cows and the residue they left behind on the pavement, trying to decide if that would seem strange to a Cambodian or not.

Then I found near the beach I had been running on previously, so I turned left to go more inland.  After 10 steps up this road, a struffy looking black dog took interest in me, trotting up swiftly to me and barking.  As I increased my pace away from him 2 more smaller dogs filled in the formation behind the bigger one.  I picked up my pace to 3 quarters speed as the adrenaline was really pumping and I wondered if this was all really happening.  Luckily, as I clenched my fists and turned around I saw the dogs were falling behind and losing interest.  I slowed down a bit but kept checking behind me for the next 5 minutes.

From there I ran down the street that was in the middle of nowhere and the only person I saw was a man waist deep in his rice paddie.  Then the road starting going uphill.  At this point I realized I had definitely made a wrong turn but I wasn't going back towards the dogs so I ran up the hill.  It stretched out for a painful 3/4 mile.  When I finally got to the top of the hill, lungs and legs burning, I turned right onto the main street and was pissed to see that the road went straight back downhill into the city center.  About here is when my run went bad.

I was struggling to breathe at this point - my lungs and back hurt when I took deep breathes so I slowed down my pace.  In the city center I thought I had about a mile left and would just run it slowly.  I saw a sign that said Sokha Beach turn right and that was the beach right near our hostel.  So I turned right.  After going down a bunch of sidestreets, in what I thought was the direction of the beach, I was pretty lost.  Looking at the map I thought I knew where I was.  Then I saw a sign for a hospital and there was only one hospital on the map so I figured I must be near that one which was a block in the wrong direction but very close to the hostel.  Turns out the "hospital" was nothing more than a one room doctor's office and the street it is on is a dead end, but isn't a dead end on the map...interesting.  I went back to where I thought I could turn onto the main road that our hostel was on, but there's no main road.  After walking around for about half an hour (I stopped running because I was tired) I popped back out on the main road in city center a block before I had turned right off the road!

From here I walked down the main street a few blocks further, until I saw a sign for Sokha Beach again.  But this time the sign said to go straight!  A block later there was a sign for the Golden Lions which is the statue 100 meters from our hostel.  I've never been so happy to see a street sign that I recognized!  I ran the last mile or so at a good pace as my lungs were recovered at this point.  As I ran down the last hill, I had to move to the sidewalk for a parade of monks carrying flags and playing instruments as they marched up the hill.  I don't know what it was all about but it was definitely a sight to see.

I got back and Tarik asked if I had been kidnapped.  "Yup.  Thanks for your concern."