Visa Run - Pattaya to Sihanoukville by Peter Jaggs

and saw that under the words “’Psorng-Preng, Victory Hill, Cambodia,“’ which were printed in a spidery hand, Ron had also written a message on the back of the photograph in the same untidy scrawl.
    “Don’t worry too much about finding Psorng-Preng. If you bump into her, that’s great, and if you don’t that’s fine, too. Whatever happens, I’m sure you will enjoy looking, and I have a feeling you will find her. I only wish I could be there in Cambodia with you. Good luck! Ron.”
    The old man had also scribbled a list of places in Sihanoukville on the back of the snap which I guessed were likely venues where I might come across Psorng-Preng.
    1. Nightspots on Victory Hill
    2. Victory Beach
    3. Phum Thmei
    4. Festival Mansion Casino
    5. Ochheteal and Serendipity beaches
    6. Blue Mountain
    7. Freedom Hotel (The Flea Dome)
    8. The Snake Pit
    I put the photograph back in my pocket and sighed. The old man’s kind words and instructions were all very well, but I still had the four hundred bucks he had given me in my wallet and I felt obliged to make some sort of an effort. I wished he had given me a bit more to go on. The beer I had bought the motodop driver had disappeared down his neck, so I ordered up another couple of glasses of the icy brew. The strapping Cambodian motodop driver said told me his name was Narith, which means ‘masculine man.’ Looking at his stern, craggy face and bulging muscles, I thought his parents must have been psychic. As we drank together, I persuaded Narith to tell me something about his life.
    “I am twenty-seven years old and I was born in Kompot, which is a drive of around an hour and a half from Sihanoukville. My relatives have a restaurant here on Victory Hill and they allow me to park up and look for customers outside. Sometimes I also work downtown or at the crossroads in Victory Hill with the rest of the motorcycle taxi-drivers.
    I only work as a motodop driver during the evenings and at night. This is because I am a teacher at a secondary school in Sihanoukville during the daytime. I studied to be a teacher at the School Teacher’s College in Sihanoukville and now I teach Geography and History to eleven- to fifteen-year-old boys and girls. My salary is around fifty US dollars a month and I also get a room for free at the school. I have two jobs because I need to save as much money as possible. I do not have a girlfriend and I am not sure if I will get married for a while yet. If I should marry it would cost me around three thousand US dollars for the girl’s parents. I have been here two years now and saved around a thousand. I could probably do it on less than three thousand, but then I would not be marrying the kind of girl I really want.
    Sometimes I think I might use the money I have saved to further my education and gain more qualifications instead. My dream is to study English at a University. Cambodia is hoping to turn itself into an important tourist destination and English speaking teachers will soon be very much in demand. All the kids in Cambodian schools are taught English these days, but my own English language skills are not suffficient for me to tutor them yet.
    I have two young brothers in Kompot. My Mother and Father are dead but I don’t want to tell you about that. Sometimes I send a little money back to my brothers because they both work as builder’s labourers and their salary is very low. My brothers come to see me here in Sihanoukville once a fortnight and we all go to a Chicken Farm or up Blue Mountain to have a drink and a girl. Most of us Cambodians prefer Blue Mountain and I usually go with one of the Vietnamese girls. Somehow it doesn’t seem quite right for me to use a girl from my own country as a taxi-girl. I find it hard to believe you when you tell me you like your freedom and don’t ever expect to get married. Nobody wants to end up as a lonely old man. And I know you are joking with me when you tell me that many foreigners in Thailand