The bus to Siem Reap (the tourist town near Angkor Wat) is nearly full. I have an ebullient person in the seat next to me - a young Englishman of partly Greek background (my guess, which I later learn is right). His name is Freddy, let’s say, and he is very talkative. Luckily his talk is interesting and often funny. He tells me he used to be a hippy and gives a rundown of all the drugs he’s done. He says magic mushrooms are disgusting to eat. He describes a holiday in Morocco where the Bedouin tour guide who took their group out into the Sahara on camels demanded extra money to take them back to the oasis town from which they had set out. He says the blokes in the group were ready to give in but the women refused to pay for quite a long time. He complains a little about feminists travelling in packs.

I suggest that women are sick of being pissed upon in general and are accustomed to standing up for ourselves against unreasonable men, and that perhaps the women were annoyed that the men of their own tribe did not show a bit more of the old school spirit. Anyway, after my one brief and awful trip to Morocco, I would not be going with any Bedouin to any desert at any price. I agree with Freddy that in the end they were probably sensible to pay up - it only came to a few pounds for each person in the group.

After the Morocco story, Freddy gives a fascinating rundown on the state of football hooliganism on the Continent. In Poland, he says, the fights are highly organised and take place in forests, sometimes with paramedics on hand. There are videos on Youtube - search Polish forest fights - like this one - though some nanny person has rated it 18+, so that you’ll have to be registered to watch it. I can’t find any that aren’t 18-locked. If you’re like me and you refuse to register, simply imagine a horde of Polish thugs bashing each other up in a lovely pine wood on the thin pretext of football. Some guys just love to fight, says Freddy. I daresay he is right. But where are they when you need a strong bloke to beat some honesty into a camel driver?

He tells me how he and some mates wheeled an abandoned piano into their shared house at university. Then it’s time for lunch, at a corner hotel somewhere. There’s a choice of caramelised potato and banana, or fried insects. I am craving salt. I try one of the smaller grasshoppers(?). The waitress shows me how to pull off the sharp lower rear legs. The other trick is not to look at the grasshopper(?) as you put it in your mouth. It’s warm, salty and crunchy with a faint meaty flavour. I’ve eaten yuckier snack foods. I buy a bag. Freddy samples one. He says it’s all right, but he isn’t too enamoured. Besides, he’s a vegetarian. Three American girls are disgusted.

Eating bugs (1) - the antici…pation, a.k.a about to suck cockroach:

Eating bugs (2) - the delicate crunch:

Eating bugs (3) - the salty zing:

I doze off after lunch, not really sleeping since the volume of the Thai martial arts movie on the TV forbids it, wake up in time to talk some more with Freddy, and finally arrive at Siem Reap. A friend of Sam’s is waiting with a tuk-tuk. He doesn’t know the way to the hotel and doesn’t want to call for directions. Maybe he doesn’t have a phone. We make it eventually. My reservation hasn’t been recorded, but there’s a room, so all’s well.

The following two days are taken up with the secret mission. I eat cold bugs and leftover happy herb pizza the next day, and the day after I wake up with a nasty stomach. A gin and tonic at the bar before I go settles it down, and I head back to Phnom Penh in a bus cold enough to be a morgue. This time a silent Cambodian man is next to me and the movie involves Chinese vampires smoking opium, and ghosts, and zombies. I mean, what’s a junkie vampire film without zombies?

Next up: History lessons