Well, there’s a fair old bit to catch you up with, so I’ll try to take it a day at a time!

I caught the night bus out of Phnom Penh with absolutely no regret. It’s not a city I would want to spend time in. The night bus was an experience! It’s basically a bus full of bunk beds – doubles on one side of the aisle and singles on the other. The beds are vinyl (so a little sweaty) and the head is slightly elevated, which creates a foot locker beneath the head end for the passenger behind. You’re given a pillow and a blanket. The best tip I had was to take my silk sleeping bag liner with me, so I did that. It was perfect! I slept pretty soundly from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap!

The bus arrived at 5am and I was immediately mobbed by tuk-tuk drivers. I had arranged to be met by the hotel, but their driver overslept – which turns out to be a bit of a theme for this guy! So I waited about half an hour before bowing to the inevitable and hiring a tuk-tuk. As the driver dropped me off, he asked all the usual questions about how long I was staying and what I was doing. Ordinarily, I’d have declined such an obvious pitch for business, but it turns out the hotel is quite a way out of town and, in temperatures that have been consistently 38/39 degrees, it was certainly too far to walk! (It’s 29 degrees as I write this, and I’m seriously considering a cardigan. Home is going to hurt, isn’t it??!!) So we agreed a price for three days driving and delivering me to the airport and Lo! I have a driver. He’s a super nice young man – a bit older than Jemima, which is my yardstick on this trip! – called Davin.

When we arrived at the hotel, everything was locked up and I have zero mobile service, here, so Davin called them up and the receptionist eventually emerged to let me in. I sat in reception feeling gritty, and the proprietor appeared and let me know that my room would be ready in an hour, which was very welcome news. Davin was returning at 9 for the shenanigans to begin so that would give me time to shower and change. And scritch the puppies..! And just as I was getting all soppy about puppies, one of the toothy little nuggets stole my shoe and ran away to the scrubland opposite the hotel with it! I wonder what the neighbours thought about the overheated Western woman hopping after the dogs, letting off a stream of English they’d never find in text books….!!

So, refreshed and excited, we set off at 9am for my first thing – back in England, months ago, I’d done a lot of careful research and booked a Sak Yant tattoo. Sak Yant is a system of blessed tattoos historically used by the Khmer and Thai people. The tattoos are a combination of mantras, written in Pali script, and Buddhist symbolism. Before 1975 they were common on monks and religious Buddhists and designs vary from place to place. Much of the tradition was lost during Pol Pot’s regime, when the Khmer Rouge destroyed the manuscript books of designs as part of their purges. But some were buried and, since the late 1980s, the tradition has begun to regain popularity (the practice has always been popular in Thailand). Anyway, I had selected a place in Siem Reap called the Khmer Federation of Sak Yant tattooists and had spoke to them extensively about important things like the needles they use – where they source them and how they assure sterility and so on. And all seemed good.

We turned up at 10am to find the ajaa at work on another client, but he gave me the book of designs to look at – I was a bit surprised by this, as I’d read that the ajaa chooses the design. Bless him, he did nearly roll his eyes out loud and explained very patiently that yes, that happens a lot when Westerners get Sak Yant and don’t speak a word of Thai/Cambodian. But actually the “correct” process is for the client to choose their own design. I was asked to bow to the design books before I looked at them, and spent a happy half hour looking through. I told the ajaa roughly what kind of area (of blessings, rather than my body!) I wanted the tattoo to cover and he gave me a pointer. I selected one that covers protection from curses, demons and the evil eye; good luck in career and financial spheres; protection against injustice and good relationships. It has a mantra in Pali which I can’t read, so yeah. It could say “I’m a gullible tourist” but since ACTUAL MONKS were involved in this process… anyway. As well as the prayer, it has 5 symbols each contained in a loop, and 4 ever decreasing spirals. Which represent the path to enlightenment.

Having chosen the design, I set off to the market to buy my offerings. I needed 10 lotus blossoms, 7 different kinds of fruit, 5 candles and a packet of incense. Easy enough. Normally before a tattoo I’ll have a Mars Bar and a can of coke. Not really an option here, so I went to a restaurant and had a Cambodian stew called, appropriately enough, Amok. It was really good. And then I headed back to the Federation. When I got back, the kru (master) was talking to a pair of monks. I later learned that the elder of the monks was the kru’s master and had come to deliver a book of yantra.

The monks were interested in what I was having done, and so they supervised my ajaa’s apprentice getting my needles ready.

The needles were tied with a waxed cotton to the end of a long piece of polished bamboo – because, yes, I elected to have this done as a stick poke rather than with a western tattoo gun. In for a penny and all that….! My ajaa gave me a mantra – momol arak hung – and we chanted it awhile together. I was then instructed to continue the chanting in my head and focus on the mantra while he was working. I was also shown how to keep my skin stretched. I’d been told my particular yantra could be placed anywhere above the waist and I’d elected for just above my right elbow. So I had to grip my bicep to keep the skin on the back of the arm taut. The ajaa sat on a table, cross legged, with me on a stool below the table height, so that my palm rested on the table, my elbow at a right angle and my upper arm parallel to the floor. And off we went.

I really had no idea what to expect from a stick poke, but it was fine. Lots of little pricks in quick succession. The needles are dipped into the ink and jabbed into your skin. The ink is re-dibbed every four or five jabs. It’s surprisingly painless and the result is really very precise!

Once the tattoo was finished, I made the offering of fruit, incense and candles to the Buddha. And so began the blessing. In order for the magic of the tattoo to be effective, it needs to be blessed by a master. Each element of the tattoo receives a separate mantra chanted over it, and power is blown into it. I peeled the lotus flowers, and then the master took his place in front of the table. I presented the flowers to him, and then sat cross legged with my back to him, on the other side of the table. He chanted and blew and anointed me with water and the lotus flowers, and blew powers into my yantra. And that, people, is the story of how I became invincible. (Or contracted hepatitis, as I’m sure my parents will be quick to point out 🤣) It was a fabulous experience!

After that, Davin suggested I should go and see the old market, so we headed into town. The market was ace – lots of atmosphere and very busy with a sort of local section at one end, food in the middle (under cover). It was busy and bustling, even though Davin had explained it was the end of the season. Temperatures run from the mid- to high thirties in April and the long-awaited rainy season starts in May.

So I pottered around the market for an hour or so, by which time it was mid afternoon. I’d been in the go since 5am, and I figured a sleep was overdue. So I asked Davin to take me back to my hotel. He was puzzled that I hadn’t eaten an evening meal, and wanted to come and pick me up again later, but I convinced him I’d get the hotel shuttle and could cope without him! We arranged to meet at 4:30am the next day, to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat and he went home.

I fell asleep almost immediately, and when I woke up again it was 7pm. Davin had suggested that my best and easiest option for dinner was to head to Pub Street – I kid you not, that’s what it’s called. So the hotel shuttle dropped me there.

Well! It was a bit like my first night as a Fresher in the student’s union. There was music booming out of every doorway. The night market was doing a roaring trade in what my step-sister lovingly refers to as ‘twat pants’ and the stall-holders call tie pants (I’ve bought several pairs. They’re brilliant in the heat. Helen tells me I can never wear them at home “not even at yoga. It’s a bit cuntish”). 🤣🤣

I pottered around a little, resisting several invitations to buy barbecued tarantula, scorpion or baby snake (all sold on skewers). The street traders here are far more insistent than in Vietnam, but also far more open to doing a significant deal. Eventually, I chose a restaurant and had a lovely meal and a beer before heading home and sinking into bed!