My First Night in Cambodia

I was dead tired after a long flight and when I eventually made it to my terminal destination and put all of my luggage down at Two Dragons guesthouse, but instead going straight to sleep, I sat on the bed reading the brochure about the guesthouse and life in Siem Reap and elsewhere in Cambodia. Part of the reason was that I felt so tired, all I could summon was to sit on the bed and grab at something to read that was close by. I needed to gather enough strength to actually get up, take my clothes off, brush my teeth and get some sleep. It seemed like too much hassle and my body was refusing to go through it just yet. I was rather excited at the same time. I was in Cambodia. This was my first night in the country so far away. My sub consciousness was dictating me that I should find something better than sleep. Sleep is for home.

As the minutes were passing by, the rain was relentlessly pounding the world outside and I have gone through everything in the brochure and had nothing more to read. I gathered all the strength I had left and started to go through steps needed to get ready for sleep. Bottle of water was provided, which I used to brush my teeth with. I knew Cambodian tap water was not safe for drinking, but what’s worse, it was not even safe to brush ones teeth with. Having to rinse your freshly brushed teeth with bottled water and use it to wash excess toothpaste from your brush made brushing a major pain. But it is what it is. I was in Cambodia where tap water is not safe. That’s the end of it.

I hit the sack as soon as I was done with necessary cleaning and undressing. It took me a while to fall asleep and I had no idea what time it was. The cell phone I brought with me was dead so I couldn’t use it to check time and the only other option was to start up the laptop and change timezone settings to Cambodia to get a sense of current hour, but I couldn’t be bothered. It was pitch dark outside, the sound of heavy rain was overbearing, temperature outside was high despite it being night so I lay on the bed naked and covered with light blanket that was provided.

Once I have fallen asleep, I started having very vivid dreams. I no longer remember what I was dreaming about, but I do remember it felt as though I slept forever. So many dreams. I realized in my sleep that I had no watch to refer to in order to check what time it was so I stirred suddenly believing it’s probably late evening the following day. I knew I was tired when I went to bed and after so many dreams I felt like I slept too long. I got up to find out that it was still pitch dark outside. I walked downstairs to the restaurant area, looked at the watch there and found out it was only 6am the same morning. I have only slept for a few hours. I don’t know why I had such hard time sleeping, but each night thereafter I would get up early in the morning regardless of when I would go to bed. I did not get a single night of continuous, long sleep. Don’t know what the deal was.

This first night in Cambodia set a standard of nights with not very good sleep for me. I had hoped that once I’ve moved to a different guesthouse, sleep pattern would improve. From the beginning I thought it may have had something to do with time shift my body went through, but it hasn’t changed after 6 nights after which time I would expect the body to get adopted. Maybe my room was above some geo pathogenic zone that kept me from getting decent sleep. I’m only staying at Two Dragons for a week. We’ll see what happens after I’ve moved.