Bachelor

Freedom used to be my most cherished possession. I'd sooner have gone to prison than have my freedom taken away from me... oh hang on, that's the same net result.

The glimmer of freedom has tarnished since I met someone I like spending my time with, who I had to leave behind for a few weeks due to a combination of visa expiry and a cleansing religious festival that didn't exactly require boyfriends to be around.

Fortunately, I'm an expert at killing time and treading water in South East Asia, and I took the opportunity to visit a few places on my to-do list that Jackie probably wouldn't be that interested in when we started travelling together. Staving off my depression by visiting some of the bleakest tourist attractions in the world helped for a while, but then I accidentally checked in at a tranquil resort where everything was mockingly designed for two and the solitude was rubbed in my face.

As I watched the sun set over the Gulf of Thailand from my balcony with one too many chairs, I comforted myself by visualising the shackles of codependence slowly approaching over the horizon. We'd be together again soon. I'm a traitor to single travellers and the values I've stood for over the last two years, but I have to admit it's nice being able to share experiences and actually have someone to talk to rather than just typing my frustrations. Here's hoping this is my last solo excursion for a long time.

Kampot

Like Hua Hin a week earlier, Kampot was mostly an escape from the psychological harassment of the capital and a base for day trips

Not the most inspiring millennium monument I've ever seen,

though probably the first to embrace the inevitability of seagull shit

Another monument to the most unpalatable fruit in the world. What's with all the durian worship?

I made the mistake of ordering non-fried spring rolls, which are far too healthy to be tasty in their natural form. Sorry Scotland, I let you down

This is for me to look at next time I complain about being asked to write four pages about patio roofing with a 24-hour turnaround for absurdly generous pay

Kep

This place was more worth seeing. But let me tell you, I was pooped after that long row!
(I definitely didn't travel up the coast by air conditioned bus. Who've you been talking to?)

Siren Statue and Koh Tunsuay ('Rabbit Island'). Pathetic - that looks even less like the thing it doesn't even look like than the other things that don't even look like other things

This resort would have been paradise if not for the morning ritual of burning trash upwind of my bungalow. Makes recycling all those bottles seem kind of pointless, doesn't it?

Fried crab with green 'Kep' peppers, the local speciality. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of a meal is inversely proportional to how much effort I have to put in, and cracking these bastards' exoskeletons open to scrape out a few white bits isn't my idea of an appetiser

Ubiquitous derelict buildings are one of Cambodia's best features.

It'll be a real shame when this country gets cleaned up

Provincial Hall and Kep Mountain National Park. Time to get sweaty...