I headed down to Sihoukaville last week for a few days in the fun and sun. Unforutnately, it being the rainy season and all, the roads were very flooded and it took quite awhile to get down there and at one point I had to get my bag from the bottom of the bus because the water was so high it would have seeped in and soaked it. We finally made it and the guy I was sitting next to owned a guest house so I stayed with him at the "Same Same...but Different" guesthouse. Now, if you have ever been to SE Asia you will know that this is the most annoying thing you can name your business. That is because these shirts that say "Same Same" on the front and "But Different" are fucking EVERYWHERE. Of course, I'd like to have a shirt that says "Same Same" then on the back "Same" but I may be the only one. Anyway, I stayed there and it was right on the beach which would have been a lot better if it hadn't stormed for most of the time I was there. I didn't do much except one night I went walking around town, which was pretty dark by the way, and saw a karaoke place. A guy in there motioned me in and got me a beer and, I swear to god, he was the Cambodian Samuel L. Jackson. I mean, it was totally unreal. Anyway, I sang Unchained Melody which has a middle part I can never remember at all but thankfully everyone else in the place did. There was a nice Sihoukaville policeman in there who kept cheers-ing me and after I had drunk more beer than was probably wise he decided to give me a ride back to my guesthouse on his motorbike. He was drunk drunk drunk. Mind you, this is with no helmets or anything either. So we set off and he's going in the wrong direction and he speaks NO English. I yell and point in the opposite direction but to no avail. Finally, I just point to a hotel on the side of the road and he lets me off there. I get off, shake his hand, and he sets off to do more karaoke I guess. I decide that one more wasn't a bad idea. (Sidenote here: There is Angkor beer and there is Anchor beer. Anchor is pronounced An-chor with the "ch" like the "ch" in channel. Very weird especially since there is a picture of an anchor on the can. How this all came to be is a mystery. I mean, I understand that this is a confusing name thing but why would you name your beer with a homonym?) I meat two Australian guys there, and god knows how this came up,one of them brought up that he owned "The Golden Spike" that was used in the ceremony when they finished the transcontinental railroad. He had gotten it from someone in a casino for 1000 dollars. I was convinced last night that this artifact was, in fact, lost and that he had it was an enormous find for the historical community. So much so that I told him that he was a fool not to get straight down to the US embassy and tell them. My whole understanding of this piece of history is,unsurprisingly, totally wrong.