Angkor Wat - Cambodia

As my mood changed, so did my social behavior and after a Canadian, Gabriel, engaged me in a conversation, I was back on the road as usual. We took part in a boat tour where we went diving, caught fish, grilled them on the beach at sunset and then went diving again in the dark, in the sea with bioluminescent phytoplankton, while the surrounding waters turned green due to our movements began to glow. We felt like we were in a fantasy or sci-fi film and played in the water like little children. Towards the end I was the last one and I dived a little deeper again in order to have even less light pollution in the already stinking dark water, when a bright cloud of plankton suddenly started to glow and stopped again, a few meters below me. So alone, a few meters below the surface of the water and in complete darkness, I didn't want to know which animal was producing the light through its motor movements and swam quickly to the boat. I then met two Swedish women with whom we got along great and so we met in the group in the evening to celebrate a bit. The music was so-so and everyone was drunk and looking for a quickie. On the one hand, viewed from the outside, I found the behavior quite amusing and David Attenborough's voice sounded in my head again, like from a BBC documentary about the mating behavior of primates. On the other hand, I also realized again the magical influence of alcohol, which lowers the inhibition threshold for miles and makes people appear attractive and likeable who were previously so far away from their own ideal of beauty and sympathy. At some point I had observed enough while I was dancing like a body stealer and was then able to swing my dance legs a little more elegantly throughout the night while listening to ABBA classics.

On the same day I met a German who was a very interesting person. He was 21, rode his own horse at home, wrote songs, drew, wanted to be an actor and had good looks and an easy demeanor thanks to his Italian roots. The thing was, he knew he was good-looking and knew how to use his charm, and that made him a little dangerous. Nevertheless, he was a pretty pleasant fellow with whom I shared a lot in common. He asked me if I would like to explore the island with him and two other backpackers on the scooter tomorrow and I immediately agreed. However, when I met the other two Germans, I knew within the first moment that we wouldn't be great friends. Like empty shells without emotions, they didn't even introduce themselves or ask who I actually was. They just looked at their cell phones all day and responded with an indifference that was unparalleled.

During dinner I had a nice chat with Ramon, the good-looking mysterious artist, while they both just tapped on their cell phones and still didn't know my real name. When one of them then looked up and blindly said into the room "So animes... 'No! Mega the Red Flag!" and immediately stared back at her phone, a small grin came to my face. I knew exactly that I didn't like them both and wanted to make it as clear as possible to her that she shouldn't like me either. So I said to her, even though she didn't expect any answer or wanted one, that there were already damn good ones and "if you haven't already seen the season finale of the last season of Naruto, you have to see it." . I've never seen it myself and have nothing to do with anime, but the disdainful look she gave me was fabulously satisfying. 10 minutes later she looked up again and asked everyone, completely without context, "What do you think about all this They/Them stuff?" and promptly answered her seemingly rhetorical question herself with "Well, I just don't understand it. They're such strange people with this gender, just stupid.". Then her head suddenly tilted down again and the 'conversation' was over for her. I just sat there with a big grin and a deep conviction that no matter how good she looked, and she looked very good, I would rather jump head first into the meat grinder from the "Another brick in the wall" music video than to spend a second day with this person. The other one blared from the 'welcome' until we said goodbye in the evening with its music box playing pop songs and EDM and didn't stop the music for a single second, even when we were eating or quietly watching the sunset. These are moments when my need for empathy reaches its limits and I simply accept that some people should never meet and that it's okay that way.

In between all of these things, I especially tried to find a way to work with local fishermen, which unfortunately turned out to be quite difficult. For three days I asked dozens of locals, who sent me halfway across the island to ask someone else. When I asked these people the scavenger hunt started all over again and after three days and no schnitzel I gave up...for now.

So I left the island quite spontaneously to go on to Seam Reap, a city that is located on the largest religious city in the world, with over 250 temple complexes, some of which are over 1100 years old. But before I wanted to look at them, I first had another plan to pursue: buying a bike!

Although Southeast Asia is wonderful and exciting, it is also very comfortable to explore and travel around. The infrastructure has been expanded so fantastically in the last few decades, as the tourism industry is playing an increasingly important role in the economy here. This means you can book the next bus in every hostel, are always offered a lot of tours and are simply spoiled. I noticed that in the long run this type of travel was a little too unspectacular and somehow too pleasant for me. What I loved about India and Nepal was pushing my limits, leaving my comfort zone and experiencing real adventures. And it was precisely these things that were the most beautiful for me in Vietnam: the exciting jungle hike, the cave exploration and overnight stay and the motorbike tour.

That's why I decided not to travel further to Thailand, but rather to first explore and cross the even lesser-known Laos by bike. I picked up my newly purchased bike at the last stop in Cambodia and transported it to the border with Laos by bus and two boats.

The temple site itself was breathtaking. It looked like a city, but with all the houses, shops and buildings replaced with various types of temples. Some are small and simple, others are huge, seemingly never-ending, with labyrinth-like corridors and huge lounges. The first temples were built around the year 1000 by Buddhist hands, were then converted into Hindu temples by the invading Indians in the 13th century, then became Buddhist again in the 14th century, then Hindu again and finally became Buddhist from the 17th century onwards. The influence of the campaigns of conquest and the destruction of enemy religious sites could be seen everywhere. Almost all Buddha statues were missing their heads and former tombs and storage places for expensive offerings were violently destroyed.

Nature showed its influence no less. After a millennium of wind, weather and weather, many buildings had collapsed or were partially supported by steel beams, which were financed and erected through the international commitment of various archaeological associations. Some passages were once again impassable due to the lush growth of the jungle flora and huge trees blew apart the stones placed on top of each other, while their roots snaked along the walls to search for nutrients in the stone cracks. The temples were sometimes only reconstructed to a certain extent in order to show a stable and long-term representation of the influences on the structures while preventing further deterioration. I hopped around there with a Norwegian woman, played Marko Polo and hide-and-seek and felt like Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones in the largest ruins in the world.

In the evening we went out to eat in a larger group and then sang karaoke, played billiards and danced to bad music. Towards the end I was only there with a German woman and somehow, even though I didn't even feel very attracted to her, we got closer and closer and then made out. It was the first time in my life that I would say it had no added value to me and might as well not have happened. Especially since we had very different styles of kissing and from my point of view at least it was just a flop. Nevertheless, a really nice backpacker and lovely people! I wasn't so sad that I had to take the bus to Laos in a few hours. We jumped into the hostel's pool around 4 a.m. and then said goodbye with an unspoken agreement that we had a fun evening, but nothing more.