Had a lovely rest-of-the-afternoon swimming lengths in the pool, sunbathing and reading my book, followed by a good few beers with Tom tonight, which was just lovely.

Also was delighted to have bumped in to the American couple who were on the BUS OF EVIL from Bangkok, but who decided to give in to our scammer kidnappers and get one of the bad men's tuk-tuk back to town....

They told me that to their surprise, THAT was a scam too!!

(Knock me down with a feather! etc... )

Apparently the tuk-tuk driver told them that the road that their hotel was on was closed, whereupon he tried to take them to another hotel that they didn't want to go to and charged them far more than he'd originally agreed!

Just goes to show that sometimes, rather than the every-man-for-himself approach, solidarity with your fellow man might actually pay off in some situations!

I also now feel like less of an idiot for standing up to them now, as I was eventually able to get straight to my hotel for not much money in the end, despite the danger, without giving in and paying bad people money they did not deserve.

These scammers are only performing one function, to discourage tourists, which is terrible for Cambodia, a country that desperately needs tourism to get back on its feet. Regardless of the money they get as a result they are doing so many of their fellow, honest countrymen the opportunity to earn and honest living; in a country with such endemic poverty this is disgusting and unforgivable.

Wondering what happened to all the rest of the people who went in the Tuk tuks as well...