I got an email from a guy I met when I traveled to Cambodia six months ago. He was in our group. An extreme kind of guy. A programmer by profession. He makes extra money by playing in casinos using some kind of system. Obsessed with travel. He’s been just about everywhere. In his email, he asks whether I’ve started missing far-off exotic countries, because a group is now being put together for a trip to some completely wild part of New Guinea. Would I like to join? OF COURSE I WANT TO GO TO NEW GUINEA!!! I REALLY, REALLY WANT TO GO TO NEW GUINEA. But I can’t. Leaving Moscow for three weeks is simply impossible. I’ve been sitting around in a foul mood for the second day now. As compensation, I promised myself I’d go to Suzdal or Kostroma for two days. And this guy still has three photos of me from our great Asian trip. This is our whole group at Angkor. We were sick of trudging around in the +40°C (104°F) heat, so we sat down to rest.
And this is us in some hellish little café on the Cambodia-Vietnam border. By the way, the girl with the spoon in her mouth is Nadezhda Orlova (la_roshel), chair of the political council of the Young Guard of United Russia (the youth wing of the ruling United Russia party). She won the nationwide "Politzavod" competition, and they were supposed to make her a deputy from United Russia. But, as often happens in United Russia, her spot was sold off, and as a prize for winning the competition they handed her that very spoon instead. She never parted with it.
And this is on the motorboat, when we were sailing back along the Mekong from Vietnam to Cambodia. My wife and I grabbed the most luxurious spots for ourselves — where the luggage was piled up. We shoved it aside and stretched out in the shade. Everyone was jealous of us.