Rattling over a particularly vicious series of bumps, a heinous pain shot through my head, making me howl loudly enough to cause the driver to leap in his seat, sending the car veering off towards a meandering bus itself protected by a halo of screaming music.

The blast on the bus’s horn shook the whole car, the driver over-correcting, almost taking the taxi off the road. I removed the cassette of inane Western music, threw it out of the window with one hand whilst inserting some hardcore Khmer music with the other.

The driver responded by putting his foot down hard on the throttle and handing over a half empty bottle of rice whisky which he had secreted down the side of his seat.

A few gulps of this helped me regain my composure and dampened out the thrumming pain that was taking over my head. The whisky so strong that it cut right through the taste of decay and puss that permeated my mouth and throat.

He mumbled away in Cambodian, taking great delight in removing his hands from the wheel to make large gestures, half-heartedly correcting the trajectory of the car with his knees.

The music so loud that there was no way we could effectively communicate; exactly the way I wanted things. It seemed fitting to leave Cambodia on the wild tone of the crazed dirge of a people who would take up any excuse for murder and mayhem. They tried on a huge smiling front but could only fool some of the people some of the time.

In Cambodia, to leave the country with some money left, your cock in one piece and your mind less than totally wrecked a major achievement for anyone who had lived there for a few days. I held hold of this fact as we rolled up at the airport, paid the driver ten dollars for his trouble and staggered out of the taxi. The half bottle of whisky had killed the pain but it made walking almost impossible.

In any other country I wouldn’t have made it past the security guards, but the antics of foreigners were so strange to Cambodians that almost anything went. For once the fear and paranoia dropped away; I knew all I needed to get on the first aeroplane out of the damnable country was money – to buy the ticket and if necessary bribe the custom’s officers.

I tried to rearrange my bloated face into a grin and wasn’t sure if the chortling sound was a bout of laughter or screaming…