Bert was a kind soul with a good heart. He had married a Cambodian woman. Together they opened a 4 story gueat house with a restaurant and book store on the ground floor. The rooms ran around $7 a night, except the plywood shanties on the roof which were $3 a night.

There was a wide variety of people staying at Bert's. Many had been there for a month or more. Most were teaching English for a few hours a day. This was all it took to cover their living expenses. Dale, a Canadian lad, and I became friends and went of some adventures. We would rent motorcycles and head off into the country side to visit game parks and remote ruins. Sometimes we would take a day bag and spend the night at a distant village.

Deckland and Cloudagh were an Irish couple. Deckland is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. He had well over 9 lives, and was quit casual about living on the edge.

Once he fell from the third floor landing at Bert's to a concrete sidewalk. He just got up and dusted himself off.

He was shot at while he and two other people were on the same motocycle. Another fellow I knew who was riding on the back said he could hear the bullets whistle past their ears.

One time Deckland was riding with Edward on his moto. It was a dark street with many potholes. Edward lost control of the bike, and it flipped onto its side. Just before Edward hit the ground he could feel Deckland hold his head to break the impact. Edward was fairly scratched up. Deckland didn't have a mark on him except on the back of his hand.

Another time Deckland got into some martial arts sparing with one of Hun Sen's bodyguards. The skinny 110 pound Irish kid laid the bodyguard out flat on the sidewalk.

Deckland wasn't teaching English. He had gotten a job providing protection for visitng gem dealers. The protection agency he worked for was run by some ex-South African mercinaries. They gave Deckland an AK-47 and told him if the shit ever hit the fan he was on his own. They didn't know who he was.

I wake up one warm winter night to hear wind and rain and sobbing from the next room. I look out over the broken buildings and see sheet metal flapping and curtains billowing.

Through the thin plywood walls I hear a woman crying about life, people and dispair. "When you come to San Francisco" plays softly on her cassette. After awhile her room grows quiet. The rain continues to fall. It comes in waves and washes over the gray buildings. A plastic bag loops around and around high over an empty courtyard.

The calls to morning prayers waft from a Mosque across town. A boat plies the river as the sky starts to lighten. Traffic begins to stir. The sobbing resumes.