Morad and I were satisfied with our time in Cambodia so far. Well, rather full of it! Following Daniel’s (the swiss bar manager in Phnom Penh) advice, was our decision to skip Sihanoukville. He said “it is nice. But it is like Mallorca.. instad of the drunk Germans, you will see drunk Chinese”. We took the night bus to Phnom Penh and chilled our last day in a jacuzzi on a hotel roof, more walking and at the end a nice restaurant with creative Cambodian cuisine. Morad ordered a strange dish with red tree ants followed by another dish of Tarantulas (fried giant spiders). I ordered some duck breasts and wondered why does Morad eat such strange things!? He says “why not?” but he wouldn’t eat crickets for example (cucaracha in Español, one of my favorite words phonetically). Somewhere, each of us draws a line of what he considers disgusting. Disgust is supposed to be a primitive feeling to protect you from unhealthy things that might tamper with your health. However, it could be also disturbance of the sense of beauty, which with some elaboration, could be also referred to an inner compass guiding us to what is healthy or helps our well being. I often think about “beauty”.. it is not extremely necessary for survival.. which makes me question its primitive explanations.
Davide taught me how to look sexy in photos 
Does not look so excited, no? 😀
We walked more and more and spontaneously entered a building that seemed to be a mall and turned out to be a casino. Another side of Cambodia with well dressed people and in general rich-looking people. We couldn’t really tell if they were cambodian or chinese. We stopped there for an “award-winning cake” which turned to be almost tasteless. Nonetheless it was entertaining to observe a different aspect of the country.
We flew back to Hong Kong airport and from there we took the ferry to Macau, our third and last destination in this trip. The ferry is around one hour from the airport. At the customs (which is almost always the case) we were both sent with a special officer to a special room. It was not complicated or impolite, it is just the usual treatment. As soon as you arrive at immigration window, the officer looks strangely at your passport and calls someone else to accompany you to the VIP room (:D).In Macau city we got lost a bit, our electronic devices are out of charge and we didn’t manage to find anyone who understand the words “hote” in English. It was impressive the lack of basic English knowledge here. At least this was our impression. After a lot of walking and asking, we managed to arrived to the nice hotel that had a wonderful view over the Macau Tower and a nice lake.
Hello Macau 
A nice good morning
***
Good morning Macau, a former Portuguese colony but they drive on the other side of the road (reference being the majority of the world). our first impression was positive. We liked the city and the general atmosphere. We started our day by a long walk to the national art museum. The museum was less impressive than the walk.. It is a city of 5-star hotels and casinos.. Las Vegas of china they said.
Macau, funny looking Grand Lisboa Hotel 
planning on robbing those 
Morad posing in the art museum 
Morad suggested we stop by the Macau tower. We decided to have lunch in the skybar which is a rotating restaurant in the 60th floor overlooking Macau and parts of china. An open buffet with lots and lots of varieties of asian and indian food and diverse choices of deserts. It was an unforgettable experience that we both agreed its worth exceeded both the time and money invested. If you ever go to Macau, have a meal in its 360 restaurant.
After lunch, with full stomachs, we headed to a huge shopping mall where a fashion event was being held. We started with a stroll in the huge mall. Asians are obsessed with expensive brands. They wear a lot of items that show the brand with big font or simply icon items that are quickly identified to be from Gucci or Channel. It seems that it gives them status and prestige. The mall was divided into sections that are themed after famous places. We visited the “Venetian” and the “Parisian” copying Venice and Paris. Having visited the cities themselves in Europe, we were impressed by the mall! A lot of effort was put into making this place a beautiful and luxurious place. It was nice to be there. We walked for almost 5 hours without having a seat. The fashion show was an interesting event featuring the works of probably local designers. The models were not that beautiful nor lively. They seemed to have freshly learned the catwalk and were not very into it. I mean, who am I to judge, but it didn’t look very appealing. The choice of music was excellent on the other hand.Impressed as we were, we decided to leave the mall and head for a place to have coffee and a small snack. Morad suggested the ritz-carlton cafe which was in a walking distance. We discovered that it was inside another mall+casino. We rested there from the day, had some conversations and arguments that didn’t reach a level of fighting and decided to go to the cinema. We watched the “First man” movie with Chinese subtitles (phewww!). The movie was good or Ok :). Annoyingly, on both of our sides, there were people checking their phones. Not even doing something particularly urgent, just checking some old photos or touring different smartphone apps. After the movie, we went home and rested from the full day before our departure in the next day.
***
It is the bye-bye day.. you checkout and take different transportations till you arrive to the airport and fly home. You want to fast-forward it and end up in your bed or in your shower. They way home is usually not very spectacular until you are lined up in the immigration line to leave Macau and you reach the window, they call a guy and they refer us to another window for “Diplomats and handicapped” WTF? It is usually a semi walk-of-shame when you reach the line and they send you somewhere like some criminal or suspect. However, being sent to the “Diplomats and handicapped” window didn’t look that bad since we didn’t look very handicapped (Alhamdulillah). The officer in the Diplomats/Handicapped was a bit stupid (or retarded, I like this word. I am bad.. I know). He was checking our identity, Morad and I. So, he takes first passport, then compares the photo with Morad. OK.. match! Then he takes the 2nd passport and compares it AGAIN with Morad. WTF? I made a gesture that meant (it can’t be that Morad owns the two passports, no?). The officer nodded and gave us the passports with an OK-nodd.
The ferrys and then the flights back to Frankfurt marked the end of our trip. We then split in different directions carrying new memories and experiences. We both felt happy to be in Germany and Germans seemed like the warmest people compared to our experience in Hong Kong and Macau. Now it is time to go back to reality (not really) and jobs.. We hope that you enjoyed reading these blogs and joining us in this trip.. For me, this creates reference-points with many people and triggers nice conversations and reflections.. So, see you offline 🙂