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While we stood there for an hour, it came out that D was HIV positive, and i felt sick just thinking about it. I mentally checked a note to never shoot up around her again. After we left the area my wife and I spoke to each other in english and agreed that we needed to go ASAP. We got the call as we were walking and we jumped in a Taxi and headed into one of the most nerve wracking situations of my life.

We went to our pick up location and searched for our drugs. It took over an hour, and at any moment we could have been arrested as we were out in the open and looking underneath a storage container, feeling for it. We kept calling the Tajiki back complaining, and he kept telling us over and over to check the same fucking place. I had visions of doing time in the Butyrka prison, drinking toilet wine and hanging myself with my underwear. (continued in part 2)

Finally, we got it. D put it in her friend's "fanny pack" as it is called in USA, and we made the long trek back. No taxi would come, and "unnoffical taxi" (a driver with no taxi license) would not stop for us, because the junkies were so busted looking. We finally hopped on a bus, and on the bus D started to talk LOUDLY about wanting to suck cock and drink cum and bathe in cum and be fucked by tons of men and feel them jack off on her face. an old Babushka sat shaking her head in disbelief. Russian people hate open displays of sexuality, and older people from Soviet era hate it even more.

This became the longest bus ride of my life, and I was ashamed to be around such a person acting this way in public. Had I not just waited so long to score, I'd have slapped her.

Finally, we got off after another hour and it had now been something like 5 hours since we met them. the day was wearing on and on. When we got back to D's apartment, they took out this massive back of smack and I was floored. It was a light yellowish-tannish number 4 heroin, adulterated only slightly. I cut up half the 3 grams and handed it to them and they smiled as I said "HOLY SHIT I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH SMACK BEFORE".

They implored me to shoot up; but I refused, and we made the long trek back to Kuurskaya to our Hostel. I kept wanting to stop and shoot up, but my wife was angry and said "after all this do you want to chance it now?" and made me wait. Finally back home, I searched for a vein and an hour later was bleeding all over the floor after not finding one. thankfully no one was at the hostel at the time. i guess 12 years of injecting does some harm to veins....

Finally I found one on the crook of my arm, and pushed it in. I pulled out the vein, and suddenly an orgasm of warmth washed over my chest. my eyes closed. I sighed deeply. The whole day, my employer, the fake deportation notices and corruption, the cops chasing me, it all washed away. The heroin was profoundly strong; not as good as in SEA from what i can see, but it had to be at least 50% pure, because ive never had a matchead sized piece fuck me up so hard and put me on the nod.

I overdosed that night; i woke up to my wife crying. She guilted me. The next four days were a mix of ecstasy and hell, being as i had severe histamine reactions to the injections, and my wife hated to see me high. It culminated with the drunk calling the police on me, and me narrowly missing them show up to search my bag, finding my needles but not my drugs. Russian cops aren't smart enough to know what naloxone is but my bag was a tell tale sign of drug use. The cops searched my wife and I got up to her later across the city, having ran away from her after a particularly bad fight broke out between us.

We decided to make haste and leave the hostel. My wife flushed the heroin down the toilet, and I considered beating her. I spent the next night kicking lightly, sweating and unable to sleep. I drank 2 bottles of vodka to ease the kick but to no avail. Suddenly the world seemed that much bleaker to me without drugs. We went back to our home town of Astrakhan where things were cheaper and there was no heroin, but my thoughts were obsessed of the drug; and my depression increased to near suicidal levels.

It was then that I decided to make Aliyah, and immigrate to Israel.

Sitting in my room, Kikar Denia, west Jerusalem. I drank last night, eating Salo, a Russian cured bacon that is readily edible and pickles as my "Zakuski", as we call it, small bite sized traditional foods that Russians eat as chaser when they "Bukhat" which is a specific word for drinking to get drunk. There are many traditional Russian food stores in Israel, Soviet-style delis that chop huge meats and cheeses up, and stock dozens of kinds of alcohol. I am not fond of Israel food, I prefer Russian style food that I was raised with and so does my wife, who is an "off the boat" Russian, whereas I am Russian Jew by blood only. Russians, we like a specific type of foods, Salo is one of them, which is not kosher, and there are other that are typical we like such as Borscht, Pelmeni(a meat dumpling), Blinchiki (Russian pancakes with various filling, similar to crepe. We like them with caviar and sour cream, which is not kosher either), Open-faced sandwiches with sausage and cheese and butter (not kosher either), Draniki (a potato pancake Jews call latkes), Dried fish jerky and of course we like a large amount of vodka. In Israel this is all not easily found for reasonable prices unless one frequents a store run by Russians, for Russians. Here in Israel are many Russians, all my doctors, the only bar worth going to, and all my preferred food stores are run by Russians. In Israel Russians have their own world. We go to the same places, we drink at the same bars, we go to the same doctors. Because of this we have our own stores even. Israel has 1-2 million Russians.

Despite my Russian Jew soul and my love of Russian culture and Russian food, I am American and Israeli by nationality, though culturally I am Russian in most things except one, and that is drugs. Russians hate drugs. However, like a typical Russian, the only drugs I use are the most addictive and dangerous such as hard opiates.

Today I woke up hungover, and took a small bit of codeine to ease the hangover, it has not helped much. I have not used heroin since I was in the Rodina-Mat (motherland) a few months ago. The Heroin in Russia is exceedingly pure compared to what I am used to. I found a source by old fashion drug detective ways. Trying to street score failed over and over despite Moscow being the largest city in Europe. I knew heroin was there... just didn't know where.

In the USA, you have junk neighboorhoods. You can tell them by the large amount of poverty and non-whites. So we followed this line of thought in Moscow - asking Tajiki guys if they could score for us. They smiled and said no. We tried asking homeless people, who smelled of piss. "No, i don't have it i cannot get it either, it is far." Finally one homeless agreed to score for us. We sat and waited for 2 hours for him and he never came back. We didn't front him.

I was getting desperate. My job fell through (long story), and I was sick of drinking. My long boring, depressing days blurred into one another.... and having one month clean did not help. No methadone clinics or Subutex made the situation harder, and with the recent ban on even weak opiates going into effect, Russia seemed dry.

I then resorted to my last tactic and searched for poppy seeds. In Russia making heroin of this is called Cheronaya, and with basic idea of how to remove opiates with vinegar and vitamin c, it can be made into a crude form of injection, or simply drunk in large amounts. Most Russian addicts inject it however. When it is drunk, i call it "Kompot" as a joke, as we have a juice drink in Russia that is very sweet and good called Kompot, and this poppy tea is bitter and tastes horrible. it's floating seeds resemble floating fruit in kompot as well. I prefer to merely drink it as I have bad veins from many years of misuse of drugs.

Well, I went to some Rynoks, or "markets" in Russian, known for food, and looked for poppy seeds. All the ones that were there were grey. Useless heat treated bullshit... I bought one kilo anyway out of desperation. It did nothing, as expected.
I started to sink into a deep depression and drank more and more. My legal battle against my boss and my being marooned and forced to live in a shitty hostel in Moscow made the situation even worse. I slept next to a drunk named sergei who would slur his words even in the morning, and a creepy Uzbek who asked to borrow clothes. These people were the lowest of the low. My wife slept in the other room with the women, and so we couldn't even have sex.

I did some searching and met an NGO online that is the only one of it's kind in Russia that helps junkies get clean needles and I made a story that i needed get clean needles without suspicion, and pretended to only speak English to reinforce the view of me being a drug using westerner who wanted to stay safe. A longshot, as harm reduction people are usually not going to help out people getting drugs... or people not already on drugs, but i was desperate and turning alcoholic. the question people asked me was "why not go home? go to america?" I hate America. I never fit in because my mentality is too Russian. Russians don't fit in most places; we have our own mentality to things. I can go on and on but you will see this come out.

I met the NGO on Leninskiy Prospekt, where I was told that a corrupt pharmacy sold codeine and Tramadol with no questions asked. The NGO members were.... rough looking. A pregnant woman with a bulldyke cut, a hipster with a mullet despite being female, and a forlorn looking man. After some talking, they handed me a bag of needles and naloxone and alcohol wipes. I finally put it to them, nudging just a bit in my "lost westerner routine" : "look can you help me? ive been scoring from some dodgy people - gypsies, and it is dangerous. I dont want to get hurt or go to jail." (a joke as cops can all be bribed.) The shorthaired woman made friends with my wife and so she said "I think i can help you." you have to understand something about Russian people and our mentality. If someone likes you in Russia, they will help you no matter what. I have had people pay for hotel rooms for me, give me money, and feed me all because we got along well. Similarly, if people don't like you, they will use and fuck you over without second thought. I had people chase me, try to fake deport me, intimidate me and other stupid shit as well. Russians do not have a middle ground so much in this. Eastern European people are polarized bunch. Later back at home, We called a number we had gotten, "Dehlila" and she agreed to meet us the next morning.

Well, we show up at Statsiya Vladikina and see our contact. She was a mullet haired hipster in combat boots. We went to her house, walking around graffitti skinheads had put up "Russia for Russians! Russia for whites only! fuck off the blackasses!(caucasians and asian people)" we got to her room and a legless, toothless junkie who she lived with sat in a wheelchair, laughing with a raspy pirate's laugh. "sorry, i lost this leg shooting up an artery by accident. it was a bad injection." Dehlila went and pulled out some papers of heroin, and we all cooked up. I missed my injection, because my wife was angry at me and seething the whole time i was trying to hit a vein as she hates needles. Fun stuff.

I walked to the train station and we got into a full blown argument about drugs and i just got angry and walked away and she chased me yelling and screaming. In Russia, people ignore this sort of thing, except we were arguing in English so no one could understand us, and instead of it making us less conscicous, it made us stand out MORE.

as we argued the heroin gradually hit, and i relaxed, settling into the warmth. I slept well that night until my wife woke me up asking me to kill her if i cannot stop using drugs. I kept waking up shaking from nightmares.

The next morning we went back to Dahlia, and I tried to go alone but my wife would not let me. So we both went together, and at her place, Dehlila's i mean, we conspired to go score. First the money had to be given - 3,400 rubles, which equated to at the time, about 68 dollars USD. This was for a "cheque", or what we would call an 8ball in the states. 3 grams of heroin.

The money, after being given, was put in an account of some Tajiki, and then we went to go wait for a call. Due to police stings being so common, the way it works is that you pay first, then you pick up your drugs later. We went to some park; our new acquaintances started drinking to pass the time. It was ten am.

Russians, as with everything, are extreme people. You will notice that it is rarely to see a moderate Russian person on most things because we are emotional by nature. When this attitude is taken to drugs or alcohol, it can get bad. I personally love to drink quite heavily, but never during a drug search. In The USA, junkies know to be as careful as possible. Cops can be there at any moment and then you will spend the night kicking in a sell with no methadone. But to a Russian junkie, having to stay sober in anticipation for drugs is horrible, so they use whatever else is around. Since nothing was, they started drinking. (continued in part 2)

So, continuing from before...

I sat streetside at a cafe named "Fish." For nearly 2 hours I waited. Finally the tuk tuk driver returned. I told him I only wanted a sample. He brought me like a third of a gramme and charged me $80.00. I went back to my room and did a Drop Test. Grind a matchhead amount into powder before dropping it into a bottlecap filled with 1cc worth of room temperature water. Pure #4 will immediately dissolve wirh no heat, no agitation and leave nothing behind. Of course this wasnt pure but honestly put it was damn close to it.

When I was examining it the delivery boy slash tuk tuk driver had wanted me to go to a resturant and use it in the loo. There was no way that I was going to do that. Those days are pretty much over. Then there was the price. It was $150.00 US per gramme!!! The test piece was $80 and that was crazy in my mind. I told him I didnt want to try it. He was real pushy and ended up calling the actual dealer.

The dealer was very fluent with his English which is something that almost never happens here. I told him that I wasnt going to pay $80 even if he pulled it off of a "Unit," the usual wholesale quantity sold at the farmgate- which I will eventually get to. His reply? "My materiel IS that pure and I guarantee it. Use and if not good no pay for test piece." Blah, blah and fucken blah. Back to the delivery boy. They wore me down and so sadly I gave in just to get out of the situation. This made me feel even worse because my inclination is to slap the teeth out of the mouth of any person who perceives me, or treats me like a "Mugu." That is another term I will be explaining.

When the delivery boy had gone to get the test piece I had let him programne my local throwaway phone (Nokia) number into his phone. Preah Sisowath Quay is bumper to bumper traffic by midday and remains so until nearly midnite. This could easily lead to a huge delay and so it was the right thing to do. That said, when I told him that I would use that test piece in my room I had lied to him sbout where THAT room was. The next to last thing I wanted was some pushy tuk tuk heroin delivery boy knowing where I laid my head! I told him that I would try it and that he could phone me in a half hour in case I wanted any more- of course a minumum would be a gramme and that would be at $150. I hopped out of his tuk tuk and made my way though a busteling market area engaging basic counter-surveillance techniques just i case the kid tried to follow me to the Guesthouse (thanks IDF!)...

(To be continued)...

Just got back from vacation to Wisconsin down in the U.S. It's nice down there beautiful meditation spots especially by Lake Superior and well tommorow is back to school so that sucks but it's ok I'll just work it out so then anyway I'm back so I'll be active more

-Streetcow

I finally went out that Harm Reduction NGO, "Khanah," but I will discuss that in a subsequent entry. The visit went well but sadly it was the only part of my day that didnt suck- well that and one other incident which I will discuss shortly. Leaving the NGO I stopped by the pharmacy where I had purchased much of my Oxycodone 10mg. All they had was 5mg at $20 US per box of 14 capsules. I purchased 6 boxes for a total of 420mgs for $120 US. Then the rest of my day happened.

I next went to the French market-" La Votre"- that I discovered yesterday. The owner, a French expat who appears to be a junkie- was nice but he had nothing that I wanted. He vowed to have it tomorrow afternoon. I bought several cans of "Sanpelligrino" [sic] soda and left.

I decided to do an experiment and see about the retail heroin trade amongst tourists. I am blessed not to have to scrape that pavement here. But, what is the point of my posting here? To brag about my being in a time and place that most addicts fantasise about on a daily basis? To rub it in peoples faces? 99% of people that read this or past blog entries of mine about SE Asia and then use my experiences while spending good money to come here, will almost certainly fail to find what they are looking for...Well, that would suck. So I decided to look a bit into the tourist trade.

I walked to the Tonle Sap River. As I walked a tuk tuk driver asked if I needed a tuk tuk. I of course said no. He then asked if I needed something else. I asked whether he had any "China White," that label serving as local slang for heroin. The middle aged Khmer driver instantly said yes. He then prceeded to call a fellow tuk tuk driver on the phone. That man, in his 20s, strolled up to us and I went with him only to discover that he had to spend a bit of time to get the materiel...

I am once again streetside in a wicker chair listening to Wu Tang coming out of the bar behind me and watching befuddled horny Westerners cruising as they walk, excited to be where sex is reputed to be so widely available for so cheap. Of course they are about a decade late but then we live in a world that sees baby-killing terrorist Nelson Mandela to be an icon of peace and reconcilliation...Child molesting homsexual and racist bigot Mahatma Ghandi as the epitome of humanity...Saintly Mother Theresa, the witch who beat Stage 5 cancer patients who requested familial visits...You must get my point by now. People usually accept whatever the media feeds them as if they are blind, deaf and dumb.


Up until 2005 there was a tiny village north of here along the banks of the Tonle Sap River. In the shacks there you could get a gorgeous woman all night for $2 US...or an 8 year old girl...or a 5-year old boy...Me? I have actually never had a prostitute and as for kids? Let us just say that if I saw such things I would probablly be dead cause I have zero doubt that I would flip and start killing. I find it THAT reprehensible. Yet Westerners are still flocking here for such things.

On the other hand there are European-funded and/or based NGOs that are baselessly accusing foreign men of paedophelia. Sometimes it is just overzealousness. They see a white man holding hands with a 5-year old Khmer kid and boom, they plaster the local media with lewid accusations. More times than I can count it has turned out to be a child's father or stepfather. Of course there are no mea culpas despite the fact that such men must immediately leave the country in fear that locals will recognise his face and lynch him.

Well I have finally figured out how to illustrate my entries in a kind of/sort of fashion. If you care to see photos, though for now it is all drugs- I will upload more travel oriented photos in a bit. Simply go to Flickr and do a search on site for "Raki1818" which will bring you to my photostream. Im pretty sure there is an easier way to do this but you know us old folks, behind the times.

I went to Bayon as usual today. I bought 3 containers of those green grapes, 7UP, 1 can of Mountain Dew at $1 US per twice the cost of 7UP. I then found a bit of home. "Tamek" is a Turkish brand of fruit beverage. 80% actual juice it comes in Blood Orange + Pomegranate, Sour Red Cherry and other flavours Middle Easterners are fond of. They also make Mint Yogurt Soda. I bought the Lemon combination. Picture raw yoghurt, mint, unsweetened lemon juice and club soda combined.

I bought two 15 gramme slabs of imported Swiss Cheese, some South Korean cherry yoghurt, my usual "Crespo" brand olives from Spain and I was set.

On the way back I bought 2 more boxes of DHC but was said to learn that the accomodating pharmacist I mentioned a couple of days ago, the one who sold me 13 boxes of DHC, couldnt scrounge up the Oxycodone I had requested. I bought another 2 grammes of #4 so that I leave the pills alome (and my 5 bottles of methadone, 220mgs each). I am planning to travel a bit and do not want to end up sick out of a reluctance to muel heroin.

I havent decided whether to go back to the Philippines or to head north into Laos. The former is ultra-cheap now. I think that I discussed "Hotel Busses" previously so forgive me if you are reading this again...A Hotel Bus has a private bed, private flat screen TV, WiFi, a curtain around your bed. From here to Bangkok it is merely $22 US for single bed or $24 for double sized. They leave from here at 930PM and allow you to cross into Thailand just after the border opens at 730AM. After passing through Immigration and Customs in Thailand you board a second bus for Bangkok, arriving more or less 4PM.

In Bangkok Kuwait Air offers a $130 US flight into Manila (Makati). From there I vould fly or take a ferry south.

For supper I went to La Dolce Vita, an infamous Italian-themed cafe that used to sit opposite Simon II Guesthouse on Street #93 at the Lake. Today it sits on Street #172 and nothing is the same except for the name. I bought a Chorizo Chimichanga and a Bluecheese and Chicken Salad. I always get takeaway.

I became a soldier in 1983 when I was 16. The following year I was in a firefight in Lebanon and an AK round hit cement and shattered. Shards- some microscopic- ripped my jaws and sinuses apart and came close to reaching my brain. Since then my jaws have remained with microscopic fractures with almost all teeth on my right side taken out over time in addition to the 2.5 taken out when I was wounded. My jaws and teeth continue to be sources of major pain, though it ebbs and flows. Today and yesterday- knock on wood- I have been pain free. This situation keeps me from eating out almost always, hence the takeaway.

After putting my food in my room I came outside where I am now, sitting in a wicker chair streetside on Street #172 watching the nightlife. Across the street and a bit to the left sits a homeless middleaged woman with a giant cart upon which she stores her worldy possessions. She somehow got ahold of 3 tiny newborn kittens that she uses to fleece naive Westerners. Holding up an adorable kitten and an empty can of catfood she first tries to sell it for $10.00 US, 2.5 days wages here. Failing that she then raises the empty can and asks for $2.00 to buy the kitten some food. No cats here eat catfood except those of expats.

A couple of days ago I was waiting for a friend and she offered me a stool to sit upon. She then attempted to fleece me in a way that would have probably landed me in prison. She pulled out one counterfeit US bill after another and asked me to change it for her hahaha. I laughed in her face. She then asked if I wanted a girl to fuck. I laughed again and told her to piss off which she didnt understand of course.

A day or two before that I had berated myself for not being charitable with her. I never give to beggars anywhere, well almost never. In the Phillipines, one day I had gone to Butuan to pick up a couple of boxes of morphine. An elderly Badjao Tribesman was selling brooms made from twigs but being so programmed against beggars I spoke to him harshly and walked off but then stopped a few meters away. I walked back and I bought one for four times its price which was fair to begin with, something that normally happens when foreigners buy things in the Philippines.

I had thought that he wasnt a beggar at all as he was selling something. It taught me to consider each person on their merits. Having thought about giving the beggar lady $5 US, 2.5 days wages here, I was peeved to have been targetted by the woman as a mark.

As I sit here writing this some hippy who looks to be my age and who speaks American accented English, cursed the woman out. Apparently he had changed one of her counterfeit bills.

Yesterday I decided to try forgoing all opiates/opioids for at least 24 hours but hopefully for 72 hours so as to lower my tolerance. At just before noon however I went to the loo. I always suffer from constipation when I did my customary 6 days off methadone in the States. I dosed in NYC at 220mg daily but only went to the climic twice a month with 13 takehomes at a time. I dosed on Thursday and for the next 7 days took my dose. I then abstained for the next 6 days and did this for a year.

On the Wednesday before my clinic visit I would always have an extremely hard and big piece of feces that caused me intence pain and burst blood vessels in my anus where as I never defecated at any other time. Since switching to #4, DHC and Oxycodone upon my return to Cambodia I have had normal movements. Then yesterday I had the worst one of my life. Worse yet it precipitated physical withdrawal. I had chills, yawns and was literally drenched in sweat.

I was in serious trouble and ended up actually physically digging it out. The pain wad THAT bad. The thing is, like so many Jews I have genetic abnormalities, in this case I have my bloodvessels in my anus closer to the surgace than other people. As I dug it put a literal geyser of blood started and painted the entire loo, walls and floor included. I got lightheaded from the loss of blood and was screaming in pain. Im lucky the hotel didnt act on it. By 3PM I got it all out, bathed for a long time and then cleaned the loo.

What did I do next? 1,400mgs DHC and 50mgs Promethazine to potentiate the metabolic conversion to morphine. Im pleased that it not only got me straight but even gave be a glimmer of psychoactivity. Stool softeners and laxatives are next on my shopping list.

I rode my bicycle to the Château de Versailles the other day and spent the afternoon exploring the gardens. Since I have been actively participating in writers' workshops, and making friends with professional writers of all types: novelists, journalists, screenwriters, etc. hoping to find inspiration and hoping that some of their talent might rub off on me.

I've been trying to come up with ideas for stories. I've written a large chunk of a short story and here are a few paragraphs. I don't remember writing it..... I imagine because of the large amounts of morphine I've been taking. That and I write late at night and my ability to form memories is shot by then anyway. The project is that it has to be autobiographical, and the characters are supposed to be based on family members and friends so I thought I would create a character based on that.

What is really keeping me up late tonight though is that I am convinced that I wrote a nearly complete draft of a short story, but I cannot find where I saved it.

(The Garden of Floral Magic)

The Man led me out through the arched window which flung itself open as we approached. We flew into the courtyard below the windows. Though it had been night while still in the room, it was now day.

This was a garden of floral magic. This vast courtyard garden was an exquisite mingling of torture with horticulture, blood with flowers, and agony with sublime delight. Sparkling paths which are sanded with pulverized gem stones wind colorfully through the brilliant green lawns and foliage. Between the emerald shrubs, pansies in their broad range of colors, caladium, anemones, salix, clerodendron, peones, and heuchera spot the grass. Mosses covered with tiny white flowerettes, strange cryptograms, and lichens grow in the shade. Colorful small birds chirp all around.

In the midst of this flowery delight, there arise scaffolds carved and painted with violent scenes, the apparatus of crucifixion adorned with demons’ heads, high gallows for simple strangulation, and lower gibbets mechanically equipped for the tearing of flesh. The chains on the scaffolds tinkle gently in the sweetest of summer breezes.

We continued through an archway into a swampy bower. A towering juniper stands out in black silhouette against the sky. Crows and vultures are destroying the ripe body of a man who has been hanged from this tree. The corpse had been decorated with festive garlands. Heavy intestines hang from the collapsed belly. Dark, greasy fluids run down the crusty thighs and drip to the marshy ground.

Here and there, bright-hued flowering vines twisted around decomposing corpses, tortured to death in place for the amusement of the lord and his family.

My mother stood near a high privet hedge cutting nightshade (datura stramoium - Jimson weed) pods with a stubby pair of powerful, rusty scissors. She watched me for a moment and then went back to her work. She was nearly 60. Her face was puffy and weak, and her eyes were red and irritated; her work with the scissors was as joyless as her face. The stramonium stalks seemed too tough and fibrous for her lack of energy.

Her figure looked ursine and heavy in her costume, a filthy robe whose original color is a mystery and that she has not changed for as long as I could remember. Her toes poked through holes in rotting velour slippers. A trowel and scratcher, a knife, and basket of seed pods were arrayed around her feet.

She brushed some strings of gray hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand, and left a smudge on her forehead doing it. Far behind stood the courtyard wall with its high dark windows. She cast another look toward me. I stumbled as I passed the gallows. She snorted hatefully. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She stuck her hard fingers down into some new green sprouts and looked down among close-growing leaves. Several slugs were there. Her pale fingers pulled their fat bodies from the leaves and squeezed them until they burst against her palm.

The Man showed me the location of a ring (shows it falling from the rectum of the ruined corpse of a tortured king as he decomposes on the gallows. He must have swallowed it when he was captured. A mushroom had sprouted up over it overnight (it fell at night) and hidden the ring from everyone. Tehre it lay for 100s of years.

We emerged from the arbour into a central esplanade for the diversion of the the lord and his family. In the mall were gibbets, wheels of torture, racks, stakes, strange devices.
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************** Blog ************ Vacillations, continued ***********
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I'm about to do a 2 week trek through the Alps solo tomorrow. I will probably try to taper off the morphine while in the mountains over the next 2 weeks. Little by little. That's better than WDs while going through the customs line in Algeria. I understand that heroin is all over the place there, but I won't have any way to get it safely so it is better to quit here. I can always take it back up when I get back.

Ritzko is on a business trip in Italy so I haven't seen her for a week. Ariadne is finally back from her month long vacation today and just sent me a text message asking if I want to go out and do something. She invited me to a boat party (péniche) Wednesday. I need to hurry and buy the train ticket for the Alps...

By coincidence, a friend, Lucia a Columbian expat, is moving to Phnom Penh in October.

I like movies and watch all kinds of them. A lot of what I pick I really like andl most is good enough to finish. But yesterday, I started to watch something that hurt me. It was Terminator 2015. Immediately it begins with recycled lines from Terminator 1 as though the writers think they are being clever by re-using cheesy Iines in a way I'm sure they think is ironic. And the appearance of Schwarsanegar himself reminded me of Grandpa doing karaoke to 'Bad to the Bone' at the local dive bar. He was pathetic. Not that I hate him. He was great in Blazing Saddles and one of the Conan movies. But this was too much. It's like he's too far gone now mentally to realize what the movie is bad and takes it way too seriously. The pain by the first 20 minutes of this movie was unbearable adn I had to turn it off.

it feels like disney world here. alpine tourist towns remind me of the sutters mill old west logging ride or maybe the shops all selling ear mouse hats. crowded hostels at every pass with motorized trollrys carrying the vacationing family from village to hostel. loud claustrophobic not my idea of a remote escape.

posting from black and white nooter-touch hack ebook reader. touchscreen so corrections difficult. 30000 electric books on it. at 10000 feet hostels serve cafe with wifi. I do not sleep at these places ack.

in 5 days I have read 3 books 3 shakespear plays and some of his sonnets. and walked 175 kilometers. tapered to nothing with codeine ethylmorphine tablets. back in paris tomorrow.

I mentioned recently about the mass arrests in a slum where Ice Addiction affects the entire neighbourhood. In Phnom Penh's Sen Sok District there is a commune (neighbourhood) named Toek Thla. It is mostly on stilts in a waste resevoir (a gigantic cesspool, literally). Ice has gripped the entire area. Since it costs $60.00 US a gramme they can only support their habits by selling it.

88 ended up in gaol in the police operation on August 21st, including kids and pregnant women. I pity stimulant addicts since there is no equivalent to the OST (Opioid Substitution Therapy), as enjoyed by Opiate/Opioid Addicts such as myself. Moreover, while substances like codeine, DHC (Dihydrocodeinone) and Oxycodone are OTC here, there isnt even Adderal so that if hooked on Methamphetamine you are up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Word is that the neighbpurhood returned to business as usual after the police left. Figures.

It is like an inquisition.
In ways I've even understood a "need" to try to control drugs. I've gotten that view. But we have so many drugs. Sugar. TV. Alcohol. Nicotine. Church is legal/accepted as normal, but hearing voices makes you crazy and in need of medications and "help".

But the war on drugs is no different than Moslems not allowing Christians/Jews in places. Or Christians trying to control the population to fit their dysfunction. But at least they have Christ, and not a guy who is accepted as a warrior. It is not bad to model oneself to a degree on, or with in mind another... But I've seen some pretty crazy stuff make sense in ways that makes me think that Muhammad really just rode a wave of sorts. I have no idea.
I have no idea.

SE Asians drug of choice is usally methamphetamine. I cannot say I have never done it but the last time was 1986. I was on leave for the IDF. Careerists get 2 months off a year if a Lone Soldier- a programme for Jews in the Diaspora. I came to NYC to visit my parents and as sometimes happened I ended up staying in Monmouth County in New Jersey. At a party an acquaintance offered me a few lines of methamphetamine. I laid out a line and it was the worst tasting shite I ever ingested. After that I was given a bit but most of it liquified. Back in the days when almost all methamphetamine was derived from the precursor P2P it was extremely hygroscopic.

I dislike all stimulants but view methamphetamine as perhaps the worst substance both for subjective use as well as for what it does to users. In the Philippines Ice has affected probably every extended family in the nation. Known by the term "Shabu," users congregate in what Filipinos call a "Tiangge," a crackhouse. The Philippines has the purest Ice on the planet on average. This is because Chinese Triads have megafactories there.

In Cambodia there are two forms, "Yaa Maa," multicoloured pills that are usually 35 to 40% pure and contain flavourings like vanillin and rosewater. These are usually smoked though some use it orally. Most come from the Wa ethnicity in Mynamar (Burma). However there is a portion that is locally manufactured. Locally they cost $5.00 US per tablet and being a nation where most make $2.00 to $4.00 a day it has crippled the economy. Ice is used alot as well but at $60.00 US per gramme most cannot afford it.

I went out on my own after lunch and was able to find a few pharmacies stocking Oxycontin, all 5, 10 and 20mg IR. However, they are selling for as high as $18 US per 10mg capsule!!! I tried to explain the concept of volume over profit margin but not one of the 6 pharmacies cared. I wouldnt pay 18 even if I was in the throes of withdrawal...well, maybe that isnt true haha but I sure as hell will not pay it when a gramme of #4 is costing $20 US.

Im beginning to buy into the whole Global Warming brouhaha. Been here 8 days and it only rained once. We are at the height of Monsoon so that the weather is extremely off kilter. That said it is about to rain now and Im happy as thunderstorms are my favourite weather. With sporadic rain downpours in Monsoon tend to involve lightening and thunder. I think it is a bit selfish of me to love Monsoon when each year thousands- often tens of thousands of Asians drown and hundreds of thousands lose their homes. In fact, now that the Lake is gone the remaining squatters get flooded in any heavy rain. It is strange because when the Lake existed many homes and guesthouses were on stilts in the Lake itself. Yet they were never flooded until the Lake was gone.

This morning the homeless woman came up to me and tried to get me to take a coubterfeit casino token from Naga World, a hotel and casino that I used to use to...well, to "exchange" cash for me. Those were days when Cambodia didnt even have ATMs. Those were the days when very heavy weight came through this city. Now only small time penny ante fools like Nigerians use the city to transship materiel. I shudder to think about people ingesting fingers off of surgical gloves packed with 10 gramme rocks of #4. Nigerians are usually too stupid too cultovate relationships with officials. If you stroke the right people you can move even guns through the airport and while that is scary, no would be terrorists are any smarter than most Nigerians.

Just before my past visit a Swedish woman and her son were mailing packages of codeine with APAP to internet customers. They never paid anyone off and so one day when the woman arrived to mail a package the police were waiting. If the arrest hasnt reached the media yet you can easily buy your way out. The going rate is $2,500 per kilo of #4 so that she could have probably gotten away for under a thousand. She had only a few dollars on her (US currency is used here and is more coveted than Cambodian currency. She called her son but as soon as he learned that she had been pinched he panicked and made his way to Poi Pet and crossed into Thailand. Mom was then tossed into gaol and is now in prison. I cannot say what happened to her son but he was never charged here. Cambodia will not pay to extradite.

This morning as usual I went with a friend to Bayon. I bought 3 jars of olives and five half-kilo containers of those green grapes I have become extremely fond of. While there I was photographing unusual versions of Western staples. For example, Heinz canned spaghetti with sausage, or Chunky Soup canned "Butter Chicken," a Cambodian fave. It consists of chicken stewed in coconut milk, lemongrass and ginger, but no butter. Go figure. As I had taken my third photo a stockclerk miraculously appeared by my side, made the sign of respect, what Indians call the "Namaste Greeting," hands together as if praying, in front pf chest with arms bone straight out to the sides, while smiling and head bowed, and then said in barely comprehensible English, "No photos sir," repeating it twice.

At the checkout counter the owner sits upon a stool at the end of one of the two checkout counters. I attempted to bring the incident up. An ethnic Chinese who only spoke Khmer and Hakka (a Chinese language), she claims to speak zero English. I probably could have spoken to her in French but a nice Khmer customer offered to translate. Amazingly none of the employees can speak it despite the store catering to expats. I lied and said that I was using my iPhone to shop for someone, sending images of items. The owner said that I am free to do so. I imagine there will be some interaction with that clerk on my next visit.

I was takkng photos because I am going to create a blog. I will probably name it, "A Junkie Abroad," since I will merely discuss my personal experiences, much as I do here.

My friend dropped me off on
Monviong Blvd on the corner of Russian Blvd (now "Russian Federation"). A second friend then picked me up and took me to a pharmacy where, thanks to his efforts, I found Oxycontin on sale at a fantastic price. Mundipharma 10mg IR capsules, 14 per box for $40.00!!! Better yet, it was an upperclass pharmacy! Here there are two types, the common storefront with no facade, a glass counter and a metal grilled gate that is pulled down in the evening. Families live in the rear almost always. Upperclass pharmacies are Western-style and would be unnoticeable in any Western city. I bought two so as to not freak out the owner and so for $80.00 I bought 28 capsules of Instant Release (IR) 10mg oxycodone! 280mgs IR at $80.00, fantastic!

In the Philippines at best I must pay almost $550 for 28 tablets of 80mg IR, also Mundipharma. That is why I buy 3 grammes IR morphine. It only costs $58.00 US per box, 100 tiny microdots of pure- apart from starch and colour- injectable tablets.

DXM: tried it just last night, after a three month-long hiatus from dissociatives.

I took a single 1,500 mg dose DXM HBr. The effect was that I very quickly became very queasy; my vision was fucked beyond all belief; I had 7-8 panic attacks at 7-8 separate times in the experience; high euphoria and a great sense of contentment; had piss poor time perception; walked like I had huffed too much diethyl ether; and quite a number of other perceptual and physiological effects.


I was going for a high forth plateau experience. What I got instead was several hours of moderate amusementt with. intermittent episodes of anxiety attacks, and an overall bemusing and disappointingly uneventful time.


t was all bang and no fireworks, so to say. What couldn't I have done right?


Amongst my preliminary expectations I included: realistic OEVs, profound CEVs, schizophrenia-like psychotomimesis, intense introspection, high-fiving ETs whilst jauntily enjoying an intergalactic expedition on their tricked-out spacecraft, etc.


But I didn't get that. I am highly experienced with dissociatives, including DXM and several other morphinans. However, this is the first time I've ever administered such a large quantity of DXM and had an experience almost entirely consisting of physiological and perceptual effects (e.g., visual distortions, very mild auditory and visual and proprioceptive hallucinations, feeling inebriated or stoned, moderate ataxia, vertigo, amplification of stimuli like music and taste, and a profound reduction in the sensitivity of my somatosensory system or a diminished somesthetic perception if you prefer).


This may have very well been my last and final assay of DXM; the drug just didn't deliver, and I feel as if I thoroughly wasted a whole damned day.


DXM has never been my dissociative of preference, nor have I had nearly as many trips with it as I have with, say, ketamine and MXE and TCP and BCP and most especially PCP. Those drugs invariably do as they should, whereas taking DXM is tantamount to trying to light a soaked wet fuse—ignition happens, but when it happens and for how long is an insoluble variable, it seems to me.


Perhaps I'm an anomaly. Perhaps there's something peculiar about my constitution that causes DXM's effects to present in unusual ways. I don't know the answer, nor am I terribly confident that I ever will.


Anyway, I think I'll just have a few tokes of hashish, a couple hards hits of that sherm I'd been saving, do a couple 50-count boxes of whippets, some pentobarbital to take the edge off the PCP, and then drown myself to sleep with a quart of Tequila whilst I rapidly forget this veritable sou marqué of a drug ever even existed.


Au revoir!

I view drugs as my secret weapon against life and society.

Sometimes I fantasize about being back in middle school when I was picked on and being on drugs.

I know this isn't healthy. When I'm sober I feel small and defeated. Sometimes I walk around high as fuck hoping that someone will try to pick on me so I can defend myself, I fantasize about someone attacking me and I beat them to death with my opiate strength.

Being a long term opiate/opioid addict presemts a unique set of problems. Yesterday I received my free bit of opium. Equal to 3 dosages, each dosage being the size of a green pea, I had to think long amd hard on how to use it. My tolerance would not allow me to feel any opium, even if it was the best shite on the planet. So, I used a friend as my guinea pig. I made a large glass of very hot water, just below boiling. I dropped one of the dosages in it and gave it enough of a stir to dissolve the opium completely. An opiate naive person should feel it without getting ripped.

I gave my friend Chantou the Opium Tea. He was sure he wouldnt feel it despite never having tasted any other opiates and/or opioids. A half hour he was nodding with pinned pupils. I bought a 30 gramme piece for $220 US.

Speaking of prices, finally found a couple of Rxs selling Oxycontin. Mundipharma 160mg, a box of 14 tablets is $140 US, in per unit terms it is $10 US per 160mg pill. However, none sold individual dosages. 160mg is a massive dosage, and it is IR (Oxycontin of course is the brandname of the Timed Release American pill. Mundipharm has used that name with IR, go figure. 160mg IR is just what I needed. Perfect. Even in Philippines the largest is 80mg. Also bought 2 boxes (and six single dosages) of Dicodin, the Mundipharm Dihydrocodeinone formulation of 60mg Time Release.

It occurred to me today that being here a week today I have yet to see the quinessential Cambodian street food of fried crickets and two flavours of freshwater snails. These carts were everywhere on past visits. Today not even one. So weird. Ill ask my friends tomorrow.

I was supposed to continue to hunt for a flat but if I font go to Philippines Im considering heading up to Laos, or, a longshot, into Shan State in Myanmar (Burma). I was there once and enjoyed it, apart from social hypocrisy. Almost all regional heroin is coming out of Shan but when one of their opium farmers- or anyone else- ends up hooked on opium or heroin they are literally tossed into a 3 meter (9ft) hole covered with a bamboo cage. Imagine doing a Cold Turkey detox that way. Only Russia is worse, chaining addicts to bed literally.

I have developed a routine of sorts. Each day my friends come by. When they do I shanghai the first one with a vehicle to take me to "Bayon." Bayon is a small supermarket that caters to expats. I go for "7Up," which strangely has a totally different taste here. In the West it is pretty much tasteless. I have been stocking up on favourite foods like olives, Feta Cheese and so on. I have also been buying these strange green grapes that are crunchy all the way through and have a different shade of green inside. At $12.00 a kilo they are well worth it.

I have also been stocking up on Dihydrocodeinone and have been relying much more upon that rather than #4 so as to control my habit. Currently I am on 900 mg without Promethazine. The latter increases the metabolic conversion to morphone but also increases sedation all on its own and I do not want to lay in bed all day.

The girl I mentioned, is expecting me to go down there to Cebu this week. A second Filipina is expecting me to go to her in Bohol, an island not too far from Cebu. I have my Multi-Entry Special (Business) Visa but to my knowledge I cannot exercise it until the 30 day mark. I could just say fuck it now that Phnom Penh is no longer the city I love but I am still debating. In 2 hours or so I will get a piece of opium. I am interested as to what kind of quality is available. When the Lakeside still existed 5 grammes of opium cost the equivalent of 2 NYC glassines of heroin, since we arent supposed to discuss prices haha. However, that 5 gramme chunk was tourist garbage.

Im considering volunteering with a Harm Reduction outfit that operates in the city and to a lesser extent, perhaps teaching English at an orphanage. The alternative is to just vegetate with a monster habit developed through boredom.

I've noticed that lately there's been too many troll posts, bad vibes, bad moderation, and abundant hypocrisy around here. I'm taking off from these forums for some time. Hopefully, things will be better in the not-too-distant future. Those that need to reach me can do so via PM or e-mail. Be well.

Since arriving a girl I have been involved with in the Philippines has been pressing me to head to Cebu and visit her. I met her on Mindanao, she is from Lanao de Norte Province but is currently staying with her sister in Lapu Lapu, a municipality that is part of metropolitan Cebu. She is about to go abroad to work and I reckon she wants to get hers in before assuming a 2 year contract. The thing is, after that horrid longhaul Im in no rush to get back aboard a plane. Maybe after I settle into my envisioned flat.

Meanwhile, just woke, almost 10PM, went down and copped Nepalese food, a fried prawn dish with cumin and garlic and a homemade cheese ball in tomatoe concoction. Of course I bought 4 Lassi, 2 banana and 2 pineapple. Homemade yoghurt, ice and fruit blended. As I came back to my room I saw Nigerians frequent the bar on the first floor as well. Oh well, at least there is a pool here. The pool at the Phnom Penh Hotel has become uglier than an American motel's.

Speaking of that dump, when I checked out this morning the sour faced girl who checked me out theatened to keep my $100 US deposit for the wetbar unless I could produce the bullshit receipt they gave in addition to the receipt for the room. The thing is, she showed me the hotel's copy which has all my info! Why make me jump through hoops? So, I went back to my room and of course housekeeping had already dumped everything. I got lucky though and found the receipt in my bag. Then when I returned to the girl she is trying to smile and be nice, acting all mystified when I ignored her pleasantries. I should add, as I was returning I saw a concierge coughing up phlegm into a rubbish receptacle. That hotel has become such a dive. If you aim to stay in comfort only consider Raffles, a SE asian chain that still- so Im told- provides 5 Star service at $240 per night US. You cant beat that.

I used to think bronies were just manchildren going through a quarter life crisis and dealing with masculine insecurities. So they watch my little pony to express the feminine interests they've spent life suppressing...

But then I became a brony, so now I know that's what they are.

One day I drank a whole 12 pack and marathoned the first season of MLP. THat changed my life. I finally had an outlet for all my pent up insecurities. I could finally embrace something girly. I feel all this pressure to be masculine and tough. And I'm okay with it. I like doing a lot of stereotypically masculine activities as much as any other chauvanistic macho douche such as myself... But when nobody is around. It's pony time.
Back when I was addicted to spice, I began talking to the ponies. I knew they weren't real, but I made myself into a mental ventrilliquist... from then on I was the imaginary BFF of the mane 6... Until I found real friends. I had to let the pony characters go.
But I had such a good time acting out conversations with them. Spice had repressed me to being a kid again.

I just wanna cuddle fluttershy so much

The first hotel that I checked into, "Silver River" on Street 172 is a Nigerian hangout, meaning that I risked getting my door kicked in. Of course had I taken up my friends on their kind offers that was another risk of the same type. As luck would have it 2 days ago they nailed 3 men from a northern province with 1.4 tonnes of cannabis. Locals didnt appreciate the competition and so 3 men will spend a couple of decades in stir if they lack the cash to bribe their way out of it.

I decided to leave Silver River and checked into the Phnom Penh Hotel on Monviong. This used to be one of the top 2 hotels in Cambodia. Today? A couple of weeks before flying here I spent a few days in Chicago. I stayed at a "Hampton Inn" motel in the suburbs and it was a world ahead of the Phnom Penh! Would have loved to go to my old haunt the World Star but it is gone as well. Progress as they say.

Im happy with my new digs but have began searching for a flat. Saw an OK one this morning for $250 US per month. Way overpriced for Cambodians but then Im not a Cambodian. I will decide by Monday.

I bought a few boxes of Dihydrocodeinone, the French brand "Dicodin," by Mundipharma. 20 tablets of Time Released 60mg per tablet. Of course I bought Promethazine tablets as well to boost the conversion into morphine. I took 10 tablets Dicodin and 3 Promethazine and vrooooom. Usually though I am making do with #4. I would love to post photographs but do not know how to do it on here.