The Last Banana

Life's been good since I climbed Bokor Mountain. I can hear the music playing. I'm dancing. I'm sliding along.

The night Lisa left me hanging at the Blissful bar I went out for a nightly walk. No more fear of roaming dogs. Just dance along, you know. It worked out well. Got drunk (somehow all my Kampot stories seem to end that way...) and chatted for hours with a few friendly expats in a quiet riverside bar. Meeting people is easy if you have a white face walking around dark Kampot.

Days drift by. It's been a week since I got here. Time to go. I could easily linger on. But there's one last stop that I have to make. On Monday morning I board the bus to Phnom Penh. No worries. I've phoned ahead. They are expecting me. Back to the place where it all started….

The legendary
The one and only
"Phnom Penhs answer to Heaven on Earth"
Top Banana Guesthouse

It's hard to exaggerate the impact of the Banana on the way things went down. Eight years ago I came straight out of the Laos jungle into Phnom Penh and on to the Top Banana rooftop. Someone offered me a joint even before I had the time to take my backpack off. That was just the beginning. It was like coming home to a place I had never been before. Not mentioned in any guide book. The only way to get there was if you happened to meet someone who had experienced the Banana before. Finding the place and climbing the stairs was not easy. But once you made it, it was all good. We were all friends there. The Magic Box never ran out of weed. The music never stopped. We were all dancing. Sliding along. A friendly, wonderful rooftop in the middle of a wild, crazy city. It was a wonderful time. High and happy days on the roof, wild times in the city. But I was just a foolish kid. Very young and very naive. I thought I was tough and could hang out with the big boys. I was wrong. I fell in love with the first girl I met. Ten months later we were married in Sihanoukville. The crazy Banana days forever gone.

Today I'm back. The rooftop is still here. The owner's still the same. Everything else has changed. Phnom Penh has moved forward rapidly in the last few years. This town is rather decent, friendly and safe for a capital city in the developing world. Top Banana went the same way. The guest rooms have improved and are moved to the first floor. The second floor rooftop has been converted into a full-scale hipster bar. The days of the Magic Box are long gone. They have a whole staff working here now. People come and go. If you've never been here before it's hard to imagine what it was like. For me it's different. I look around and all I can see are images from the past flashing through my mind. I even found the outlines of my old room on the rooftop floor. Back at the beginning. It looks like I made it. It's here I gave up the dreams of my youth for a silly thing called love. It's here I'll start over again. The last ghost is the Banana.

Of course, it's never that easy. Life never goes as planned. I cannot just sit here and declare my new found independence. Ghosts aren't beaten that easily. So I did what I'm used to by now: I danced. When a few backpackers asked me to join them for a drink in a nearby bar I said yes. We had a few boring beers. I left early and went back to my room. Checked my phone and found a text message from Daria. She's in town. In fact, she's in a bar down the street. She wants to see me one last time. 'Why Not?' we used to say in the old days.

I get over there and we have a few drinks. No tears, no anger, no trouble. Just a friendly conversation. Once you know what you want, life gets easy. This time I speak freely about my dreams. My burning desire doesn't involve her but the wide world out there. She can hear there's no more doubt in my voice. She accepts it. Well, I've been on the run for over a week so my Mr. Righteous image is pretty much crushed anyway. It's all cool. I even invite her over to the Banana rooftop. We have more beers and talk 'till late into the night. She speaks about her own plans for the future and wishes me all the best with realizing my dreams. The drinks and the rooftop have a strange effect on me. Eight years ago I sat here and fell in love with a no-good girl, tonight I'm back here with a Cambodian lady but only to say goodbye. From the corner of my eye, I see the last ghost crawling over the rooftop railing and jumping down.
The end.

Tomorrow I'll leave alone. I'll stuff my backpack with cheap t-shirt and crappy Buddha statues. The ghosts stay here. Now all I long for is a final exit stamp. There's a whole world beyond the Cambodian border. I think I should go and have a look.
The Fishy Trail starts here.