Early this morning we leave Bangkok to take a bus to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The alarm is set for 6:00 am but I’m up at 4:45 and decide to use this time to use the D and D Inn 24-hour internet service. I should have plenty of time to get a chatty email or two out to family and friends. It’s such a great deal of just 20 Baht (60 cents) for 40 minutes. Plenty of time to write, great internet price, peaceful, quiet, and no time pressure – a perfect scenario for me to Get er’ Done. My perfect scenario begins to crumble as a gentleman comes in looking for a lighter. He comes up to me, I don’t have one but he decides to start talking to me. He had his bottle of vodka and plenty to say while I tried to not be completely rude. I acknowledged him with a few nods of the head, um-hums, and a smile here and there all between trying to construct some sentences for my email. Here are a few things I remember as he rambled on. He’s 48 years old. He has a sixteen old daughter that he wants to send to a boarding school. His wife drinks a bottle and half of wine a day. He also has a son whose IQ is 148, two points higher than his own 146 IQ score. He killed his first moose when he was 5 years old and his first bear at the age of seven. A sniper in the Libyan Army, independently wealthy, worked hard in his many businesses, and comes from royalty. Of course, and Oh my! I sent one email but since my perfect scenario was caboshed I headed upstairs to pack.
We packed and are ready to go into the pouring rain to our bus stop a few blocks away. The nine-passenger mini-van wasn’t too crowded, comfy, and had working air conditioning. We had one stop in our four-hour drive to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. It cost each of us 1200 Bhat ($38) to have our visas processed. I must say it was a little unnerving to see our passports being driven away on a motor-scooter. However, ten minutes later, just like they said, the passports were back. While we’re standing in line for the next checkpoint the sky opened up and poured. All nine of us passed through the border, missed the heavy rain, and on a bus that drives us an hour to another bus stop. From 12 noon until 3:00 pm we are stuck at this bus stop. Six of our mini-van group decide to take a taxi for 12 Baht (40 cents) each. We, along with Abby and Kathryn from England already paid for this bus so we stayed. Fortunately, the bus stop is clean and has food for lunch. We order lunch, chicken, and rice for Andy and fried rice for me. Talking with the girls we learned that they’re traveling for six months eventually making their way to Australia and the U.S. Nice! Somewhere along with these adventures, I stopped asking people about their travel plans because they all seem to be traveling to so many more places and so much longer than us. I can fall into whining. “What! That’s not fair.”, “We’re only traveling for six weeks.” Stop comparing and be grateful! Andy’s food was prepared quickly but mine was taking so long. It turns out my fried rice is french fries.
This bus takes us further east and deeper into the Cambodian countryside. The landscape is beautiful, filled with an abundance of trees and plant life, green and lush but the living conditions are drastically different from Thailand. Crossing the border was shocking. Cars, buses, concrete homes on the Thai side but on the Cambodian side, men pulling carts filled with bundles of clothing piled 8 feet high, oxen pulled carts, bicycles, houses were wood huts on stilts and dirt roads. With all the rain the huts are flooded. Some people are living under tarps on elevated ground. There are cows roaming around, water buffalo, people in the water from swimming to doing their laundry, to playing or bathing. In the river, men are fishing with nets. All fascinating and startling to see the different ways of life just crossing a border.
We finally arrived at our hotel. Our room’s a little funky but a fun kind of place. It’s a sleep-sack night tonight, our a/c unit is sketchy but we had twin beds and a bathroom combo; toilet, sink, shower all in one room. The whole room is tiled because when you take a shower everything in the room gets wet but no hot water. We paid $7 for the night and for another $7 to get a TV set connected in our room. We go out to find some food, water, and beer to bring back to our room. It’s been a long day of traveling and it’s so good to be here.
