Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Lorna and Kev's slightly extended holiday
You know you have those days that you take for granted how easy and well timed a small job was... and then you end up in a very small 4 door saloon with 7 other people, driver not even sat in his seat so avoiding the cow wandering in front of the car becomes much more of a life or death situation. Today was by coincidence one of these days.
Yesterday we had booked a mini bus from our guesthouse to go to Kampot leaving at 11am. This was a good time for us as the alternative was 6.30am from the bus station and we really wanted to enjoy our morning at Shanti Shanti and have breakfast with Claudia before we parted ways. So jumping at the chance for only $8 each we booked it thought how lucky we were to get a space on the bus. So when a tuktuk turned up although a bit surprised we figured the mini bus was just leaving from somewhere else so hoped on and enjoyed the ride. Arriving at the taxi rank we are informed that "mini bus gone, you go by taxi" slightly confused we tried to understand if we were going to be charged more or when we were going to leave. After being ushered into an office / shed we were asked to wait for 1 more person before we left. Hoping this wouldn't take long and feeling slightly unnerved we waited. Within 10 mins 3 people in the same position as us pulled up and we were told to all get in the car that would make 5 and the driver, nobody seemed happy about this and the 3 of them negotiated to be taken for $20 as we had already paid this wasn't an option for us so we sat back down and waited. One hour went by and a Korean man turned up wanting to go to Kampot, good we thought we can go... apparently not "one more" says the driver. Ok four i can handle. Another hour goes by and we end up with 6 plus the driver. I'm just going to point out that if is only 2 hours to Kampot at most he could have been there by now picking more people up! Entirely unhappy by now, the Korean man who is working as a teacher in Kampot for a year (you get to know someone when your completely wedged in and practically sat on their lap) says this isn't too bad 8-10 is the usual. What gets me is that we paid almost twice as much as everyone else in the car to be in this ridiculous situation. But we were off, although not content with so few people he stopped on the way and picked up more and a couple of deliveries. Remember i told you Khmer's had a slight obsession with having as many people in one place as possible... this is what i meant. Anyway to say that i was in a mood was a vast understatement. Eventually we made it to Kampot and the man from Korea made sure we were dropped where we needed to be.
So at nearly 4pm we started looking for somewhere to stay, out first choice was full and after seeing a few of the rooms left on the street we opted for The Magic Sponge. Probably the largest and most comfortable room we had stayed in. There was even mini golf, so Kev was happy, i on the other hand chose the bar. There were thankfully some really nice people staying so we had a much needed beer and a good laugh with them and the owner Will.
Anyway that's officially our second worse travel day so far thankfully it ended well and i even got chocolate fudge pie, who could stay in a bad mood after that?
- comments