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Dan&LJ RTW
The journey to Vietnam through Cambodia was not as simple as we first thought.................
TRAT
We prepared to leave Ko Samet with, it seems, delusions of grandeur. The original plan was to quite simply just catch a bus directly to the capital of Cambodia, stay 1 night and then proceed directly to Saigon - what fools!
On researching it became evident that the journey would end up taking 3-4 days in total, stopping at 3 different destinations en route, the first of which was the delightful, small town of Trat close to the Thailand/Cambodia border.
This would seem a simple 100km trip and the rough guide assured us that regular buses left the port of Ban Phe (off Ko Samet), how WRONG could they be.
We ended up having to barter with a minibus 'company' who were heading in the general direction we needed to go and agreed to drop us on the way.
After 2 hours on a bus with a driver with a nervous twitch in his accelerating foot, he pulled up on the main highway 25km from our destination, dropped us off and told us, "I go this way (pointing to a turn off the highway to the right), Trat straight ahead, you get lift from here."
Okay...a lift from whom, from where???! There we were stranded on the Thailand equivalent of the A34, backpacks on trying to hitch a ride to Trat. Fortunately after only having to hang around on the edge of a main road for about 30mins, salvation arrived. The shared taxi (which in Thailand is basically a pick up truck with 2 rows of seats in the back) that pulled up to our rescue, was, in the nicest possible way, a special needs bus.....why was he so eager to pick us up???? The remaining 30 minutes to Trat was accompanied by a cacophony of screams, yelps & dribbles, and that was just from Dan.
SO, an eventful trip you could say.
Trat as it happened, turned out to be a delightful place to spend an afternoon. Our guesthouse was fantastic, and the great hosts there helped to sort all our plans for getting through Cambodia for the following day. On top of this we finally found a decent Thai restaurant, with food worthy of the name - it was delicious.
KOH KONG - THE BORDER
The border crossing itself went remarkably well despite our initial apprehensions.
That's not to say that we didn't have to spend a few minutes bartering with the 'officials' at passport control, just to pay the correct amount for a visa.
We were greeted on the Cambodian side by a cheery young guy from our guesthouse, a great family run place in the heart of the town.
The differences between Thailand and Cambodia are evident immediately upon crossing the border and another example of how things can change just by traveling a few miles.
Koh Kong is a small town, and once again we seemed to be the celebrities as everyone wanted to say hello and excitedly wave. There were no tourists, no 7-11 convenience stores, no pizza joints, we couldn't be happier, we were finally witnessing the simple life again that we had not seen since our time in India.
The next morning our mini bus to the capital Phnom Penh departed in absolute torrential rain, which made us a little nervous as we had already been warned that the 'road' would be 'OK' as long as it didn't rain!! It didn't seem to bother our driver though who in the good old Asian way, put his foot down.
Now, the word 'road' in Cambodia, appears to have a complete different meaning to what we would expect. It quite simply means, 'the way to get somewhere'! We didn't see tarmac for over 6 hours & were stuck in wheel-arch-high mud on more than one occasion. We crossed 6 rivers on rickety wooden raft-cum car ferries and picked up numerous passengers on the way, one of which was a 8 year old boy who was horrendously travel sick for the entire duration of the journey. Then came the biggest surprise of all for the pair of us......reminiscent of our arrival in Trat, we were again dumped at the side of the road, this time 200km short of our destination & we were told that we were to get on another bus. This would ordinarily not be a problem, but in this instance, the 24 seater mini bus we were told to board, already contained around 35 passengers, 3 plants, a bundle of 4ft bamboo canes, 4 rice sacks & a chicken.
We politely enquired to the driver how on earth 2 more people of 'western' proportions & their rucksacks were to fit into the back of the overcrowded van. He insisted that there was plenty of room, but as he was squeezing our ruckies through a back window, lj opened the passenger door and we both claimed the 2 free seats up front, leaving the drivers mate in the back
We thought we'd seen it all at this point, but it seemed every 10 minutes, we would pull over and pick up more passengers & their cargo. Over the course of the 4hour journey the van acquired, 15 more people, a dentist chair & side rack, 2 12ft wooden planks & a motorbike, which was strapped onto the boot! Not the most comfortable journey we had ever taken, but it got us to the capital - finally.
PHNOM PENH
The capital city was a bit of a revelation, not really what we expected from the journey there. A bustling city typical of Asia. We decided to stay 2nights before moving into Vietnam.
As with most towns we've experienced, most of life revolves around the central market, which never cease to be interesting places to stroll around & explore.
We only had 1 full day in the capital and we spent it doing all the usual city rounds. It's a great place to kill time and we found the river front area delightful.
An early night though as we were up at 5am the next day for our morning bus to the border and onwards to Saigon.
Nam is next...fire in the hole.
Will update again soon.
Danny & lj xxxx
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