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Every time I get on here I realize how long it has been since I last wrote... paying for internet is a pain. But now I'm at Dan and Gaby's apartment in Delhi, so I'll be able to spend a significant amount of time updating all my followers.
So after Phnom Penh, I headed south to Sihanoukville (abbreviated Snookyville or just Snooky) to get a Vietnam visa and spend a day at the beach, but I liked it there so much I decided to save Vietnam for another trip and just enjoy the town for a few days (plus the trip to Vietnam would have been 12 hours on a bus, and I didnt want to lose a whole day like that). So the first night, I got into town pretty late and headed to the area that was listed in the guidebook as the backpackers area. The book was only 3 years old, but apparently a lot can change in that time, because Weather Station Hill now has only two types of residents: hookers and people looking to pick up hookers. Plus it was a long way from the beach... so the next day I rented a motorbike to
go find a better place to stay. With 90cc's of raging Honda power under my butt. I roared off into the unknown. I found a place only two minutes walk from the beach, charging $4 for a bungalow... it was perfect. Oh and did I mention that Angkor beer is brewed in Sihanoukville? But I couldn't stay in one place for too long, so after two nights I booked my bus ticket to Ko Chang, on the southern coast of Thailand.
Let me just make a quick comment about bus travel in Cambodia. Be prepared for anything... Now in the United States, if one of the bridges connecting two towns wasnt completely built, then cars wouldn't be allowed to pass and you would have to find another way, right? They tackled the problem from a different angle: get the passengers off the bus, take the bags off the bus, walk across the bridge (literally with welders and guys pouring concrete next to you) carrying your bags, and get on the bus waiting for you on the other side. It was a huge hassle at the time, but extremely funny in hindsight.
So after about 8 or 9 hours
by various means of transportation- bus, minivan, ferry, taxi (which is basically a truck with benches in the back, and was full so I had to stand on the tailgate to get a ride) I arrived at Lonely Beach in Ko Chang. I got a bungalow with a fan for about $10, more expensive than I would have liked but right on the beach so I can't complain. One of the big benefits was that they provided a mosquito net, which is great for keeping the mosquitos out, but not other animals apparently... I was rudely awakened one night by something furry landing on my chest/ face and scurrying off. My mind immediately went to a conversation I had with a German couple who said they had a problem with rats living in the thatch roof of their last bungalow. Oh @#%#$^#@. Now I'm not really afraid of rats, per se, but I am afraid of rabies. I slowly got up to turn on the light, and saw that it was only two cats that had climbed in the room. disaster averted.
Ko Chang was gorgeous, but it was raining way too much... I've never seen rain like this
before. It was absolutely unreal the amount of water that fell from the sky. Anyway, after a few days on the beach (the weather generally cleared up in the afternoon), I headed back to Bangkok. I found a place for 170 baht in an alley off of Khao San Road. Now, if there is a place to be in Bangkok, especially for a backpacker, its Khao San. And at 170 baht (31 baht to the dollar) it was a damn good deal. Let me put it this way: if the Di-O Guesthouse was anywhere other than Khao San, it would be about a dollar per night. And it gave me one of my first real traveling experiences, something no traveler can do without: bed bugs. Anyway, the one full day I spent in Bangkok was Sunday, which means the Chatuchak weekend market was open. Dad had told me about this before he left, that it is supposedly the biggest market of this type in Asia, or something crazy like that. The whole thing was sectioned off- household items, clothes, food, books, pets, toys, etc. I could have easily spent hundreds of dollars on all the cool stuff they had there, and I don't even like to shop. A lot of it was the normal commercial stuff, fake Gucci, blue jeans, wallets, etc. but if you looked around enough you could find places selling really interesting items. After a while, it just got too crowded, so I took the subway back into the city, and then walked about 2 miles back to my guesthouse. I've found that, although difficult, walking is by far the best way to really find out about a place. I've done the bike and motorbike thing, which is great because you get to cover so much more area, and it's obviously easier, but things go by too fast.
So that brings me to Delhi. I haven't had any time to really do anything yet, but I'm very excited to be here, probably more so than SE Asia. I'll probably spend today and tomorrow in Delhi, just doing some basic stuff. I need to find a good map *wink wink* and I am so happy to be able to make use of the washing machine here at the apartment. I've been doing the Bahama boat washing method, where you basically step into the shower with all your clothes on, scrub them down with soap, rinse them off, then take the clothes off and take a real shower- it helps me save money on laundry, but it has taken its toll. I was reminded of a quote by one of my roommates freshman year: "When you start to be able to smell yourself, that means other people have been smelling you for days." I started to reach that point in my trip, so a few days in a real house with hot showers and ice cold air-con is a welcome relief. And one of the benefits for you guys back home is that I get to upload pictures! so be sure to check my Picasa page at
http://picasaweb.google.com/mjripple and please be sure to let me know if you can't see them. I will also go back to my last post and put up a few pictures from S-21 and Choeung Ek. I will also put up a map so you can follow where I'm going and where I've been.
For everyone that has sent me messages or comments... thank you very much, I'm sorry I haven't responded, but I appreciated hearing from everyone. I hope everything is going well back home, and I look forward to hearing from you all!
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Hopedale Kid
non-member comment
did you leave something out?
so where did you sleep or....in Weather Station Hill.....the place w/ only two kinds of people????? I missed that part of the story. were the birds working the shrimp out on the water?