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Published: March 7th 2012
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One more comment about Cambodia which really had an impact on mi ... I kept wondering why there were so many hospitals and medical centers and then i realized ... I'd say at least 30% of locals my age are missing a hand, a foot, an arm, a leg are scarred all over their bodies, a cruel reminder of the khmer rouge regime, nor was there anyone who spoke french, all of them died at the killing fields ...
i first wanted to go south to phom phen and learn more about this history, however the flight from there to Koh Samui (biggest island on southeastern thai coast) was gonna cost me at least 500 euros, so i opted to travel back by bus to bangkok and take the night train to southern thailand from there ... all over downtown siem reap were travel agencies promoting bustrips to Bangkok for about 12 euros ... i thought hey, that's about the same bus i took from thailand, so it should be ok ...i should have known better than to trust the pictures of these nice airconditioned busses ... at 5:30am i was ready for a pickup from my hotel, of course
a tuktuk only arrived one hour later, crammed with two newzealand girls and our luggage we were driven to an 8-seat van ... as we were the last of 9 passengers we sort of folded ourselves around the luggage (somehow in southeast asia they have not discovered the luggage rack on top of the roof...) and not only did i had to sit forward all the way to the border (2.5 hrs) i also was driving backwards ... gotta say was one of the worse rides i've ever had in mi life ... and that after the freedom of my bycicle and horse ... anyway the van was filled with croatian, swiss, japanese, italian, new zealandish and of course a dutchie ... the way back into thailand went very smooth, we all were stickered with a red dot, so the thai driver who would take us to bangkok could pick us out the crowd ... i was the only one who took my own luggage and it didn't take mi more than 20 minutes to get through customs ... i asked the bus driver where i could find his bus, and he said, no bus, van and i slightly panicked
... i asked him to bring mi to it so i could have first pick but he told mi to wait near 7/11 (supermarktet chain throughout thailand and for that matter usa) ... he said we had to wait, so when i checked behind mi and noticed the rest of my fellow travelers were in a long waiting line so i decided to run few errands (eg getting water, changing money, refilling credit on phone etc) ... again i should have known, within 5 minutes i was done and waited, and waited and waited and a slight panick creeped up on mi ... shoot did i now miss my van/bus? but no, the smiling busdriver appeared out of nowhere and guided mi to the van which once again was filled up ... i freaked a bit as i knew the trip was gonna be at least 4.5 hrs, fortunately the two croatian men had decided to take train so at least i had somewhat of a normal seat facing forwards ... another lesson was learned when we didn't take the toll roads, but only secondary bumpy roads with stops every 45 minutes or so (offically to stretch leg and or bathroom stop, unofficially clearly to help the local economy ...) by stop 3 everyone was telling driver it was ok to continue, but he said he MUST stop at all places ... all together it took us 8.5 hrs to get to Bangkok... i hook up with a swiss young woman who was travelling to Koh Tao (an island north of Koh Phangang) which kinda helped as she knew the way through bangkok's backpackers nightmare ... we bought tickets for the nightbus to Surathani and ferry to the islands, and then we had to wait another 4 hrs in the sweltering heat ... while i was looking for my local telephone provider (as my unlimited internet access wasn't working) i bought myself a big jar of some kind of tigerbalm to speed up the recovery of my bruises ... in hind sight one of my best buys, as it did wonders
Anyway finally my patience was rewarded by conquering the last row of 5 adjoining seats in the airconditioned double decker, however when i finally lied down ... drip drip drip, oh shoot the A/C was leaking right on my head, nice chinese/thai torture, so i thought a 180degree turn would do the trick, but no, again drip drip drip, i had to crawl up on the 3 seats (still better than anyone else) and soon fell asleep, to be awakened by the loud screeching sound of some kind of fantasy thai movie ... aah here come the earplugs, but no, stupid mi had put them in mi suitcase, so i nibbled on my bus ticket and created my own plugs ... it helped a bit and was finally able to fall back asleep ... to be awakened 4.5 hrs later by an israeli passenger and said we're here ... this was round 5.15am ... we had to then wait for the ferry, which took another 3.5 hrs as we had to stop at two more islands before i ended up on Koh Phanang ...
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