Stomach cramps and bus journeys

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Ok, well Sihanoukville didn't go quite as planned... We got there at about 1pm. Lop wanted us all to get ready and go out for lunch within 10mins. Sally and I really couldn't be bothered, so we went up to our room. I slept for about 5 hours, so I knew I wasn't feeling too good. We got up and went to the beach for a bbq. The beach was mad. Imagine the strip at Magaluf, all bright flashing lights and loud music. There were people letting off fireworks over the sea. Beggars harassed you for money every 5 minutes. I started to feel really awful. I ordered some bbq food but really didn't want it. It came and I had one mouthful and instantly knew that I wanted to go back to the hotel for a lie down. I started to feel dizzy. I asked Sally and Lop to walk me back as we'd been warned about a hundred times not to walk anywhere in Sihanoukville on your own. As we got up to leave the table Sally said the colour drained from my face and I looked awful. We got up and started walking, I don't remember this, and then I passed out in front of everyone. How bloody embarrassing!! Everyone was really lovely though, someone was holding my legs up until I felt ok to get up. There's a few nurses in my group! Anyway, I went back to the hotel and went straight to bed. I figured I was just dehydrated, but then the stomach cramp started. Not good. I knew it would happen at some point. I spent the next day in bed as everytime I tried to get up I felt dizzy and Sally said my face looked grey all day. However, as I knew I had a 9 hour coach trip to do, I went to the chemist in the evening and got some wonder drugs that have made me feel tip top!! Completely unlicensed in the western world, but who cares! I feel hungry today in the first time in days.
I am writing this from the bus. We're still on the Cambodian side and are driving though some of the poorest areas. What really strikes me is the sense of community here. They're always together, helping each other and eating together. We stopped in a town called Kampot for a quick break, it seemed a nice town known for growing peppercorns.
We arrived at the Vietnamese border at about 12pm. We had to carry our bags and get our passports checked about 4 times before they'd let us in. We also had to bribe them with a dollar each to do it quickly. All the extra bits on this trip are really starting to add up! We then got on another bus which took us into Chau Doc, a city about 45 mins from the border. Here we had lunch. I tried Pho (pronounced fur) which is a basic noodle soup. It was good, but I was still feeling a little delicate so didn't finish it. Did have a beer though! Me and Sally have become closer to three ladies in the group, Fran, Emma and Wendy. They've all done volunteer work overseas and travel a lot. They also like beer 😊 Fran has been taking care of us on the trip. Although they are leaving at Ho Chi Minh City and we carry on through Vietnam without them 😞 We got back on the bus and travelled another 4 hours to get to the homestay. When we got there a lovely Vietnamese lady showed us round the village, we went back to the house and the ladies cooked us a traditional dinner. Seemed to be somekind of omelette, some spring rolls, beans, beef. It was delicious. Then they all disappeared to clean up and we didn't see them again!! We were all exhausted, we'd been on the bus for 11 hours. So it got to 8pm and we went to bed! Some of the others were still up being noisey, but everyone was in bed by half 9.. We all slept in the same room split with a few walls, with different beds. Me and Sally picked the mattresses on the floor as they felt springy. The hotel mattresses have all been rock hard! We rolled down our pink mozzie nets and went to sleep. That was until the rooster woke us up at half 2.... I stayed in bed until 6, but then got up to shower and to ring J before everyone else got on the wifi. We had to be up for 7 anyway, we had Vietnamese tea and another omelette for breakfast. Then we packed up our stuff and got on the bus to go for a boat trip along the Mekong to the floating markets. The floating markets were great! So busy. With small boats selling coffee speeding about and pulling up alongside you and the bigger boats floating in the middle, advertising the things they were selling by tying them to a bamboo pole. We bought a pineapple to share, they even cut it to make pineapple lollipops for us. They were delicious. Much better than pineapple we get at home. So juicy and soft. The only downside of the boat trip was that Christina dropped her phone in... I was super careful with mine after that.
We then got back on the bus and are travelling to Ho Chi Minh City. Back on the roads that are just full of bikes! You have to pay up to 200% tax to have a car, so everyone just has a moped. You can still take the whole family out on one moped, trust me!!

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