Bumping to Siem Reap

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Apart from doing some travelling in Cambodia, I will be on a 10-day YMCA missionary project with a group of Citibanker volunteers. During this period, we will be teaching the English language to a group of youths in the Boys Brigade Learning Centre (BBLC) and to complete a section of road building across the village where BBLC is located.

A 6-hour bus ride from Bangkok brings Lin and I to the Cambodian border at Poipet. It was dusty and sweltering under the extreme heat. We have been pre-warned about the bad road condition from Poipet to Siem Reap, and a bus ride could easily take up to 6-7 hours. Hence we had decided to buy some time by taking a taxi as we had an agenda to meet the rest of the group in town. We were a little worried before as we had no idea where to get a taxi, but things turned out smoothly as we managed to arrange for a share-taxi with Ollie and Carl, 2 blokes we met on the bus.

The warning about the bad road condition was proven right as we swerved left and right and bumped up and down on the uneven and sometimes muddy, sometimes dusty road. clouds of red dust would fly up with the passing of each vehicle and we were glad that we were well sheltered in the taxi. We couldn't help thinking about the people who had decided to take the non air-conditioned bus.

The road seemed endless and about halfway down the road, we encountered a flat in the middle of nowhere. I thought, “This is it, we're never going to get to Siem Reap by dusk.” We expected quite a wait, but surprisingly, the tire was fixed really efficiently. I think the driver must have been really experienced in this sort of situation. After a short wait, we were on the road again. It was actually quite pleasant to have the chance to stretch our legs in the lovely countryside (apart from the bad road) with the setting sun view.

We arrived at Siem Reap at about 6pm and were told that we had to change to a "tuk-tuk" as the taxi is only allowed to travel up to that point. We said goodbye to the blokes and continued to our pre-arranged hotel in the tuk-tuk. I think I must have been quite tired as I didn't even recognise Nick (one of our team mates) when he greeted us. He was just outside of the hotel having a ciggie and I thought he was one of the hotel staff :P We had thought that we would not be able to make it in time for dinner with everyone but everything went so smoothly today that events just fell nicely into place. It turned out that the group decided to go out for dinner late and we had turned up just in time. I must thank my lucky stars for this.

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Comments

[Rajasekar]

hi
hi shaoyi !!!!!! i hope your objective is getting fulfilled!!!!!!!