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Published: March 3rd 2010
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Sunset in Koh Kong
Not a bad view during dinner! Up early again! Today Margot went back to Bangkok and Julie and I headed east to Cambodia!
First Julie and I took a boat off the island. Unlike last time, it wasn't crowded nor did we have to keep climbing over things to get on. It dropped us at a different ferry pier than we expected, leaving us to guess which way to head in town to find our ride. Luckily we managed to do it with enough time to stop at 7-11 for some snacks.
We were the last two people to squeeze into the van. Julie had to sit with her feet on her bag. After a few hours we stopped for a break. I ate the best pineapple I've ever had and she had papaya. Then, back in the van. Finally, we were dropped off (just the two of us) at an auto repair shop to wait for ride number two. Part of it was a restaurant with no tables. We sat on the greasy looking black vinyl sofa and waited for an hour. It was so hot and there was no fan. After the hour dragged by our ride to the border appeared and we
climbed into van number two.
The second part of our journey was took a few hours but the scenery was fantastic! It was exactly as I had pictured the tropics: lush, jungle-like, lots of trees, and green mountains.
At the border we were helped with our visas. I had been told about it ahead of time so I didn't panic when the guy asked for our passports and then ran off with them. There was a nice waiting area that many people took advantage of. It did make things easier to have them fill out all our forms but then they wanted a tip, too. Top that off with the guy who had grabbed our luggage and wheeled it across also wanting a tip... all I could think of was India last year.
Soon we were on our way, handwritten visa affixed, in car number three. We drove across the longest bridge in Cambodia to Koh Kong and were led to a currency exchange lady operating out of a small store. We sensed it was a rip-off, but we also sensed we weren't getting out of there without exchanging any money. We knew Cambodia would take USD,
Our bathroom had no sink!
We brushed our teeth with the shower. We "flushed" the toilet using water in the bucket. but we still had no riel for small purchases. We did the math later and figured we were ripped off by 25%. Thankfully we had only exchanged a little Baht, despite our driver continuously telling us that we couldn't use our Baht anymore. "Hint, exchange it ," he was saying.
The town is small and a bit dusty. Our guest house room was the tiniest I have been in. The beds had a single plank of plywood running down the middle of the mattress (so don't roll to one side or the other!) and our bathroom had no sink! We used the shower to wet our toothbrushes and spit out our toothpaste into the toilet. We then flushed the toilet by ladeling water into it from a red bucket. Such a classy joint.
We had dinner at the guest house because we were too tired to wander the town. We hadn't really had lunch. Then we wandered a bit to find soap and breakfast food since we knew we'd be leaving early. We're still not completely sure we have a place to stay in Sihanoukville, but the manager said he'd hold a room for us until 2pm. Hopefully
our bus ride will not take too much longer than what they say.
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