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Published: April 11th 2007
Gulp..What have i got myself into?
No mans land... The area in between Thailand and Cambodia. Well basically when I was heading into Cambodia I was shitting myself!! We're all fully aware about the horror atrocities that happened here 30 years, what was I thinking going to a country that everything I’d seen or heard beforehand about the place was pretty much evil. My confidence didn’t improve much when our trustworthy bus guide warned us to be very careful with our belongings after we crossed the border as there are pickpockets everywhere!
After nervously making the walk across no mans land to Cambodia it didn’t take long to realize that we were leaving a developed country and heading into a 3rd world country (one of the better off 3rd world countries mind you!) Talk about lack of bins at this place... strewth mate, I’ve never seen so much rubbish scattered everywhere before except for maybe after the Australia day Skyshow back in1998. The place had a nice smell about it too, the sort of smell you get when you’re cleaning cat poo off the carpet. (well, probably not that bad but pretty close sometimes!) If the rubbish and the smell didn’t start driving you insane, then it was the dust was going to...It was like
it hadn’t rained here for 4 yrs and when most of the roads aren’t bituminized... Mate!
So, after being dragged through customs, getting ripped of by money exchangers (no atms in Siem Reap and the banks are shut due to the Riverboat festival....yep that was enough to suck me and the rest of the bus in!) we hopped aboard our battered out Toyota coaster bus ready for the world famous notorious bus trip from hell. I thought that my few years driving Haulpacks in the mines at Boddington would hold me in good steed for this trip but I was wrong.. The road was bad..real bad...really really BAD!! Road trains would get lost in some potholes that we were going through and to ensure that we didn’t have a head on with one of those illegal logging trucks due to poor visibility from the dust, our speed didn’t go over 40km..It wouldn’t have been too bad except it was a 35 degree day, the aircon wasn’t working the bus, the windows didn’t stay shut by themselves or the door for that matter and the bus suspension was non existent. We shaked, rattled and rolled for the next 10 hours
Standing room only..
The crowd is busy jostling for the best possie, restless as the big race nears!
(No such problems at Fremantle Dockers games ;-) and everybody was happy when we finally rolled into town, looking like we’d all spent a day down a coal mine. It could have been worse we saw 9 tourists who did the trip on the trayback Toyota ... we were the lucky ones... Welcome to Cambodia!!!!
My first days I was lucky enough to witness a special time of year for the Cambodian people with the annual Waterboat festival where people come from all over surrounding proveniences to races their hand made long boats. It was a wonderful time to be here and all my fears about this dangerous scary country quickly diminished as everybody was having a ball..It had a great atmosphere not to dissimilar to that of Perth Royal show. The only difference i did note that was with so many kids running around the place there was very little if any at all crying from them...even the babies were happy!..
Is it just our western culture where kids if they run out of money or can’t get what they want start crying???? I suppose if you’ve never got any money your not going to miss it and if they did cry no one would
Colourful looking fruit!!!
Wrong...Orrible tasting lollies! care anyway! It was a wonderful day as the locals were eager to teach me some Khmer language, uni students were keen to practice their English with me and even I tried my hand at Khmer karaoke...(I’d rather sing Cellila any day of the week!)
www.albyadventures.com
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