I spent Valentines day sat for the loo!
So, yep, whilst those of you who were loved up enough to spend valentines day sat in some crammed restaurant on the 8pm sitting, gazing into one another's eyes over a flickering candle whilst spoon fighting over a single portion of tirimasu, spare a thought for poor Iain who spent most of the night sat at our table watching me scurrying back and forth from the toilet clutching at my stomach! It wasnt exactly the most romantic of evenings and my bout of what I truly believe was disentry wasnt the only thing that was hell bent on spoiling our night.
It's been another eventful week, starting last Sunday morning when we boarded a bus to Sen Monaron, a little town a million miles from nowhere in the Cambodian Jungle. We didnt get much sleep the night before the bus ride, after leaving the orphans Iain became convinced that he had contracted chicken pox from them and spent most of the night itching various parts of his body and thrashing violently around the bed, in between running round the room trying to catch a rogue mosquito. The itching subsided and the mosquito was officially murdered at 4am... our bus was at 7am!
So, 2 hours sleep is not a great deal but surely we'll get a bit of shut eye on the bus to Sen Monaron. When you've bussed it round the world for nine months you pretty much get used to sleeping on just about anything, but this was offically about to be the absolute worst ever bus journey straight from the evil clutches of hell. It wasnt actually a bus, it was more of a van with seats, not enough seats for the number of people that where about to board either, so we all cram ourselves in, practically two to a seat, Iain's knees are touching his ears and we are on our way. The sun comes up the temperature on the bus starts to dramtically rise... why is it that these stiffling hot countries find it necessary to cover the back of their bus seats in a lovely 2 inch thick plastic covering? OK so they are easily wipeable, but when do you ever see a bus in a 3rd world country having a full valet? I can only presume its for our own safety... rather than seatbelts they prefer us to literally stick to the seats!
There also seems to be a lot of little penis symdrome in South East Asia. The smaller a driver's penis, the more he has to honk his horn (there must be a lot of bus drivers with a complex in this part of the world). This is the only reason I could come up with as to why our driver, for the whole 10 hours, continuously honked away on thee most loudest irritating horn I have ever heard. After threating to force the damn thing up his arse if he didnt leave it alone, I managed to find a pair of ear plugs at the bottom of my bag which allowed me to get a little shut eye, at least until we left the relatively easygoing main road and turned onto an unsealed dirt track from the remaining 5 hours of the journey. The last 5 hours were spent flying through the air as the looney driver dived across 2 foot deep craters in the road. He seemed to prefer speeding up as oppose to slowing down on approach to them, then screaming in delight as the bus flew through the air before hitting the road with an almighty bump causing all passengers to fly from one side of the bus to the another, resulting in a pile of rucksacks, Cambodian's and travellers piled against the window. Needless the say, the chances of sleeping were minimal. Against all odds, at 6pm we arrived in the small town of Sen Monaron. We found ourselves a little bungalow for a measly fiver a night, then booked an overnight elephant trip for the following day, the main reason we had travelled to this part of Cambodia.
11pm we are tucked up in bed and there's a knock at the door. A little man informs us that all the elephants in the nearby villages are unavailable so can we reschedule our trip for the following day? No we cant, we've paid for it and we are on a tight time frame, we want to go tomorrow. My lack of sleep induced mood is clearly filling the poor Cambodian fellow with fear and he tells us that there is one last option and he will be round at 7am the following day to let us know if we can go ahead. Sure enough, at 7am on Monday morning the little man is there to inform us that after spending several hours going from village to village he's eventually found a little family with an available elephant. at 9am we are introduced to Poon, a 50 year old female elephant, probably the biggest elephant we have ever seen!
Now, we would have done what every other Tom Dick and Harry does and gone elephant trekking in Thailand. 50-odd adults, kids, and their pets, all safely mounted via a custom made elephant boarding platform onto the safest of highly trained, kid friendly elephants, seated in ISO9001 safety check elephant baskets and kitted out in life jackets for the 5 minutes they will spend in a foot of water on their 50 quid a throw hour long elephant ride. What would be the fun in that!
We are introduced to our guide, our elephant driver, and some mate of theirs that is coming along for the ride. No one else, just us and our private chartered elephant. There is no custom made elephant boarding platform at this location so we are shown how to climb up the side of the elephant owners house, before having to stratigically jump onto it's forehead then diving into the basket. We manage it we wave goodbye to the elephant owner's family as we make our way through their back garden and into the jungle.
Now we are told that our accommodation for the night will be basic, but when we land at our "tribal hut" for the night, we are certainly entertained by what we see. A timber frame house of sticks is where we are told we are to sleep, only thing is, the house has no walls and no roof, it is quite simply a frame with a couple of floor boards. Our little guide enthusiastically sets up our bed, consisting of a sheet over the boards, a couple of pillows, and a blanket, all covered by a mosquito net, before going about cooking our tea. Iain takes full advantage of the waterfall and spends the afternoon thowing himself of the edge of a 30 foot drop into the river at the bottom. I spend the afternoon coming to terms with the fact that I am about to spend a night with 3 male strangers, in the middle of the Cambodian jungle, on bare floorboards.
We woke up several times during the night, mainly to change position due to a numb body part, and to make sure that the other one was still alive and hadnt been robbed and murdered by one of the Cambodian guides. Anyway we made it through the night and were greeted with a lovely breakfast of noodles and freeze dried beef for brekki at 7am the following morning. After that we got to take the elephant into the river and wash her which was excellent, before boarding for the journey home, this time by climbing up the side of the timber frame.
We had to endure the 10hr bus ride back to Phnom Penh the following day. This driver obviously didnt have so much of an inferiority complex as the last one so the horn bashing wasnt quite as bad, and he rightfully slowed down on approach to the craters rather than speeding up. However, I was feeling extremely ill for the whole journey, and with no toilets along the way, it was a scary 10 hours - my bottom is certainly much firmer from 10 hours of butt clenching! We booked the hotel we stayed in previously in Phnom Penh so we didnt have to worry about looking for somewhere to stay on arrival at least...
Yeah right cause it's that easy! The lady on reception hadnt got a room for us because she forgot to write the booking down! So I scream at her and threaten her with removing the recommendation of her hotel from our Lonely Planet, it seems to work and she tells us to hang on whilst she goes and kicks someone else out! It seems a bit strange that someone who is already safely tucked up in their room would happily vacate, but the lady tells us leave it to her and return in an hour. By now its 7pm and Valentines day, with no hotel room as yet and my bowls on the blink its not looking good!
So we arrive back at the hotel, our room is ready.....but.... there has been a power cut so everything is pitch black! Turns out later that the previous guests left because of the power cut, they didnt get kicked out so we could have the room at all! Anyway, we've been on a bus for 10 hours, it's Valentines day, and I want to have a shower, attempt to make myself look half pretty, and sit and gaze into my man's eyes over dinner without worrying about my body odour. No shower then. We head to a restaurant we had both decided on, coated in a layer of grime and smelling not very nice, take our seats, and then within a minute I'm jumping out of mine and heading straight for the ladies. It's up and down all night, attempting to shove mouthfuls of my meal in in between.
On Thursday we sailed down the Mekong River in something that resembled a boat and crossed the border into Vietman. This route is officially home to thee worst set of disgusting toilets on the planet but when you are desperate you'll use anything, and I was desperate! My flip flops were fumigated when we arrived in Chau Doc, and I now know where these people spend so much time practising their squatting tecnique.
We are now in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), it was Chinese New Year on Friday, but we only found out on Saturday so actually missed the celebration because we were in bed at 10pm! Everything has shut down and apparently stays shut for 7 days so our travel plans are up the spout and I havent got any clean knickers! Im praying some little laundy shop might open up very soon!
Not long to go now, and if we never see another bowl of rice again it will be too soon.
Lots of love
Lyndsey & Iain
xxx
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