Exit Planet Dust
I have never seen as many butterflies as I have seen in Cambodia. In all the bits of the country I visited I saw so many as I walked or cycled around the countryside. All different colours and sizes too; very pretty and made the walks I took a little nicer.
I spent my final days in Cambodia cycling around the Angkor Wat temple park. Angkor Wat is but one of many temples in this area, about 250km NW of Phnom Penh, and attracts many visitors and the admiration and pride of all Cambodians. After all it was ancient Cambodians who constructed this marvel over a thousand years ago and it is truly gianourmous. Angkor is the largest religious building in the world and casts an impressive shadow, sitting as it does within its moat and catching the sunsets rather nicely.
I am not normally one to gawp at buildings and after 3 quiet days of exploring the park, which is huge, I was suffering from Temple-Fatigue. It's a shame that even in such surroundings one can still get bored with them, but a temple is a temple just as a church is a church and once you have seen the main variations in styles there's not much else to do except pass the time. I left feeling that I had made the most of my 3 day pass and proceed by express Nissan Pickup to the Cambodian-Thai border.
We could have taken and ordinary bus but we missed that so we went to the taxi point, wrestled with some touts and eventually secured a "seat" on the back of an old pickup-truck. There were 30 people in total squeezed into the back of this thing. I was perched dangerously on the edge of the payload area's side along with several others, all Cambodians, and my bags were roped to the very back.
The journey was somewhat arduous. There were 140kms ahead of us along unsealed or potholed roads. My steel bar seat had little give in it so my poor bum was given a thrashing. I had to lean right forward into the other people in order to stay in it when we cornered. As you would expect I was the only soft Westerner on there and all the other Cambodians seemed amused by my obvious discomfort.
We stopped a few times to pick up, drop off, or just break. On one of these occasions the old lady sitting close opposite me took an interest in my hairy legs. Most Asian men I have seen do not have much hair on their limbs so she loved mine. She would stroke my knees and gently tug at the hairs there. I was rather enjoying this until one of the blokes sat next to me started to do the same thing. They found my deep, rich, luxuriant growth rather appealing. However I did not find being touched-up by a Cambodian man appealing and told him so. He pointed to my crotch and said something, leaving the rest of the passengers in giggles. "You bet it is," I said. Ha-de-bloody-ha.
The rest of the journey was a little uncomfortable but tedious. I could not read, sleep, listen to my iPod (what's left of it), move, or do anything that you take for granted on buses. We came to a big bus/taxi station in a small town about 50km from the border and had an interminable wait as we changed trucks.
This was quite interesting. When you pull into one of these places your truck is surrounded by pickup touts asking your destination. They would reach into the truck and literally manhandle people out of it and try to direct them into their pickup. They appeared to me unusually aggressive though not in a negative way. What surprised me most was that they do not do this to foreigners, taking a much more hands off approach. I'm grateful for that.
One tout picked up a wicker bag that had been under me for the whole journey. I belonged to the hair-loving lady and contained a live chicken! It had not made a noise and I had trodden on it several times. Oops. I had to help the old lady down from the truck and I think she was grateful as I managed to brush off a few of the touts who were bugging her. I think she fancied me.
Then truck we changed to was half empty and would not leave until it was full. I watched as our tout went from place to place grabbing new punters as they arrived and trying to get them in. The competition with other touts was ferocious and the look on his face and yelp for joy he made when he finally filled the truck was something else. Happy as a sandboy.
We got to the border, myself being totally broken, and went through a painless immigration process. I looked a state as I was covered in thick red dust all over, except where I had been wearing a dust-mask on my face. My clothes were orange, my bags were orange, and I had a terrible thirst. Thailand seemed a new world. I walked a few yards, paid a fair fixed price for a bus ticket, got on an air-conditioned double decker with seats, and promptly passed out on the journey back to Bangkok.
I have come to Bangkok again to make a phone call...
I spent my final days in Cambodia cycling around the Angkor Wat temple park. Angkor Wat is but one of many temples in this area, about 250km NW of Phnom Penh, and attracts many visitors and the admiration and pride of all Cambodians. After all it was ancient Cambodians who constructed this marvel over a thousand years ago and it is truly gianourmous. Angkor is the largest religious building in the world and casts an impressive shadow, sitting as it does within its moat and catching the sunsets rather nicely.
I am not normally one to gawp at buildings and after 3 quiet days of exploring the park, which is huge, I was suffering from Temple-Fatigue. It's a shame that even in such surroundings one can still get bored with them, but a temple is a temple just as a church is a church and once you have seen the main variations in styles there's not much else to do except pass the time. I left feeling that I had made the most of my 3 day pass and proceed by express Nissan Pickup to the Cambodian-Thai border.
We could have taken and ordinary bus but we missed that so we went to the taxi point, wrestled with some touts and eventually secured a "seat" on the back of an old pickup-truck. There were 30 people in total squeezed into the back of this thing. I was perched dangerously on the edge of the payload area's side along with several others, all Cambodians, and my bags were roped to the very back.
The journey was somewhat arduous. There were 140kms ahead of us along unsealed or potholed roads. My steel bar seat had little give in it so my poor bum was given a thrashing. I had to lean right forward into the other people in order to stay in it when we cornered. As you would expect I was the only soft Westerner on there and all the other Cambodians seemed amused by my obvious discomfort.
We stopped a few times to pick up, drop off, or just break. On one of these occasions the old lady sitting close opposite me took an interest in my hairy legs. Most Asian men I have seen do not have much hair on their limbs so she loved mine. She would stroke my knees and gently tug at the hairs there. I was rather enjoying this until one of the blokes sat next to me started to do the same thing. They found my deep, rich, luxuriant growth rather appealing. However I did not find being touched-up by a Cambodian man appealing and told him so. He pointed to my crotch and said something, leaving the rest of the passengers in giggles. "You bet it is," I said. Ha-de-bloody-ha.
The rest of the journey was a little uncomfortable but tedious. I could not read, sleep, listen to my iPod (what's left of it), move, or do anything that you take for granted on buses. We came to a big bus/taxi station in a small town about 50km from the border and had an interminable wait as we changed trucks.
This was quite interesting. When you pull into one of these places your truck is surrounded by pickup touts asking your destination. They would reach into the truck and literally manhandle people out of it and try to direct them into their pickup. They appeared to me unusually aggressive though not in a negative way. What surprised me most was that they do not do this to foreigners, taking a much more hands off approach. I'm grateful for that.
One tout picked up a wicker bag that had been under me for the whole journey. I belonged to the hair-loving lady and contained a live chicken! It had not made a noise and I had trodden on it several times. Oops. I had to help the old lady down from the truck and I think she was grateful as I managed to brush off a few of the touts who were bugging her. I think she fancied me.
Then truck we changed to was half empty and would not leave until it was full. I watched as our tout went from place to place grabbing new punters as they arrived and trying to get them in. The competition with other touts was ferocious and the look on his face and yelp for joy he made when he finally filled the truck was something else. Happy as a sandboy.
We got to the border, myself being totally broken, and went through a painless immigration process. I looked a state as I was covered in thick red dust all over, except where I had been wearing a dust-mask on my face. My clothes were orange, my bags were orange, and I had a terrible thirst. Thailand seemed a new world. I walked a few yards, paid a fair fixed price for a bus ticket, got on an air-conditioned double decker with seats, and promptly passed out on the journey back to Bangkok.
I have come to Bangkok again to make a phone call...