The Journey followed by another journey!!
on So Now It's Cambodia (Cambodia), 01/Jan/2010 10:18, 34 days ago
Our journey to placement (where Alison will live and work for the 2 years here) started with rising before 5am. To be packed and waiting at the VSO office for 5.30.Phnom Penh was quite subdued and peaceful in the dawn light as we walked from our budget hotel to the office. As usual Pisit (yes that is his name!), one of the Khmer organisers of just about everything at the office, was sorting out the truck we had asked him to arrange.There was no truck so first concerns aroused. Then a battered old thing arrived with a couple of likely lads-surely this wasn’t for us??!!A lengthy discussion took place between Pisit and the men. I asked Pisit what was going on - he replied:“I’m confused”!!! We thought if he was confused then god help us!!After a while things got into full flow and the loading began. We looked inside the truck and noticed the lack of space and comfort as well as the doors being held together by tape!Bit by bit the luggage went on: 2 motos; 2 bicycles; a lamp stand; assorted household goods as well as 2 guitars and our cases. It was a site to behold. When I made an observation about this to Pisit he said:“it’s Cambodian transport”.It did concern us that it was illegally overloaded and this was confirmed by being stopped by the police about 8 times! On the last occasion the usual bribe/fine didn’t seem to get us anywhere and the driver came and gave me a forlorn look. As our mastery of Khmer didn’t extend to sorting out this situation we phoned Pisit who spoke to the driver and the policeman. We were then asked to give an additional sum of money to enable us to continue our journey.We stopped a number of times en route which was especially appreciated by my knees on the first occasion as they were seizing up as we were so squashed. We all moved round for the next session trying to fit the shortest legs into the smallest spaces!!We travelled with Mary from Ireland who is a junior school teacher advisor and grandma in her early 60’s (how’s that for intrepid!) and Ollie Shipp who is a hospital manager. Alison will link some of her work with him as he is based in Phmour Phouk which is about an hour away from Mongkul Borei. It is quite remote there with few facilities in the village. This is the main hospital money is beingraised for through Ollie and Alison’s web site.At our first stop Mary’s face was a picture when she thought the coffee and cups were too dirty to be worth the risk! We drove on for ages again then suddenly pulled over at a line of shacks. Here the driver got himself a coconut juice (straight from the coconut, of course) and lay down in a hammock. Alison decided tofollow suite by lying in the hammock as well (not the same one, of course!!). This afforded the men a chance to check the truck for routine maintenance and the bonnet was up again for cooling off.After many miles and about 7 hours we finally arrived at our house in Monkgul Borei. I hadn’t mentioned the 2nd. man who had spent the whole journey on the top of the truck as they do here in Cambodia – in fact we were travelling light by comparison to many vehicles which are piled high with people.Both men then got all our stuff off the truck which was quite a performance as it had been tied with ropes and one moto and one bike had to come down as well as extracting only our luggage and leaving Oly and Mary’s on.We had a warm greeting from our landlady and her adopted son and we piled our stuff into the house. This was just a brief respite though as we then had to get a taxi to take us to Sisophon to meet Mary who had taken her things on the truck to the local hotel– the Golden Crown Guest House. She is still staying there as she is unable to find a house to live in (apart from one next to an abbatoir!).Meanwhile, Ollie had gone with the truck to his house in Phmour Phouk and we had to persuade our taxi driver to wait for him to return as we were going off to Siem Reap for the Angkor 10K race.Little did we know that the men had told Ollie they weren’t going to his house and he had to waste a lot of time negotiating with them to do what we thought VSO had paid for. He ended up paying an extra $45 to save the day. We had an anxious wait for him as it was getting later and later and the taxi driver more agitated and we knew we would end up driving in the dark which VSO ask us to avoid doing.The taxi driver kept going and coming back again and must have thought we had an imaginary friend! We were very relieved when Ollie finally arrived and we could set off on our next adventure! There was a reason for this– Ollie and Alison were running in the Angkor 10K the next morning and had to register for the race at a big tourist hotel in Siem Reap by 7 that evening. After much of the journey done in the dark (taking about an hour and 20 minutes) we arrived at the hotel at 6.58pm!!! They rushed in and all was well – registered and equipped for the big race. We then went our separate ways to our hotels for the night.Not bad– up before 5am in Phnom Penh and back to the hotel in Siem Reap by 7pm – what a day! The next instalment will describe what happened next!!