4th-5th November 2010
And lo! upon that night did this One Who Wanders strap up his boots, throw bag upon his back and begin the journey out of the Land of the Lao and into the territories of the ancient Khmer, a realm far in distance, alone in body, but never in soul, for on his dusty trail he knew he would find others, and that old friends might again grace him with their presence.
Setting out at the darkling hour of eight, after my lift was late, I was pretty happy to discover the Maltese Falcons and the Tasmanian were on my bus as far as Pakse (South Laos). They were heading for the 4000 Islands while I was going all the way to Siem Reap in Cambodia, but it was still cool to have a few people around.
It didn't really matter too much, because this was the sleeper bus and the idea is that you get on an you go asleep. Unfortunately, my bed was at the back, and we felt every bump and turn. Also, I was sharing with two Aussie guys, who had grabbed the left and the right. In the middle, I had nothing to brace my feet against so more than once I found myself sliding out of the bed into the aisle.
The Maltese had a novel solution. Valium. You can by perscription drugs over the counter in nearly any chemist in Laos, Cambodia or Thailand and the doses can be pretty high. Where at home you get 2mg tablets, you can get up to 20mg tablets from the chemists here, nearly as standard. Might have been a good idea, who knows - I don't like tablets though, so I really wasn't bothered. I don't even like headache tablets.
Anyway, the lads took some valium. But they didn't think it was working so they took some more. And when they finally woke up in Pakse ten hours later they were fucking out of it! It was hilarious. Anyway, once in Pakse, we waited around a bit and our other buses turned up. They all headed on one, while I got the other on my own. This one was a VIP bus, which was actually pretty nice and had a toilet on it.
This one lasted another ten hours, but it was okay because I had a few things stored up on my laptop to keep me going, including the latest episodes of House and Lie to Me. And I was loving my book, Perdido Street Station by China Mieville, which is awesome and you should read.
Well maybe. Set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag Mieville's novel focuses of one particular city that might easily be a representation of New York or London, a multicultural melting pot where other races doesn't mean black, white, Indian or Chinese, but rather human, bug-people, or watersprites etc. Racism plays a huge role in the novel, as well as being replete with meditations on ghettos and government control of populations. Mieville is a socialist (and has written at least one book on socialism) but this book is not exactly a socialist tract. It's just that as a socialist, socialism obviously colours his sense of justice and fairness and also dictates some of the things that interest him. However, I think even the most ardent capitalist would find it hard to slate the book for some of its conclusions. It also has some elements of steampunk and plenty of eroticism and lots of fantasy horror. Totally awesome book - click here to buy now - and if you want something a bit more real world, try this one!
Reached the Cambodian border and had to pay and unofficial stamp duty to get our visas stamped as having left Laos - in other words, the dude in the office demanded a dollar from each of us to do his job, and then put it in has back pocket, but you best get used to this if you're planning on heading out this way. It's just the way it is.
On the other side we'd to do the same to get our passports stamped for going into the country. And also pay for the visa. What you gonna do like? It happens, and it's not so much. And if you don't pay, you don't go over the border, everyone there is in on it, and there's no one to complain to, and if there was, they'd probably just take the dollars for themselves, so really what does it matter?
Anyway, then it was a few more hours on the bus, maybe 8 or 9 all together, until we stopped. Most of the people on the bus were going to Phnom Penh, while the rest of us were going to Siem Reap. We got taken off our fancy air-con bus and brought to a mini-van, which was bringing us the rest of the way to Siem Reap. I'm about 20 hours in at this stage. I shrug, who cares. While waiting to get on our bus, which looks like it might have died before I was born and it kept going by a mixture of sticky tape and angry shouts mixed with pleading prayers, the few of us there kind started chatting. There was a Japanese guy, an English couple on their honeymoon, a Japanese guy and a girl from Dun Laoghaire, Hanna. Small world, no?
Anyway, ended up having a pleasant bitch for the first two hours, finished my book in the second two, watched some more TV and swapped some music with Hanna and eventually gave the Mieville book to the English guy.
Eventually, when we got near to the outskirts of Siem Reap we picked up this drunk Cambodian guy who said he would take us all out to our hostels for free. Obviously we were not stupid enough to think this was anything but a bit dodgy, but still, we didn't know what sort of dodgy.
We pulled over at the side of the road, about 11 at night, at a stop full of tuk tuk drivers. This guy had obviously paid the bus company to drop us there so he could bring us into town. This is very common. Anyway, we were smart enough to know that we didn't really have any choice but to go with him, while we were also aware that we'd have to play this very carefully.
Me and Hanna and the Japanese dude all went together, and the drunk guy came with us. While on the road he tried to get us to book him for the morning, to take us to Angkor, but without saying no, we tried not to agree to anything. Eventually he kinda lost it and dumped us on the side of the road, in the dark, and fucked off. If he were sober we'd probably have managed to keep him on side, but he obviously wasn't doing the best job of keeping his cool and we obviously weren't really biting, so he kinda flipped.
So, there we were, in the middle of fucking nowhere, big bags on our backs, looking lost as no born lambs, with no idea where the hell we were. And then the Japanese dude just fucked off.
Awesome.
Can you say shark bait? Coz I can.
We were lucky. My laptop had died on the bus, and I had only written down the address, not the phone number of the hostel, though it was obviously saved on the laptop, because what could go wrong there after 28 hours on a bus? Nothing, clearly.
Hanna though, she had the number of her hostel and we found a market stall with a guy willing to let us use his phone. She managed to get her hostel to pick us up from there - after the dude who owned the phone explained where we were - and then I was able to use there wireless to get onto the net and ring my hostel to come get me from her place. But still, not the most auspicous start.
That said, Siem Reap is actually a lovely place and you are safe walking around at night, so long as you know where you are going and don't look like a little lost child with a giant bag of stuff that probably represents a year's worth of clothes and a fortune in goods, never mind the money in the pocket to wrong kind of very desperate person.
Let's just say I was happy to get to the hostel, not just became I'd been travelling for more than a day! Once the bag is off, you feel a lot less vulnerable, a lot less like a target. And once the bag is locked up in the hostel all you can have stolen is some money, which isn't so bad. The bag however represents everything!
Anyway, thanks to Hanna, it all worked out and I got home safely, and the next day the German's showed up in my hostel, which was awesome! So loads of company!
A long day, but from one group of awesome people, to another. It's so nice to be travelling on my own!!!
Talk to ye soon,
Shane!
No comments:
Post a Comment