Having nearly recovered from the bad foot in chaing mai we went out for a few celebratory drinks in a rooftop bar, no shoes allowed, lots of 'alternative travelers' but good music, good view and good buckets. but before i had had enough alcohol i lost my footing on a kerb and sprained my ankle. hoping it wasnt too bad got a tuk tuk back to the hostel and in the 1minute ride my ankle was now football sized and i kind of passed out when i tried to stand on it.
woke up very pissed of the next day knowing that i was back on the crutches for a while. we had a bus booked for the next day to take us back to bangkok. we had sorted our visas for vietnam out already and decided we were all ready to head towards there to hit a beach as soon as possible. so 12hours back to bangkok, overnight. i got the whole back seat to myself as i was clearly crippled. so slept ok. stayed one night in bangkok then had a flight to pnomh penh the cambodian capitl booked the next day. very short flight, made better by the special treatment for dave the cripple, que jumping and more legroom seats etc. we hit pnomh penh in rush hour, i have never seen anything like it, armys motobikes and cyclists and one way systems meant nothing to anyone, our taxi could not move at one point and the traffic nudging the car was pointing in about six different directions. rubbish lined the streets along with beggars and markets. everyone seems to want to screw you over and get your money. there were a few nice people speaking very bad english but all wanting to help. we had researched a nice room to stay in but after getting caught in a thunderstorm like ive never seen before in bangkok the notepad had been completely washed away and we couldnt remember the name. we ended up in hell. after five minutes in bed we all had bugs crawling out from below the mattress and all over us. nobody slept much that night and we really couldnt wait to leave cambodia as soon as possible.
the next morning we left the scumhole as early as we could and went in search of tourist information. the driver took us to the ministry of tourism and we ended up in a military type office with about ten people arguing over what we should do, none of them understood what we wanted though which was just to leave. we then left and got a tuk tuk to take us to a point we showed him on the map. after taking us to several different tourist attractions we were not interested in we just got out and found what we were looking for ourselves.. someone selling tickets for a boat ride down the mekong towards vietnam.
we ended up here in a small border town called Chau Doc, the outskirts of it on the river were all floating villages and lots of fisherman in traditional dress. seems to be complete jungle up the banks of the river its a beautiful place.
the centre is more hectic, plenty of bikes and beggers etc. people are all pretty friendly, unless they are just laughing at the bearded sweaty white guy on crutches thats me.
beer is less than 40p and main meals are very nice and about the same price.
we have a bus and then a boat booked, we leave at 6am tomorow morning and should arrive on an apparantly near desserted island called phu quoc late afternoon tomorow. we will hopefully spend a week there, my ankle should hopefully be fully recovered by then. and if the storms will stay at night rather than day we should have great tans as the weather is roasting. bring on the beach!!!!!
