No doubt this will be the last entry from Austria – we leave on the 10th February! We booked a flight to Bangkok a couple of days after we got back from Barcelona – leaving at the end of January wouldn’t really give us enough time to get organized, so we chose a later flight. We’ll fly into Bangkok at lunchtime on the 11th, and will leave for Cambodia early on the 13th – the train leaves at 6am, so we didn’t want to get up that early just one day after arriving in Bangkok! It’s a slow train, about 6 hours to a little town near the border, then we go to the border by tuk tuk, cross through (hopefully without too many problems – we ordered our visas online, as there is an endless stream of people at the border that try to get you to pay more than you need to) and then take a taxi to Siem Riep (another 3 hours or so).
We’ve got just under 3 weeks to travel, and the plan is to go to Siem Riep, then down to the beaches at the coast, then up to Phnom Penh. Early in March we’ll meet up with Christian, an Austrian guy who was in Cambodia early last year – long story short, him and a film-maker friend made a short documentary about a Cambodian guy in Stung Treng (up north, along the Mekong and close to the Laos border) who is running a ‘school’ (at the time, just teaching under trees) and trying also to feed the children. They sold copies of the documentary to fundraise money for the project, and now an actual school building is being constructed right now. Before, in the rainy season (around June), the teaching was cancelled because it was just too wet to be outside. We’ll head to Stung Treng with Christian and we are going to stay there for a couple of weeks and do some teaching, and see how it works out. If we like it, and the Cambodian guy likes having us there, we can stay for pretty much however long. We’d pay $100 USD a month each, and that covers food and a bed. We’re not sure yet how much infrastructure is there (ie electricity, running water), but it doesn’t seem to be too far from the town of Stung Treng. So that’s the plan for now!
Will be a bit strange to leave Austria after all this time, but I think I’m ready for now. My German still isn’t great – but compared to when I first got here, I do know a lot more and quite often can pick up what conversations are about, even though I don’t understand all the words. And surprised myself at how long I could put up watching TV in German for! But some things about Austria I keep forgetting to mention – dogs, smoking and food. Dogs. They are much-loved animals here – people are allowed to take them (with a lead) on all the public transport, and, get this….in restaurants. Yup, no lie. It doesn’t shock me anymore to see a little dog sitting underneath a chair in a restaurant. Smoking. Not banned inside…..yet. I’ve gone back to the days of my clothes absolutely stinking like an ashtray after a night out. There are sooooo many more smokers here than back home. Guess we’re ahead with that one! And food/drink. Expensive! Hot drinks especially, is something that I never get used to – 3.50 euros (or more) for a hot chocolate, which is about $6. Crazy!
Well, that’s it from me…….from me in Europe, at least! The past two months have gone quite fast, but at the same time I settled in quite quickly so it feels like I’ve been here for longer. It’s been awesome, I’ve met so many people and have seen so many cool places – definitely not always easy though, sometimes the language barrier has driven me crazy for a couple of hours until I take a breath and start all over again the next day! I miss all of you guys…....lots!!
Oh, and a final upload of photos (the 4th page has the new ones): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=135792&id=742706461&l=b937687e28
