The bus from Kompong Thom left from a family-driven bus-stop in the middle of the main-road. While I waited for the bus to arrive (nobody knew the exact time) the grandfather and the mother were shouting at the kids to speak english to me. Poor kids, they didn't want to, but the grown-ups kept pointing at me, yelling "blablabla farrang blablabla hello". Hehe. Finally they gave up.Instead the mother sat down and started looking for lice on the head of the kids! Next to me! And I tell you- she found quite some, quenching them with her long finger-nails :)
The bus-ride took four-and-a-half hours for 150 kilometer, mostly because of the bad road, or rather "no road". Luckily it's dry season, otherwise we would've been pushing the bus half the way. I bet!
It reminds me alot of last time I was here in Cambodia, then there were far lass roads, almost no cars, but motorcycles. We had to get off the bus sometimes to make it lighter to cross small rivers.
Today it's many mor roads and many more (big) cars. Still the motor-bike (mostly Honda 110ccm) is the favorite way of transport. Not only people- I've seen 6 (SIX!!) people on one bike (2 grown-ups and 4 kids), but also everything that needs to be transported. Up to 4 sacks of rice (each probably 20 kilo), piles of hughe matrasses, animals. It's very interesting to watch!
Anyway, the bus-ride- I asked myself several times on the way if it was really worth the effort to go up north.. Once I arrived- ofcourse it was!
Tiny town, mountains in the background- nothing much to do, except relaxing :)
Very nice hotel with cable-TV :)
First thing I tryed to buy a bus-ticket for the way back. It took me more than half an hour and almost all of my nerves. I mean, what does the girl at the ticket-counter (at the bus-station!) expect, when I show her a date and the name of a town?? That we are playing Jepoardy??
She just shok her head and wouldn't communicate. Argh!! In the end I acted like a "primary-school-teacher"- real calm, soft voice, giving her lots of thumbs-up for any effort she made. In the end I got my ticket..
(Later I figured that NOBODY here buys a ticket TWO DAYS IN ADVANCE- that's unheard! Poor girl, not easy for her to understand.. Strange foreigners..)
Exhausted I was invited for dinner of one of the locals (actually the judge of town!! max 30 years, hehe). Really nice. He also helped me to figure out how to get to the temples the next day.
I hired a moto inclusive driver and he took me all the way there, around and back.
Pretty hard trip- 75 kilometres dirt-road, but he was a good driver.
The temples were nice. Surprisingly many and big. I like old stones :)
The day after I went back south, to Kompong Cham. Had to change busses in Kompong Thom, where I was heartly greeted by the family from the bus-station (the mother with the lice). They gave me coffe and corn-cobs, just because they were so happy to see me again :)
Kompong Cham is reffered to as a very nice city in THE book. I think it was ok.
Nice to bycicle around. One day I did that, went over a bridge to an island (very rural) in the Mekong. During the wet season a ferry connects the island with Kampong Cham, during the dry season the bridge. The bridge is build EVERY year new. Out of bamboo, looks like hughe matchsticks and doesn't look really safe, but it obviously is.. Look at the pictures! It's great! When a car passed by me the whole bridge was shaking and the bamboo-mats made rare noises..
Next day I hired a moto-driver who tok me to a rubber plantation (very interesting!), a village where they wave the world-known Kampong-Cham-silk-scarfs and a wooden temple. Very holy the temple since it's the only wooden one in whole Cambodia.
We also went to some hills with monastrys atop. They are callede "womans hill" and "mans hill". There is a long story behind these hills, in short the men got tricked by the women (because they are so smart!), who build a higher hill. From that time on the men have to ask for the hand of a woman not the other way around. The man has to pay for the woman. This is practised still today. Not like in India everybody here rather wishes to have a daughter than a boy :)
After the 3 nights in Kampong Cham I went to Kratie, my last stop in Cambodia so far (I'm planing on coming back after Vietnam, but now my visa is expired..).
The bus-ride to Kratie was an experience! First they put TWO MOTORBIKES on the bus! In the midle of the aisle, so that NO-ONE could pass them without climbing over all the other passengers, then they loaded zillions of sacks of vegetables on the back-bench and THEN they started to fill up every single space left with people. Amazing!
Kratie is another small town, perfect to relax for the last remaining days. Right after I came here I went to see the dolphins- sweet-water-dolphins, only a couple of them remaining in the world. We saw quiet a lot of them, diving up to catch som air, some of them jumping. I tryed to make some pictures, but gave up after 10 minutes, they were just to fast..
Next update from Vietnam :)
New pictures in the Cambodia-folder.
