As I left my guesthouse in a minibus pick up at 6.30 a.m., a couple, Carl and Sue, from Hawaii were waiting for same bus and travelling to B too, so we started chatting and who would believe it, weren't they going to stay in same place! Tripadvisor is a great 'uniter'of people!
The bus was to leave at 7.30 and supposed to take 3 to 4 hours but actually took 5 and then something happened and the agreed tuktuk did not arrive to collect us, so was I lucky to have this couple with me, eventually after waiting for about an hour in the heat outside this crazy bus station, I rang our guesthouse in Siem Reap, I had to ask a local man to use his phone. Kalyan, the receptionist in SR, rang the guesthouse and then rang me back to say the tuktuk was on the way! A bad start but everything looked up once our driver 'Tin Tin' arrived.
Lovely day here, we joined forces and decided to go on a trip with TinTin, google 'bamboo railway in Battambang'. We had a had mad trip through the countryside, forget all you know about health and safety! We hurtled along on this open bamboo platform at a scary speed, then a shout went up, another 'train' coming against us, all stop, hop off, lift train off track to allow 'down train' to pass then all aboard again! It was crazy but exhilarating tand the countryside, sunset and flicks of birds, I spotted egrets and herons made the whole experience magical.
Bus that morning, was packed with extra stools in the aisle, a lovely little lady landed in the seat beside me, Francoise from Quebec, 70 years old, solo traveller with hardly any English, so we chatted happily in French all the way. By chance when we were heading out for our trip later, who should we meet when we stopped for coffee but Francoise! Invited her to join us, she was great fun, even though the dual languages was a bit hard.
No comments:
Post a Comment