Phnom Penh/Chau Doc – The klutz is back
On my last night in Cambodia, my plans were to have a relatively quiet night so then I could get up fresh and early for the boat to Vietnam. Of course, these all went up the wall. I’d had a slight altercation with a guy in an internet cafe – no real drama, he just tried to charge me waaaaaaay too much money, which had left me in a bit of a downer. I was sitting in the guesthouse, feeling a bit glum, when a lovely friendly face came over to say hello. ‘Twas James, who hails from just outside of Newcastle, and who has the best job in the world ever (circus performer! Why did my careers advisor never tell me that was an option?). He and his friends have been travelling through SE Asia before making their way over to Australia. The guys were such a lot of fun to be with, they put the bad internet man right out of my head, but they made me stay up far too late.
We’d been out for a few drinks by the lakeside (including my farewell Long Vodka at Moskito – I am in mourning and am now only wearing black, a la Queen Victoria), and headed back to the guesthouse for a few nightcaps. The guys decided they were hungry, but there was a problem – the cook had gone to sleep. I asked the barman if I could fix them something to eat (nothing ever changes, eh?) and he said yes, no problem. Cool! Only trouble… what to make? I wasn’t sure in my addled state I could remember the recipes for Chicken Amok or Beef Loc Lac, but looking round I could see some baguettes. For the filling, I discounted a scrawny looking banana, limp lettuce and a stick of rhubarb like an oversized dog bone, and decided on straightforward tuna mayo. Poor James wandered into the kitchen and got the job as my commi chef – anyone who’s cooked with me in the past will no I get seriously bossy at times; I’m sure I even rapped him over the knuckles with a spoon at one point. I added a large squeeze of lime and some black pepper, and we were ready to rock. And I tell you – no one’s ever appreciated tuna mayo sarnies like those guys did. They made me feel like Nigella Lawson. And to top it all off, James refused to believe that I was 30 in August (and no, sarky mind, he didn’t think I was 40 either). So my bad day turned into a good last night in Cambodia – albeit one that finished way too late, about 2 hours before I had to get up. Joy of joys.
So it was with a very bleary head that I got on the bus which would take us to the boat which would take us to Vietnam. The mini bus was crowded, but fairly uneventful, as these things go – and I am a master of the eventful journey. The best bit was either hearing the driver use his horn, as it sounded like something out of an arcade game, or the Khmer guys squashed in next to me telling me they loved me. My response? “Oh, that’s nice”.
One of the girls on the boat was panicking quite a lot – she was only away for two weeks, and had been given misinformation about the length of time the journey took – because of that, she was missing a whole day of her holiday. This was stressful for her, but equally stressful for the rest of us, who had to hear it every 5 minutes. She was relatively dim, as well (although I’m making no comment on the fact that she was from Essex) – she looked at me in surprise when I handed my passport over and asked, “Oh, do you have a British passport?” “Erm, yes”. “Oh. Are you from London?”
I do not have a London accent. Maybe you couldn’t pinpoint me as Manchester per se, but I’m a proper northerner. Eee by gum.
But yeah, apart from the constant chatter about how late we were (which after a while faded into a generic background hum), the rest of the journey passed without incident. Even the border crossing was insanely easy – we paid the mandatory bribe (2000 Dong, and at 16,000 to the dollar I wasn’t whinging like in Thailand)(and, incidentally, whoever coined the name ‘Dong’ for the Vietnamese currency is an evil genius), wandered over and had a cup of tea, and that was it! Through. No problem. All rumours we’d heard of evil border soldiers and their x-ray machines were thankfully just rumours.
In the late afternoon, we pulled into the port of Chau Doc – described in the Lonely Planet as ‘sleepy’, although it seemed anything but – a teeming, bustling little port town, not on the tourist map, but a nice place to hang out for a while. I’d got chatting to two English guys on the boat, Dean from Essex and Richard from Yorkshire, and as we were staying at the same guesthouse, we arranged to go out later for something to eat.
I was still pretty tired from my late night – I’d got another hour or two’s sleep on the boat, and had shut my eyes for another half hour before I went out. I’m actually trying to build a defence of sleep deprivation for what happened next, but the fact is, I’m on shaky ground.
All my life I’ve had a history of injuring my legs, and ESPECIALLY my feet. All the time. I got into the habit early, when I’d just started to walk and fell down the stairs, which sent me back to crawling for a while – and of course, the most recent injury was my spectacular catapult in Siem Reap which left my leg bleeding. Other injuries inbetween have included falling at an ice rink and busting my knee, stepping on glass and getting a piece embedded in my foot, and, the most painful one by a long shot, walking barefoot smack into my stone hearth last year. So you see, when it comes to injuries of the lower extremities, I’m a pro.
And so, when I fell off a kerb (it was dark!), twisting (or possibly breaking – I’ve done both before and can’t tell the difference) the big toe on my right foot, I should have been expecting it. I knew straight away (from the searing pain) that something was wrong – and to top it off, the next day it turned a delightful shade of black, with the bruise heading down into my foot.
Luckily, because I’ve done this so many times, I knew the drill back to front – ice (which the hotel charged me for!), ibuprofen, raise it, strap it – but it still put a dampener on my entry into Vietnam.
I wonder what the Vietnamese for ‘Hopalong Cassidy’ is?
Tags: Cambodia, Travel, Vietnam
Suzanne
Kong Huan bin
“I slipped and fell off a kerb in Vietnam” is so much better than “I was walking through reception at work.The floor was wet with no warning signs.I tripped and hurt my knee really badly”……… please get in touch with us when you get home.
Poor you! I hope the toe isn’t hurting too much and doesn’t stop you from getting out and about to see more of the sights in Vietnam.
Caroline and I are off to Nice on Sunday but will call into an internet cafe and catch up on your blogging.
Love you lots.
Michael
Hi Suze:In the wars again – your poor thing.
Hope your toe is healing – not much fun when you’ve so much sight seeing to do I’m sure, but at least you’re just getting on with it. Hope you enjoy Vietnam. We all missed you and your mum yesterday (Gabi’s birthday) – she had a lovely day. Take good care – Lots of love Auntie Rosemary x