End of an "Epic" Journey

3/27

My Lonely Planet calls the journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap "epic".  If that's an epic, then I'm Odysseus and despite appearances, I am not actually an ancient Greek King.  It was actually a long, reasonably hard trip, I just thought that description was a bit extreme.  I got up at 10, went to the train station and bought my ticket (3rd class only, 48 baht- $1.50 USD) then bought a bag of steamed rice for breakfast.  I know that sounds weird, but it was really good and just exactly what I wanted so I was happy.  Since my train didn't leave until 1:05 p.m. I watched another two episodes of The Inbetweeners before heading out to get supplies for the train ride: Diet Coke, water, candied peanuts and a strange Kit-Kat-like thing and lunch at a restaurant right across the street from the train station.

The train was packed, hot and uncomfortable but I'd only be on it for, oh wait, five hours to Aranyaprathet.  Oh well.  The seats were hard, like the kind you'd find on a subway so I just got up every once in a while to make sure my limbs didn't go numb.  Mostly I worked on my beading- I'm almost done.

Eventually though, we arrived at the border town to Cambodia.  I hired a tuk tuk (a motorbike pulling a carriage) to take me to the border, then walked across the border into Poipet.  This was actually way over-complicated and a big deal because the visa was more expensive than it should have been, the border guard was super creepy and it was basically a miserable time.  I met up with an American couple who had been way WAY overcharged for a cab to Siem Reap; they should have paid $12 per person maximum but had paid $25 each, so basically they let me join them and I only had to pay $3.  We had to take a shuttle bus to get to the taxi station, then wait for a taxi, then wait for them to get gas.  Two hours later we arrived in the town of Siem Reap but for whatever reason the taxi wouldn't take us to our hotels, they had prepaid tuk tuks take us.  Finally, at about 9:30 at night I got to my hostel, Garden Village.  I didn't have a reservation so I had to accept their seemingly sketchy dorm option (normally I think dorms are fine, just this one was sketchy) though it ended up being fine and it only cost $1.  For the next night though, I moved into a single for $3.

All in all I'd traveled through three real sized countries, unlike some of the baby countries in Europe (cough, Benelux, cough) in 30 hours so I crashed into bed.

Passing Through Bangkok

3/26/2010

I woke up the next morning still on the train, watched the scenery until I realized it was ALL rice paddies, houses on stilts and a few temples, and started talking to Angie, the Malaysian woman I'd met the night before.  Graciously, she offered me some of her snacks for breakfast since I didn't have anything to eat, and the food vendors who came on the train came along only rarely.  I had some pastry thing with a strange hard jelly type filling and one small pastry with what Angie said was bean curd inside.  I believe her, it just didn't taste like it- it tasted like almond meal.  She was from Penang and was shocked when I said I hadn't been impressed with the food there, despite the great food in the rest of Malaysia.  Oh well.

I worked on my beading for a bit longer and eventually we made it into Bangkok.  Since I was leaving by train for Siem Reap the next day I wanted to stay near the train station, so I looked up a hostel in my guide and wandered over slowly.  Baan Hua Lamphong was actually a pretty decent place, all plants and wood in the middle of a dirty city.  I splurged and got a single room ($2 dollars more than a dorm room for a total of $8) since I'd spent some much time around people lately, much as I'd enjoyed that.  I was hungry, but even more tired so I took a nap from about 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.  It was nice but I was even more hungry when I woke up so I went out and got a Diet Coke, two satays of flavored meat (chicken? pork?- I don't know) and rice.  I gobbled them down, ignoring the scratchiness of the skewer at the back of my throat, and was still hungry. 

Nearby was a little restaurant advertising odd combinations of noodles, crab meat- real crab meat, I checked, pork and dumplings.  I got a smallish portion of all four together for 50 baht ($1.50).  On my table were several sauces and condiments to add to the food.  I tasted all the ones I didn't recognize and decided that I really liked the deer head sauce.  I'm not sure that's what it's really called, but it had a picture of a deer's head on it.  It tasted kind of like a heavy soy sauce, almost like a non-smoked steak sauce, but still very liquid.  I was very happy with my choice overall and wanted to walk around Bangkok for a bit, but while my area was safe and well lit, the areas around it, which I'd have to go through, weren't great so I didn't want to take the risk, and again, I was tired. 

Instead, I used my time wisely to finish Season Two of The Inbetweeners.  I've been watching it out of order for no discernible reason, so I watched an episode in the middle of Season Two first, then went back to Episodes 1-6 of Season Two and now I'm going through Season One in order, from Episodes 1-6.  Sometimes I think this blog makes it seem like I spend a lot of time doing nothing, so I just wanted to clarify with this achievement that I really am accomplishing a great deal: I've finished three books and an entire season of a tv show in three weeks!  That's efficiency in action.