Saturday, January 28, 2006
26th Birthday in two countries
Woke this morning feeling like crap.
We had a drive from hell to the boarder. The driver headed off in the wrong direction which set us back about an hour. We were stuck in a traffic jam for no reason and the air conditioning on the bus was not working well.
What a start to my 37th birthday.
We were stuck at the boarder crossing on the Vietnam side for 2 hours. We went through 2 checkpoints where they manually recorded details from our passports. While waiting I took a cold tablet I got from Lorna so at least I started to feel physically better.
But what a difference a boarder can make.
The Cambodians where smiling and helpful. So everyone in the group imediately started to feel better.
We stopped off for lunch along the way and the people there couldn't do more for us.
Arrived in Phnom Penn and checked in to our hotel where we showered to get rid of the travelling dust and headed off to dinner at a resteraunt run by a local charity.
The group gave me a present a hacky sack type thing with feathers on the end and a map of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia with all the places we stayed circled.
After dinner the lights went out and the staff brought out a birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday including a group of orphans that the owner of the resteraunt sponsors. We all got birthday hats and they sprayed foam and silly string on us and sang a Cambodian song.
It was a great dinner.
After dinner we went to the FCC (Foreign Corespondants Club) where a group of Foreign Corespondants were holed up when pol pot took over in 1970. Then went to a club called Ginger monkey where we played pool and I got a free CSC shooter. Bailys floated on butterscotch shnaps. Lovely. Good end to an otherwise bad day.
