14th of August, 2024.
Hitchhiking in Cambodia: Kong Pisei to Moc Bai Border (Vietnam)
In my last morning there are no eggs for my breakfast. I have only a few slices of white bread and that’s it. The thing is, I know Kim could get eggs if she really wanted for me to have a decent breakfast before taking the road, the long hitchhiking trip to Vietnam, but I think she simply didn’t care. I walk to the main road. Kosol “tried” to offer to drop me off there, but I don’t think he really meant that. So I walk for about 40 minutes to the highway and from there I start to hitchhike.
A guy who works with a NGO in Phnon Penh, which builds houses for people in need. He can speak English, and although I don’t think he is a bad person, there’s something odd about him. But I know that he will be just alright so I don’t mind. He hives me some palm cakes which I devour, as I am starving already. We stop to visit some family members of him on the way, and then he drops me off at an intersection.
I wait. I wait for a long time in a quite desert area, with only a few cars passing by. I am rescued by a really nice and simple guy, who even though is not going far, drops me off in a much better place, by a busy highway.
While I am walking to a better spot, a nice family already stop and offer to take me further, but as they offer a place in the back of the pick-up, and it’s a long way plus is too sunny and warm, I pass. But soon enough, an aunt and her nephew offer to take me a bit further. They are very sweet and immediately offer me a gigantic guava. They cannot speak English but it’s just fine. They offer to buy me some food and when I tell them I am vegetarian, they get me 5 boiled eggs, a nice and big dry rice biscuit, which is delicious, and a big bottle of water. That’s right by the place where they drop me off in a village just before Neak Loeung. Only after they live, I realize I left my sign in their car, which is quite annoying. I walk one hundred metres and then decided to seat in a bench and each some eggs with the rice biscuit. All of sudden, the nephew comes and gives me back my sign. Yay! And wow! How sweet! I tell him I was just looking for a piece of cardboard to write a new sign, and I’m also glad that he could see me eating the food which he so kindly bought me.
Then, I stand in the wrong road for some time. Laugh. Luckily, some young girls correct me after some time, and I stand just before Tsubasa Bridge, which is quite astonishing, I must say.
The lovely Srey Aun with her husband and father in law stop for me. They are all so very nice and she, apart from gorgeous, is super sweet. She is a banker and they are going to Krong Bavet for business. We stop in a gas station for toilet and she offer to buy me food at 7-Eleven. I take a sandwich (not a Dutch Spinach pie with cheese because they are out) and a coffee shake drink, which is with soy milk. Delicious! She keeps offering to bu me something else but I kindly refuse. I still have some boiled eggs, so that’s me all settle for dinner. Yay! They drop me off in a pagoda right by the road.
The pagoda is quite full of locals, staying around the temple, which is being decorated for a very important festival coming on the next few days. These locals, are almost all owners of the popular “shop on wheels”, long vehicles, with a wooden structure which allows them to carry large amount of items, either food or utilities, and they go from place to place selling all these. At first, I am a bit apprehensive by staying here, as most of the people I see are men, and they have their hammocks hanging all around the temple. But then, one of them tells me I can put my tent inside the temple, where some monks are still decorating. As I do that, a monk who can speaks English come and starts talking to me. As I tell him about my travels, he is extremely surprised, and asks me many questions about it. After giving me some water, he leaves, as for my worries too.
I take a shower and then try to sleep. It is very difficult though because it’s burning hot. Outside, the chill air is amazing but inside my tent I am burning. That makes me realize that I must adapt myself to my travels as I move onward. In Asia, I should, most wisely, get a simple mosquito net, so I can just hang somewhere when the weather is too host (almost always), and not use my tent all the time. I also regret not having brought with me Andeep’s mosquito net, which she brought from the UK with her and left at Kosol’s house. She very kindly offered me to take, as she also offered many things she had with herself but wouldn’t really need, or didn’t really need to bring back with her. I tried to be reasonable regarding the weight I am carrying and took only a few, more essential things.
In the morning, I finish my rice cookie and start walking again. I have no idea how close I am to the border, but I still have to stop and wait for some minutes for a rain that strikes out of nowhere.
It is crazy how some things still surprise me after all these years travelling and crossing land borders. For example, this town, Krong Bavet, it starts out of nowhere, then these huge casinos show up out of nowhere too, and then the town dies away right at the border. Funny.
At the border, all is well and I enter Vietnam. Little I knew that I was also entering what would be a very significant journey towards changing myself, or better saying, going back to I used to be before I was hit by that terrible tragedy in Amritsar. But I would do that alone, all by myself as usual, no, I would get help, lots of help, from many different and lovely people all over Vietnam.
10 Years Around the World 