Thursday 1st November
The rest of the journey was incredibly bumpy and dusty. The road is possibly the only main road in Cambodia not to have been resurfaced, despite it being the main route from Thailand to Siam Reap and Angkor Wat and rumour has it that the airlines at Siam Reap actually pay the government not to resurface the road to encourage tourists to pay to fly the route instead! The driver pointed out some other barangs cycling the road, to which I replied that I didn’t know them and was followed by more raucous laughter from the back seat!
And then I arrived! I was shown to my new home (second floor of the village guesthouse, above a grocery shop – very handy!) and had loads of help unloading and unpacking. Ree (sister-in-law of landlord) has made herself my cleaner three times a week, will also do my washing if I want her to and is going to help teach me to cook Khmer food. She and other female members of the family helped make my bed, unpack my clothes and set up the kitchen. I
was so grateful for the help because I was a bit overwhelmed and really didn’t know where to start!
Ree also took me straight to the market where we bought some food and returned to cook it together in my new kitchen! It was great! I am going to keep a cookery book of recipes so that I can hopefully make some myself in the future! I have to admit, we did not understand anything the other one was saying (even when I
was trying out my best Khmer) but through sign language and guess work, we managed to successfully create a meal together!
This morning I travelled the last leg of the journey to my new home! We loaded up the truck for the last time and I set off in the front seat with about 4 young Cambodians squashed in the back seat and at least 2 sat on top of by belongings on the back of the truck. The driver seemed like a lovely character, as well as being a very busy guy, and stopped a number of times to drop off or collect things before even leaving Sisaphon. At one point the impatient, but good humoured back seat passengers started beeping the horn when the driver had left the truck again and on his return told him that the barang had been beeping the horn! I worked all this out through body language, recognising a few words of Khmer and a bit of guess work. The driver looked at me very suspiciously out of the corner of his eye at which point I put my hands up and said “Ottei, Ot Khnom!” which I hoped meant “No, not me!” The back seat absolutely erupted in laughter as they mimicked my awful Khmer and the driver also joined in laughing!
The rest of the journey was incredibly bumpy and dusty. The road is possibly the only main road in Cambodia not to have been resurfaced, despite it being the main route from Thailand to Siam Reap and Angkor Wat and rumour has it that the airlines at Siam Reap actually pay the government not to resurface the road to encourage tourists to pay to fly the route instead! The driver pointed out some other barangs cycling the road, to which I replied that I didn’t know them and was followed by more raucous laughter from the back seat!
And then I arrived! I was shown to my new home (second floor of the village guesthouse, above a grocery shop – very handy!) and had loads of help unloading and unpacking. Ree (sister-in-law of landlord) has made herself my cleaner three times a week, will also do my washing if I want her to and is going to help teach me to cook Khmer food. She and other female members of the family helped make my bed, unpack my clothes and set up the kitchen. I
was so grateful for the help because I was a bit overwhelmed and really didn’t know where to start! Ree also took me straight to the market where we bought some food and returned to cook it together in my new kitchen! It was great! I am going to keep a cookery book of recipes so that I can hopefully make some myself in the future! I have to admit, we did not understand anything the other one was saying (even when I
was trying out my best Khmer) but through sign language and guess work, we managed to successfully create a meal together!
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