The trip started off very successfully with a 3 hour moto ride through Phnom Srok district countryside and into Oddar Meanchey province. Soroth decided to take me on the scenic route which meant a bit of cross country, driving over very bumpy roads, motoring down dried up mud churned tracks which required 1st gear and a keen eye for the best bit of track to attempt, navigating around and through herds of cattle which don’t always respond to the moto’s horn and taking shoes and socks off to wade through small rivers while he slid both motos (one at a time) through the water. It was great fun!
We arrived at Oddar Meanchey happy but very tired and it was lovely to meet his family members and eat with them. His mother asked me a list of all the Khmer food I could eat which luckily for her is pretty much anything apart from Baby Ducks and any part of a cow/pig’s digestive system! Sadly, I was not destined to eat much of her wonderful cooking at all. On Saturday morning I woke up with stomach cramps and the worst diarrhoea since I ate dodgy KFC in Wandsworth 2 years ago and soiled my bed. I mean, one can and should expect an increased amount of loose bowel movement in this part of the world but this was something else. Without giving too much detail (although if you want colour and consistency reports, I’ll be happy to email!) it was a horrible experience to have, not least because I was a guest in a relative stranger’s house and using an Asian loo and no toilet paper! My temperature was quite high for about 12 hours and thoughts flashed through my brain such as...
‘What was the quickest way to get to Phnom Penh?’
‘Would VSO send an air ambulance for me?’
‘Would I die here?’
‘Who would tell my mum?’
With frequent trips to the toilet throughout the day and following night, I quickly lost all pride and dignity (if I had any to start with!) and felt totally awful for my hosts as I couldn’t eat a single thing put before me. After each of my liquid deposits in the far from soundproof bathroom, I would return to the foetal position in a pool of sweat in my bed and compose ‘Goodbye letters’ in my head till I drifted off to sleep again.
And oh, how they tried to get me to eat! As fast as my entire body was rejecting food, Soroth and his mother were busy trying to persuade me to eat something! I stopped counting how many times I apologised to them as they had gone to so much trouble for me, but I was overwhelmingly pleased to be on the moto driving home again, buttocks clenched, on Sunday afternoon. Soroth graciously chose a more direct route back to Phnom Srok to avoid too many bumpy bits of road. There were still herds of cattle to negotiate the dirt roads with and the small river we had waded through days earlier had at least doubled in size which meant we had to drive our motos onto a bamboo boat and pay a toll in order to cross. I would’ve taken photos if I’d thought about it. It was amazing to see how much the river had swollen and how quickly the locals cash in on it, but to be honest snapping photos was the last thing on my mind and except in crossing the river we didn’t stop the whole way home!
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