On the move along the coast
Trip Start
May 12, 2005
1
3
33
Trip End
Sep 11, 2005
Krong Koh Kong,
Cambodia
Thursday, May 19, 2005
As it turned out, all of the other people on the bus were going to Ko Chang, a Thai island about 40miles from the border and the bus driver decided he wasn't going any further and paid off a local sawngthaew (pick-up truck with open-air seats in the back) to take me to get a minibus from the next town.
When I eventually got there, the minibus driver wasn't in any hurry to set off and by 4.30pm, I'd resigned myself to sleeping in a town with NO recommendations in my Lonely Planet guide i.e. probably on the immigration office's doorstep!
However, just when I needed one, a friendly carpenter from east London and part-time ex-pat, Mick, turned up to reassure me that my guide book was out-of-date and the border didn't close til 8pm. Mick, who lives for half of the year in Krong Koh Kong, recommended one of the guesthouses and undertook to arrange transport for both of us from the border into town.
The transport turned out to be two moped-taxis ('motos') that I had so far avoided like the plague: with a big rucksack and no helmet or protective clothing, it had certainly seemed suicidal in teeming Bangkok; and wasn't much more appealing at the edge of a quiet border town.
There was no other type of transport available and it was too far to walk on my own, at dusk, with my heavy bags, so I compromised by taking the 'moto', but making damn sure the driver understood the word 'slowly' and stuck to a crawl the whole way.
"Otto's" guesthouse had (perhaps unsuprisingly) several German and Swiss semi-permanent guests, who work like crazy for half the year at home in order to spend the rest of the year diving off the coast of Cambodia and Thailand. V pleasant place to spend the evening drinking on the verandah... Apart from the lack of running water and cacophony of karaoke and local dogs outside...
