(Daniel) In the café on the main street, over a breakfast of fruit and a milkshake, I waited while my laptop sent the photos and Diary from the jungle trip back to the Home Team in England.  I had dropped off the disc for Koh Kong TV with Reme, and left Nii in the room packing the last of our stuff and organising the trailer.

The upload took nearly two hours, in which time I picked Nii up from the Hotel, checking out and settling our bill. Then grabbed some fruit and supplies from the Market.  I also found someone to buy my Laos money, but the rate was terrible, about 50% of the value! The extra funds would come in useful as we cross back from here in the far West to the Eastern border with Vietnam.  I picked up the Laptop from the internet shop and started out on the road back to Sihanoukville.  As I drove out onto the fast packed-gravel road, the thought of the 4 ferry crossings, and each session of haggling that went with them hung in my mind like a headache.

I won’t go into detail about the ferry crossings, anyone interested in them can look back a few days to the multitude that we have taken already.   Suffice to say that it was another session of driving as fast as possible, in order to reach the ferry before too many people gathered to wait.  Then sitting around for ages waiting for the homemade 'scrap challenge' ferryboat to come back to our side of the river.  Only to arrive at the other side and join the mad race to the next ferry and it’s inevitable wait.

At the forth crossing, tired and frustrated, I was buying a stem of sugarcane as a lorry went to board the ferryboat, sinking up to it’s axle in the soft mud just infront the ramp.  The men jumped out and looked around perplexed.  I walked over and undid the two shovels from the bonnet, handing them to the guys, then unscrewed one of the waffle boards from the rollcage. The men looked at the board as I walked over and laughed.  They dug away at the wheels and tried again, but the wheel just dug in further.  I tried to put the waffle board under the wheel, but the men stopped me again telling me that it would break under the truck which was probably loaded to 9 tonnes.  I insisted that the 50mm fiberglass waffleboard would bend and not break but the men wouldn’t believe me.  They tried again, and even went to find a steamroller to push the lorry from the back.  But I stuck the waffle board under the tyre and called for the driver to try one more time.  As if by magic, the tyre gripped the board and pulled it into the hole, bending to fit the contour of the slope.  The driver carried on up the ramp and parked, allowing us space to get on behind him.  The sun was starting to set by now, and I didn’t bother stopping to say I told you so to the locals who had not believed me about the waffle board!

After crossing to the other side and driving the next 100kms to Sihanoukville, we came to the toll booth at the entrance to the town.  The attendant asked if we could give him a lift to town, and I obliged.  He was so happy that he invited us for dinner and to stay at his house.  Normally I would have accepted his kind offer, but I was still not 100%, and didn’t fancy flushing the poor guys toilet all night.  I dropped him off and made our excuses then checked into a hotel near the road.  Eating my first dinner for a few days before going to bed.

PREVIOUS |  NEXT