(Daniel) The weather on Koh Chang was decidedly poor again this morning, rain and thunder had raged throughout the night, and the morning found the weather outside our bungalow to be wet and cold.  I got up and packed my laptop away ready for breakfast and our imminent departure for the Cambodian border crossing at Poi Pet, several hundred Km’s North of the Island.  I hadn’t slept well, as a consequence of the weather, but more of my thoughts of the heartless and cold treatment that Nii had suffered at the hands of the American embassy official.  I tried not to let my mood show over breakfast, as we discussed the route and the plan for Cambodia.  Meanwhile I programmed our route into the Sat Nav using the GPS World map program, I tried to imagine what our itinerary would entail.   A small lizard ran past, I caught it and I took some photos of it much to the horror of the waitress who seemed petrified of the tiny creature!

I must admit that I am not sure what to expect from Cambodia.  I visited once before, around 6 years ago, and was not bowled over by a need to return to the country.  Not that it wasn’t amazing, the temples at Ankor Wat were and still are an amazing and inspirational experience for me.  But more than the temples, the state of the people is what haunted me after my visit to the capital city Pnom Penh and the killing fields and torture camps that still remain after the atrocities that the Cambodians have suffered in our lifetime.  I remember the mutilated bodies and faces of land mine victims outside Area 21, the death camp which is still kept in it’s original condition with blood stains on the floors and beds, and photos of the tortured victims kept with Nazi-like efficiency.  How impossible it was to look one of those people in the face and say no.  The overall feeling was that an underlying dread still remained in the people, saying that, Cambodia may have changed though, it has certainly been in the news a lot, with celebrities adopting babies and tourism at an all time high for the country.  Maybe money can buy happiness?  I also wondered if the famous road from Poi Pet to Siem Reap would still be in the same state of disrepair.  To this day, I have a bad neck from my last journey along that potholed dirt track over half a decade ago!

As Nii and I finished breakfast and went out to pack up the vehicle I noticed that a nagging short circuit problem had drained the batteries unevenly, I played with the switch for a while, and heard a fuse blow somewhere in the box hidden behind the dash.  This meant that a light somewhere has shorted to the body.  I will look for the problem when I get time.  The Bungalow complex owner said goodbye to us as we pulled out, dragging the trailer along behind us through flood waters that had risen overnight with the torrential downpour.  As we drove I could hear the front tyres grinding along the road.  The tracking is completely wrong now, since a helpful manager at the tyre place where they rotated my tyres the other day outside Chiang Mai told me that the would track the Wolf for free.  I asked him if he knew how to do it, as with my wheel spacers and wide Cooper tyres the offset would need to be “toe out.”   He assured me that they would get the perfect setting, a sentence that I heard repeating itself over and over as the tyre noise from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and then from the Capital to Koh Chang rang in my ears.  This morning I didn’t feel like turning the music up to drown out the noise of my tread wearing down at double speed, and so resolved to sort the problem out as soon as we see a tyre shop.

We boarded the ferry after a frantic search to find the second half of the return ticket.  It was no-where to be found, a fact that was jarring me as we drove onto the rusted old boat for the 20 minute journey to the mainland.  The attendants were very friendly and told us that we could look for the ticket during the crossing, allowing us onto the boat without the paper.  Somehow amongst my bad mood and the frustration of loosing the ticket we stopped looking about halfway, and as I pulled off the ramp on the other side, no-one stopped us or asked for a ticket.  I drove to Canthaburi then, around 50km away from the ferry port.  At the entrance to the city, we found a tyre shop, where I asked them to help with our tracking dilemma.  They didn’t know the correct setting either, so I asked them to adjust both wheels by 5mm, then test drove the Wolf around the block.  The noise was considerably reduced, but still apparent.  I decided that some respite was enough for now, and that I would wait to see if Nick could find some accurate formula for calculating the required offset. I bought some oil for my supplies, and then headed into town, where I picked up a tarpaulin to cover the roof tent, and another rechargeable strip light, after the one I picked up in Laos has been working so well.

Stocked up with these parts, and some beer and water that Nii bought while I was fitting the tarp.  We got back on the road, and followed the path which I had drawn and loaded into the Garmin Sat Nav units.  The drive was easy enough, but the single lane roads and large trucks made for a low average speed.  My new twin air horn is starting to come in handy, especially for animals on the road, which it manages to see off from a hundred metres or more.   Funnily enough, the Wolf and her 300TDi engine sounds the best I have ever heard, apart from the tyre noise, the engine is really purring, as much as a diesel can purr.  The turbo, inter cooler and engine itself sound better than they ever have, and the power is there whenever I need.  A fact that surely must spell out some doom on the horizon!  We drove as far as a town called Sa Keo, not far from the Poi Pet border.  There we checked into a cheap hotel and prepared for a long day of paperwork and patience tomorrow.  I could have pressed on to the border and maybe made the crossing today, but if the road is still as it was, I could hardly hope to make any dent on the 160km journey that had taken me 12 hours on my last visit.

Later...

As we discussed Cambodia, and what to expect from our time there, a row erupted between Nii and I, it was hard to tell what started it, and it was hardly a full blown screaming match.  However it showed that an issue had crept in between us somehow,  I left the room for a short while to think, but it didn’t take long to realize the problem, the Visa issue, and the American embassies unfair treatment of Nii, they wouldn’t listen to a thing that we had to say, and I genuinely think that we had a case for a Visa to be granted.  

I was frustrated by the fact that prior to this failure I felt almost immortal.  Built up, and resting on the laurels of the challenges that I have overcome already.  Now this was a dry slap, knocking me down a peg or two, and at the cost of my heart.  I returned to Nii, and explained what she already knew, that this was my fault, I had built up her hopes with my arrogance.    We went out to eat some food then, hunger being another contributing factor in any bad mood,  especially with my weight being low still.  Over dinner, we discussed the idea of Nii flying to Mexico instead, and whether we had a chance of their process being any less rigid.  I couldn’t help but feel that if we managed to get her over there, then the ongoing visas would be considerably easier.  But if this failed, surely I would only be increasing the disappointment and heartache for both of us.

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