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Other entries in Châu Ðốc

late again

bye to cambodia and all the great peeps I met. hello (or do I have to say "goodmorning) vietnam". booked a bus-boat trip to chau doc.

in true-to-me form, I was relaxing at the bus station waiting for the bus with a cup of coffee and fried bread dipped in sugar, trying to avoid the advances of the dude sitting at my table. (all tables were full so I sat at one occupied with this non-asian guy. "miss, where are you from, where are you going, where is your husband?" htat last one's a little strange but I give all the appropriate answers. him: "I leave for vietnam tomorrow, please come with me then and stay here tonight - I have very comfortable room." uhhhhmmmm....that'd be a no. I promptly ignore him, just keep waiting for my bus. )

I ask another dude if he knows when my bus leaves (I assume its late). when he sees my ticket, his eyes bug out, he starts yelling at anohter guy and they start yelling into a cell phone. whoops. this probably isn't good. my visa expired today so I was really hoping to get out of the country, but I guess if I dont I'll just deal with it.

so the guy at my table figures out what's happening and leans over "you miss bus? you stay with me". uhhhhhmmmmm.....that'd still be a no. and I wasn't convinced yet that I was going to be stuck in phnom penh. (I was surprisingly calm through all of this. SO not like me in south america)

sure enuf, they say the bus left 10 minutes ago. I make a lame attempt to cover my ass and say "you mean it left early? cause I was here on time." (but what do I know - I dont have a watch). didn't matter - they'd actually called the bus back to pick me up. how cool is that??!! thankfully the desperate guy left and minutes later, the bus came back to the station. wonder what the peeps already on it are thinking....

I try to crack a joke when I get on, somehting about "this sure isn't the way to endear myself to my travel companions." but they weren't too hard on me and I'm actually rooming with 2 aussie girls I met then.

after the bus, we transfer to the mekong river - the frickin mekong river! (I was a little excited :) after the border crossing, we transfer to a second boat that was a just a flat hull with a row of lawn chairs. but I scored a sweet seat in front, propped my feet up on backpacks and got the full on river breeze. was listening to mozarts' requiem - a surprisingly perfect fit for the environment. I'm really digging these river trips!

after a night in chau doc I thought I'd head to an island off the south western coast, but in reading my guide book, I'm thinking the far north is where I need to be (hills, mountains even!, trekking) so tomorrow I do a 2 day tour towards ho chi mihn city to get my self that much closer.

occured to me this is my first communist country. I've heard that you wont be able to tell it - the economy is so much better than cambodia or laos. one thing I do know - the food is already fantastic. spring rolls with cucumbers, lettuce, mint, and sweet ginger dipping sauce. during dinner, 2 women started yelling at eachother down the street. the one woman couldnt start her motor bike to get away so they just kept hollering at each other while she bobbed up and down on the clutch-starter thing-y. and she was wearing pajamas. (lots of women wear pajamas during the day here - they just like how they look). it was pretty comical - even the locals were laughing a little.

oh yeah - an ipod update: I hear so many horror stories about dead hard drives. I thought for sure that was me when I fried it in siem reap after that rain storm. well, it must've dried out cause even though one of the prongs is burned black, its now charging again and as good as ever. what did I do right in a past life to deserve this???

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