Better late than never..
As a wise man once said, all good things must come to an end. I am not sure who said that but I’m presuming he was wise. Two months in India went past extremely quickly, too quickly in fact. It feels like only yesterday I was unpacking and going into 4th year. Anyway, let’s not make this a trip down memory lane. Looking back, the whole 2 months seems like a dream. Saying goodbye to the girls was hard, but inevitable. Two months in an adults life is not a very long time, but two months in a child’s life is, and I was very lucky to be part of their lives for a significant amount of time. That is something I will never forget.
Kolkata was the next port of call before making my trip onwards to Bangkok and eventually Cambodia. I was able to hobble around without using my crutches when I travelled to Kolkata however I decided to keep them just in case they worked to my advantage, I’m not really sure how they would, but I thought they could, but they couldn’t so I got rid of them. After a short train ride ( 8 hours is considered short compared to other ‘epic’ train journeys you can make in India) I headed to the backpacker area; where there was an overwhelming number of white people (I think I saw 3 in an hour). I booked myself into what was advertised as a hotel and had a wander around the area taking in the smells the sights and the sounds. After indulging in a number of street specialities, what they were exactly I’m unable to say I headed back for an early night. After waking up at silly o’clock I headed to the Victoria Memorial, a beautiful building which looks like it has been lifted out of the countryside in Kent a plopped into Kolkata, the colonial capitol of British India. The gardens were beautiful, however you don’t need the two hours I spent looking around them until the actual building opened up. When leaving the memorial I started chatting to three middle-aged women who were in India on a photography course. All three of them were British and two of the ladies were bought up in Cambrdigeshire, what a small world. The afternoon was spent discovering quant tea houses and coffee shops. In fact in one coffee shop I started talking to a middle-aged couple who ended up being from the Isle of Man and knew two of the girls on the water polo team at University. I had gone from being one of the only foreigners in a state to meeting 4 people I had something in common with back in the UK. Apparently 6 degrees of separation has now gone down to 4....
That evening I headed to a beer garden and started chatting to a middle aged man, who owned his own private clinic in London however he had had a mid-life crisis and was re-discovering himself in India. He was with a friend of his, and after a number of beers we headed to a local joint where we struggled to spend 100rp on a meal each (around £1.2), which hands down was one of the best meals I had in India. I was beginning to think I was unable to meet any one below the age of 55 and the next day confirmed that. I was having some tea in the morning and decided to strike up a conversation with 4 ‘young people’ sat next to me, so I started by asking the standard questions. ‘Where about’s are you guys from?’, ‘Espain’. ‘Ooo, nice, and how long have you been in India?’, ‘Like a month already.’, ‘Very interesting, and what about Kolkata?’, ‘We have been here the whole time’. That was it. That was the conversation. I felt as small as ant and had a newly grown dislike of Spanish people. Lo Siento Espanol.
I have heard a lot of pretty negative things about woman travelling on their own in India, and I don’t question any of those things at all. I have to say my experience (despite the travelling being cut short) was pretty pleasant, and from what I can remember there were only two occasions when my bottom was grabbed which coincidently happened to be on the same day, in the same market and to be honest, most probably by the same man. But with a bottom this size, it is pretty difficult to miss. I had a great time wondering the streets of Kolkata, and with so many people around it was very difficult to ever feel threatened, despite getting lost for 6 hours during the day. I decided to go for a walk which turned into a morning and an afternoon of wondering down streets which I really didn’t and probably shouldn’t have wondered down. It was great fun though. My five days in Kolkata were fantastic and it gave me a real itch to travel on my own, which to be honest really pissed me off because I knew that was not going to happen for a while.
I headed to Bangkok for my foot to be looked and the doctor took one look at my X Ray, which the lovely doctor in India said was ‘fine’ and that there was no ‘bone fragmentations’, and confirmed that there was ‘bone fragmentation’. I’m putting the mis-diagnosis by the Indian doctor down to bad light.
After a 2 day visit to Bangkok, 3 doctors visits and MRI and a physio session later I landed in Phnom Penh to see mum and dad. Long story short, I was unable to reapply for a visa for India and was half way through applying for a visa for Myanmar when I was encouraged by my physio to not go, to ensure I crammed in enough physio sessions before I headed back to UK in Jan. It was decided, I was to spend 2 months in Cambodge.
I could give you an account of my everyday activity whilst out here but that would just be ridiculous. So I won’t. I will only mention a number of highlights..
I have been lucky to visit a few places since I arrived here. I had a visit from Hannah Rogers where we headed down south and enjoyed a few days of walking and eating too much food. Too much good food. I headed up to Siem Reap with Ben for an extremely short visit over the Christmas holiday. After arriving at silly o’clock we found a place to stay and headed to the floating village where we saw a number of crocodiles held in captivity and tried some local delights on the road side. The best I think was blood which was covered in sweet chilli sauce and BBQ’d. I’m not sure if it’s going to be included in Tesco’s next summer sale, but it was pretty good. We visited a local school which has received 100% of its funding from the Korean government, and were expecting a kind donation from us visiting, which Ben and I conveniently by-passed (he’s the one with the job remember). On returning to Siem Reap centre we booked in 2 road bikes for the next morning which we were going to use to get around the temples. That evening we indulged in the happy house – a pint for 50 cents, it would have been very rude not to, along with a local BBQ including crocodile, snake and the usual. As imagined, one drink turned into a few and when we arrived back at the hotel we needed to set our alarm for 4:15 in order to make the sun rise at the temples. The next part I do not remember, the alarm went off and we both got up and ready. Ben then looked at my phone and realised I had set the alarm for 3:00 instead, he was not happy, but like I said I don’t remember. We woke up again an hour later and started cycling aimlessly towards the temples. Once in Ankor there were no lights to follow so we cycled for an hour in the pitch black whilst still not legally being able to pass a drink-drive test.
I’m not going to go on about how great all the temples are, but they really are as fab as people say. We watched the sun rise and proceeded to give all out food which was provided by the hostel to a bunch of children sellers which we later regretted. All in all a fun filled few days.
In Cambodia, along with a number of other SEA countries there a huge number of Tuk Tuk roaming the streets, the driver in Siem Reap are particularly aggressive in their sales technique. You will be walking down the street and receive more propositions than one has received in their whole life. ‘Tuk Tuk lady’, ‘Madaam Tuk Tuk’. Some are even able to make it into a slightly dirtier proposition, ‘Hey lady, you want tuk tuk later?’. Ben came up with a great idea of turning around and asking, ‘What’s a tuk tuk?’. It stumps them and shuts them up, for those who are going travelling, take note.
Christmas was spent in Phuket with the family, which was as Christmas was suppose to be, over-indulgent and ‘over-fun’ (?!). For new year I headed to the sea-side ‘resort’ called Shiounokville, which was not the paradise which people claim it was, but was instead a shit-hole. We stayed at a hotel called ‘Cheers’ as it was the only place that had availability on that ‘special’ weekend. There were four of us (girls) and on arrival it hit us, we were staying at a gay resort. First things first, on arrival it was concluded that we were not a group of gay girls, which resulted in the owner immediately disliking us as he knew the only reason why we stayed there was because that accommodation closer to the ‘beach’ was all full. The clubs at the beach were swamped with Russians and Ozzies, two ‘great’ nations, of which the weekend confirmed that neither can hold their alcohol. The following evening the hotel held their daily dance show, which we decided to miss and headed for an early night and caught up on some shite TV. When we heard music we made the error of looking out the window and saw a number of local boys dancing to Rhianna for elderly western men. I could go further into this as it does start a number of moral debates and conversations about westerners exploiting local children. This happens too often in Asia, and in particularly Cambodia, but that is all I’m going to say.
In between going places I was able to spend a lot of time with mum and dad, making the most of being a ‘lady of leisure’ which getting 3 physio sessions a week. Even though I was unable to travel on my own for a month, the past 2 months have been fun and relaxing. Time has flown by, I’m now in London and it only feels like yesterday I was sitting here repacking before my Indian trip. I’m not sure what reason I have to write again, it may be through having too much time of my hands, or it may be when I’m at Sandhurst. Who knows.....
