The most unplanned open ended day of my trip goes well. Last night I had no bus ticket and no hotel reserved for today. Around 10pm, after having a wonderful dinner with two other girls from the USA, I learned that the bus I thought I reserved from Saigon to Phnom Pehn was in fact not reserved. Looking back I'm so surprised by how cool I was about it. Being in so many different places has made me flexible to new levels. Or maybe I've just accepted that I have no power to change some things! Why waste energy on something I can do nothing about? It is nice to not be on a tight schedule and know I could spend an extra night here or there if need be. The hotel staff were sorry for the mistake and we devised a plan for the morning in hopes of getting me on a bus first thing. The hotel ladies woke me at 7:30am to let me know they had secured me a seat. Wonderful.
It was a 6 hour totally uneventful ride. The border crossing was the most organized chaos I've ever seen at any border. We had a bus driver and then another man whose job was to take our passports and get us through the Vietnam and Cambodia borders. He'd took our passports and gave them back some 4 times. He filled out my visa papers. We purchased visa's at the border. However, I was marked a "male" and my first name was "Teger" and my last name was "Strand". When I showed the bus man the mistake he told me not to worry. At all other border crossings I've walked through as an individual. They look at me, look at my passport, look at me again and then usually stamp the passport and send me on. Here the bus man had us congregate in the border area. He gave the pile of passports to the border control and at regular intervals people would be given their passports and told to return to the bus. As I stood waiting I had no idea what was really going on. I kept thinking, "just give me my passport!". I wondered, "would they even care that I was a female and the name on my passport didn't match the name on the visa paperwork?" The bus man was correct it didn't matter that to him I was Teger Strand, 31, and male. There is definitely a system but I can't tell you what it was. I was grateful to get through and on our way in a short time.
Driving to Phnom Pehn gave me a tiny view of the poverty of this country. It is not as developed as Vietnam by far. I thought rural Yunnan looked impoverished. That area now seems of a higher level of development compared to what I saw today. Homes on stilts, buffalo, and fields dotted both sides of the highway. Like many days on this trip I had to remind myself of where I was. "I'm in Cambodia." Even if I say that out loud it doesn't seem real.
The hotel I'm staying in is literally a stones through from the Genocide "Museum". The "Museum" is a school that was made into a torture center and prison during Pol Pot's Year Zero plot against his people. What an eerie place to have a hotel! The contrast of this happy, quaint place with the memorial site across the way must be vast. Tomorrow I'll spend the morning there and the afternoon at the Killing Fields just outside of the city. It should be a full day in many ways!
It was a 6 hour totally uneventful ride. The border crossing was the most organized chaos I've ever seen at any border. We had a bus driver and then another man whose job was to take our passports and get us through the Vietnam and Cambodia borders. He'd took our passports and gave them back some 4 times. He filled out my visa papers. We purchased visa's at the border. However, I was marked a "male" and my first name was "Teger" and my last name was "Strand". When I showed the bus man the mistake he told me not to worry. At all other border crossings I've walked through as an individual. They look at me, look at my passport, look at me again and then usually stamp the passport and send me on. Here the bus man had us congregate in the border area. He gave the pile of passports to the border control and at regular intervals people would be given their passports and told to return to the bus. As I stood waiting I had no idea what was really going on. I kept thinking, "just give me my passport!". I wondered, "would they even care that I was a female and the name on my passport didn't match the name on the visa paperwork?" The bus man was correct it didn't matter that to him I was Teger Strand, 31, and male. There is definitely a system but I can't tell you what it was. I was grateful to get through and on our way in a short time.
Driving to Phnom Pehn gave me a tiny view of the poverty of this country. It is not as developed as Vietnam by far. I thought rural Yunnan looked impoverished. That area now seems of a higher level of development compared to what I saw today. Homes on stilts, buffalo, and fields dotted both sides of the highway. Like many days on this trip I had to remind myself of where I was. "I'm in Cambodia." Even if I say that out loud it doesn't seem real.
The hotel I'm staying in is literally a stones through from the Genocide "Museum". The "Museum" is a school that was made into a torture center and prison during Pol Pot's Year Zero plot against his people. What an eerie place to have a hotel! The contrast of this happy, quaint place with the memorial site across the way must be vast. Tomorrow I'll spend the morning there and the afternoon at the Killing Fields just outside of the city. It should be a full day in many ways!
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