"PULLOVER, NOW!" (Siem Reap, Cambodia)

Well after a few days of rest and errands to be done in Bangkok I'm now here in Cambodia. It was nice to just hang out in Bangkok and feel at home, although I've only been there one time previous for 2 days, it was somewhere familiar to me.

Pinoys

The first night I got to Bangkok, I was at the "Hello Internet Cafe" and heard a girl speaking to the workers there. I thought I spotted a Filippino accent in her, low and behold it was! She's an actual Filippino, born and raised in Manila, name Janneth Bautista. Not only that, but she's a backpacker! Now that's the unusual part, ín the 3 months I've been gone, I've seen a Filippino (Pinoy or Flip) family/group of friends in Ayuthhaya, Thailand on vacation. I also met and hung out with Teresita, the Flip/American girl from New Orleans.

She's been in Bangkok now for a while and has made a lot of Thai friends. I think that she gets along better with the Asians than with the western tourists. Understandable. We hung out for a couple days and she helped me do some shopping and bargaining for me. We also tried to converse in Tagalog (Filippino language), she was yearning to speak her mother tongue, to someone, anyone. Unfortunatley, as my Mother always reminds me, my Tagalog is worthless, if not worse! She referred to me as not really being Filippino, not a real Pinoy. Just joking of course... kinda. She couldn't stop laughing at my choppy sentances that I tried to produce and would have to correct me.

Hmm... I can't wait to go to the actual Philippines in September and become a clown for everyone there! She says when I go that I can just talk English and no one will laugh at me... yeah right. We'll see about that.

Anyway, yesterday night we were in a book shop and this guy comes up to me and asks if I'm Filippino. I, being the ignorant fool that I am, thought that he worked at the book store! Ooops. I got that the other day too, as I was standing around at this internet cafe and someone asked how much it cost and which computer could they use. Duh... do I look Thai?? Well, I guess I do. So anyway, it turned out that this guy too was Filippino!! His name is Ren Saligumba, he lived in the Philippines till the age of 17 and moved to Toronto, he's now 29. He doesn't have an accent at all. Hopefully he'll be joining me here in Cambodia tomorrow and we can hang out and travel together for a bit.

So the 3 of us all hung out together for a while. Janneth and Ren were able to speak together in Tagalog as I listened and tried to put my 2 cents in. Of course they laughed... again. Ren's tagalog though is quite rusty for he's been away from home for 15 months travelling through Asia. Janneth also insisted that he is not a true Pinoy. Ren begged to differ.

Close Call

So, last night the 3 of us and Pin, a Thai friend of Janneth's, all went down to Pot Pong, the red light district and watched a boring Thai Girl show. Afterwards we ended up at this gay bar and had a drink. The gay scene in Bangkok is acutally quite big, its obviously quite different than Malaysia and India. A nice change. Last night though was pretty dead on this one strip we were on.

Anyway, afterwards I was able to make it back to my guesthouse right at 2am, the time of my curfew. If I'd been any later, I'd have been locked out until 5am, when the gate re-opens. A curfew, how annoying!

Its a good thing though that I was forced to come home, I had to wake up at 6am and get picked up by a bus to go to Cambodia at 7am. Earlier in the day I had emptied my backpack and used it to transport some stuff to the post office to send home a parcel. (2-3 months oversea/land)

I slept through my alarm, or it just didn't work. I luckily woke up at 6:54am! For a second I was convinced that I should forget about trying to catch my ride and go back to bed and re-book another ride for the next day. But then I said 'what the hell, why not at least try!'. I literally stuffed my backpack in about 3 minutes, wet my face, urinate, hand in my room key and made it outside by 7:06am. I had about 3 minutes waiting time until they arrived. It was enough time for me to brush my teeth on the side of the road. Wow! That was close!

Edmontonian... Bastard!

My ride was supposed to be a fancy 'micro bus' holds 38 people. Of course it wasn't, it ended up being a mini-bus or in my terms... a van. It held 12 people. I guess it was okay, a tiny bit cramped, but coming from India, no problem. Anyway, there was this obnoxious guy from Edmonton in the bus and he ended up having two different tantrums today. That's right, two! (For those of you who don't know, Edmonton is a city within my province 3 hours north of my city, beautiful Calgary). By the way, coincidently there was also a girl in the bus who lives in Calgary. Wow, 3 Canadians that all live in Alberta!

Anyway, at one point during the ride, the guy needed to pee. About 15-20 minutes before he'd asked the driver if there was going to be any stops soon and he had said yes. But he was willing to pull over so that he could pee on the side of the road if he wanted to. The guy (let's call him Bastard) said to keep driving. So anyway, out of no where, he was like "Pullover... pullover now! Stop the bus... stop it right here! Just pullover... right now!!! Smiling Cunt, doesn't even acknowledge me... Hey! I need you to stop the bus, PULLOVER..... NOW!!!! I SAID NOW!!!! FUCKING PULLOVER!!!" I don't know what the driver was thinking, but who cares, Bastard was being a... well a bastard! The driver started to slow down, but he knew there was a gas station really close by. He was aiming for the station. Bastard couldn't wait, there was his friend beside him that was by the door, he was telling him to open the door so that he could jump out. But his friend wouldn't open the door, because the bus was still moving, Bastard was getting really angry. Finally we pulled into the parking lot and he was like "PULL RIGHT UP TO THE DOOR, I'VE GOTTA PISS DUDE. FUCKING DUDE, I'VE GOTTA PISS, PULL UP TO THE DOOR!!! FUCK!" The driver stopped about 25 meters or so from the door. Good for him. Bastard had to run out with his legs tightly sqeezed together as he tried to make to the bathroom. Unfortunatley... he made it in time! It would have been a good laugh for us if Bastard would have peed his pants.

Later on, we were at this rest stop. To make a long story short, Bastard wasn't really going to Cambodia, he just wanted to extend his Thailand Visa and needed to cross the border. He got very impatient and started freaking out and slamming his hand on the table and swearing and saying that its taking way too long. "What the fuck are we still waiting here for!?! Let's get the fuck out of here, I don't have all fucking day dude!"

Shut up!

Bumpy Ride

So I've heard the roads are bad in Cambodia, but wow, they're really bad. Imagine driving down a road and not realizing there's a speedbump ahead and you drive over it really quickly. Now, imagine doing it over and over for about 8 hours! Try sleeping at the back of the bus, after only getting 4 hours of sleep the previous night. Try doing it when its about 30 degrees celcius outside and weak a/c. Not to mention the 3 previous hours to get from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. From now on, I intend to ride along the Mekong River to get from city to city. Plus that way, I'm sure I won't hit any landmines in the water! Ok, I'm exxagerating about being landmines on the roads that I was on, but I have to keep you entertained somehow.