After packing up and
checking out, we walked to the supermarket up the road where Kate had
bought the bus tickets and sat down to wait for the 8.30am bus to
Phnom Penh. Next door there was a woman in pyjamas grilling pork, so
I went up and grabbed two serves of the local rice-and-pork
breakfast, which we happily scarfed down as we waited.
When the minibus
arrived we all clambered into the back seat for what turned out to be
a pretty uneventful trip back to Phnom Penh. When we arrived, Kate
asked in the office about getting the bus up to Kratie, where we plan
to stop to break up the journey north into Laos. However, the woman
on the desk had no idea what she was talking about, despite there
being a big sign out the front listing Kratie as one of the company's
destinations. So be it. We hopped into a tuk-tuk, which took us to
our accommodation for tonight – Aura, a 'thematic' hostel, where we
were given the Peacock Room. After our last two Phnom Penh hostel
experiences this place was a revelation. The room was pretty small,
with just a double-bed bunk and a small bathroom, but, crucially, it
was quite new, so it was still bright and clean. And it was
air-conditioned.
After lunch, we
hired a tuk-tuk to take us out to the Myanmar embassy to pick up our
passports, hopefully with our visas inside. The driver didn't know
where the embassy was, but we had the address and he knew the road,
so he agreed to take us out there. The embassy was supposed to be at
number 181, but when we reached the 200s it didn't feel as if we had
gone far enough. However, the tuk-tuk driver stopped and we got out
and started walking back down the road to where 181 should have been.
Sure enough, we got down to the 160s with no sign of the embassy. We
were sure it was further along the road, so Kate got out and walked
up, with the tuk-tuk eventually starting up and following her. And
sure enough, for some reason number 181 was located somewhere among
the high 200s. We went inside and picked up our passports, which had
visas inside – hooray!
Our tuk-tuk driver
then took us out to the Central Market. Before we went in, however,
we went looking for the bus station, where we would hopefully be able
to buy our Kratie tickets. Kate's directions were a little vague and
we spent quite some time wandering around searching for it, but after
asking for some new directions, we finally got there and bought the
tickets we needed.
We then went into
the market, where I bought a new t-shirt to replace one that I had
bought there last time (I'd already given it quite a work out and it
was definitely in need of replacement), some flip-flops/thongs (my
last pair had given up the ghost on Song Saa) and some bananas. Next
stop was the post office, where Kate and I packaged up and sent off
the shirts and dresses we had bought to wear on Song Saa.
And then, finally,
we got another tuk-tuk back to the hostel, where we climbed the
stairs to a rather nice rooftop terrace. We ordered a few beers,
played some cards, ordered a pizza, played some more cards, ordered
some more beers, played some more cards and eventually, after a
ridiculously long time, received our pizza, which we suspect was
actually ordered in from a nearby pizza place. All the while, Kate
was checking her phone for an email from the hostel she had chosen in
Kratie. This was an NGO-supported training hostel, but unfortunately
they don't appear to have trained the staff to respond to emails, so
it looks as though we're just going to have to get the bus up
tomorrow and see what we can find.
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