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Day 6
Another cloudy day, though I can’t say I’m that disappointed as I’ve yet to recover from the sunny one. It’s calmer though, which makes it good weather for sitting on the deck reading. In the morning I finish atonement and reply to a few emails from Rob.
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Day 6
An entire day was set aside for the journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok, in neighbouring Thailand. It’s not really that far, about 300km, and the ticket seller was confident that the bus would take 8 hours. At an average speed of just 37kph (23mph), that doesn’t seem very impressive, but given the state of Cambodia’s roads, it was decidedly optimistic.
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Day 6
location:Thurne/Ludham
summary:Quanted back to the yard. Poor weather, we went to the cinema
trip:sailing03
day:6 -
Day 6
Sasha woke me about 10.30 AM. Rob claimed that several previous attempts had been made. Breakfast was porridge and rice pudding, which might once have been hot, but certainly wasn’t by the time I arrived. We went down to the beach, where a fisherman stood angling on an old wreck. We explored the wreck, and sat reading books on the beach in the sunshine.
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Day 6
summary:Transport Museum, Shopping and Internet, Reading
location:George
trip:sa02
day:6 -
Day 6
Today I was prepared for the poor organisation skills of the tour operators. I stuck a note to my door saying “I’m in the lobby, wearing a black T-shirt and dark green trousers”. I notified reception that I was sitting in the lobby – yes in that seat over there – and if someone asks for me don’t call my room. I waited in the lobby again, and this time the tour guide arrived and told me to follow him. He led me to a bus on Khao San Road, which I boarded for the drive to Ayuthaya. As I expected, there were a number of unpublished stops along the way, but not for cash-grabbing as on my last tour.
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Day 6
This morning we go to Basil’s ‘village’, which is to say the village actually belongs to him. On arrival we attend a midday church service, at which I am conspicuously the only white person in attendance, although no-one else seems to notice. The church is very small, just to service the small community, and the service lasts about half an hour, much of it singing in Shona, while moving from standing to sitting to kneeling. At the end a gong sounds about six times, and the service is over. This type of thing is repeated morning noon and night every day of the week, and I’ve no doubt every member of the village regularly attends. I am to stay overnight here and return to Harare tomorrow evening, after spending the day at the Rusape factory where shelling is to start in the morning for the season’s crop.
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Day 6
You can’t leave Cairns without a visit to the Great Barrier Reef, and we had no intention of missing out. We got up early and arrived at the pier by 8 am (virtually all the day tours start this early) to meet our boat. The crew were of the fun-and-lively tour guide variety similar to the guy we had had the previous day, but there were a great deal more people on the boat, so we pretty much had to entertain ourselves for the one-and-a-half hour trip to Hastings Reef. On the way, everyone was issued with the appropriate equipment – a mask, snorkel and flippers at the least, and also a wetsuit if so desired.