Cambodia 🇰🇭 speed boats &; anxiety

Am posting this blog as a follow on to the ones before Christmas to keep up ! Have been away skiing ⛷ another blog & was full of this bloody awful lurgy whilst away (still skied thou 🙌🏻) and spent (unusually a few days in bed ) before heading off to airport again am currently on a cargo ship for 12 days in Norway chasing the Northern Lights which is huge fun apart from being thrown about a bit as I type this bit 😩!…I need to blog about Christmas too and wish you all a happy new year…so much to do …I will get there … 😘

Son had some input into the trip and he stated he had had enough of planes and wanted to go by boat to Cambodia and then by bus back into Vietnam en route home for us and Oz for him . Being the dutiful Mumma Bear we organised a “speed boat ” from Chau Doc to Cambodia a 5 hr trip along the river now I fully understand all the shenanigans with border controls but later with that …. firstly we hopped aboard this boat … about 15 of us to be honest I did not think it was sea worthy but if Mr Lover Lover was not looking to concerned then I figured all would be fine . ( He is a incredibly safety conscious with his own boat & let me tell you there is no way you would be allowed to voyage without a life jacket !) so off we go all Big luggage is stowed at back of boat under the floor and we just have hand luggage… we set off at quite a rate of knots and before long are into the less occupied part of the Mekong when suddenly I could hear sirens … there was a police patrol boat heading out way … the skipper Was frantically grabbing a pile of life jackets and practically throwing them at us shouting “put on ” put on ” … too late was the cry he was busted for no passengers wearing life jackets they boarded the boat and went though it with a fine tooth comb the skipper was fined VND ( Vietnamese dong) 359331.46 all of about £12 … we set off again all in life jackets and thought god with this heat in these huge orange things how grim only to then see the skipper duly collecting all the life jackets and stowing away !!

Once diagnosed with a illness that they say is treatable not curable … ( they call me a lifer !!) it makes you see things very differently . I have always believed in giving my children holidays and always took my Mum’s advice of having a holiday as it was precious quality time spent with kids even if it was camping she uses to say make adjustments and penny pinch here and there not too sure she meant loading up the Barclaycard !! But it has made me live for every day and realise each day is precious… I miss the kids a lot ( daughter is away at school) and Son in Oz but they are happy and do you know what we all value health and happiness ….I have always encouraged mine to travel .. I moved to live in the Middle East when I was 23 I remember standing in departures in Manchester airport breaking my heart and so was Mum .. poor Dad trying to console two of us …but I was off on an adventure so the tears didn’t last long … listening to me over the years telling mine to see the world she said hmmmm you just wait until you are standing at the airport waving one of them off … she was quite right daughter and I totally inconsolable seeing son off to Oz via Thailand poor Mr Lover Lover ( who has no offspring of his own ) was standing there … if there had been a speech bubble above his head it would have said how the fuck have I ended up taking responsibility for this !!! .

. Infact I have to say to be with someone like him ( 3rd time lucky don’t forget !!) I am one goddam lucky gal .. he has the patience of a saint , makes us laugh and takes the rough with the smooth , rides the highs and lows , takes stresses and strains , he really is the tonic to my Gin , butter to my bread , marmalade to my toast the list goes on !

We arrive at the Cambodian border Vietnamese side and are told to get off the boat with all hand luggage … which we duly did passports handed in and a long wait ensued whilst the boarder police stamped passports with exit stamps we had come in on a visitors visa applied for at the Vietnamese embassy in London and would be coming back in to go home on a complimentary fourteen day visa …..relevant to another bit of this story … we were then asked to put our luggage onto a x-ray carousel which we did and watched it go round and round with no one watching the screen it was clearly just done for effect !! We got back on boat for about ten mins and stopped again to be told to get off at the Cambodian border and wait for visitor visas to be issued …… long drawn out process in such heat and my god they are fuck of a stroppy .. passports thrown back at us ..with the look of evil … welcome to Cambodia ….another couple of hours and we arrived in Phnom Penh staying right smack bang in the middle and having a lovely friendly warm welcome from the staff at the hotel .www.villalangka.com
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ef=”http://Www.villalangka.com”> Welcome is a word I love… I love a house full of people until I’ve had enough of course … whilst having chemo the hospital day ward was always welcoming I had one week where I had treatment in hospital .. hands in buckets of warm water to get those veins up and I always thought of it like the game pacman the chemo I was having was bright red and injected slowly into a vein ..a nurse said think of is as eating up all the bad cells ! Week two was a quiet week recouping some energy and week three was party week although I didn’t have a bloody drink of alcohol for 6 months …. I filled this week with lunches , afternoon teas , visitors and enjoyed every bit … I had some liberating moments too living in the sticks I was able to ditch the wig and walk the dogs completely bald … loved it… not too sure how the odd train passenger took it as we had a railway pass our house …. must have looked quite strange .

Best way to travel around Phnom Penh is by tuk tuk , we grabbed one outside the hotel ..English is not widely spoken and we asked to go to the Killing Fields … one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had it left us all deep in though for the rest of the day .. anyway our Tuk Tuk driver introduced himself as Mr Map and was our driver for the day … he waited for us in the Killing fields and we wanted to go back to hotel which we though he had understood ! We ended up stopping on the corner of a street and Mr Map pointed there was some confusion over payment and he waved his hand away we thought we had paid him earlier … so we walked down a street and the next one and the next one could not see our hotel anywhere … I was really fucked off , boiling hot ( I can no longer regulate my temp since chemo :() and flagged down the nearest Tuk Tuk … it took about a good 10 mins to reach our hotel with a diversion to his mate who understood English !! Later on that evening reception called us over asking why we hadn’t paid Mr Map we explained he had just left us on a random street after much confusion Mr Map was phoned … l was laughing a lot .. he had dropped us off at S21 Prison and waited all day for us to reappear … we had not even noticed the huge perimeter fence and high walls which we walked past … imagine a taxi waiting all day here !! We did go back the following day and used Mr Map for the whole of the time we there 🙂

Since the dreaded diagnosis another thing that has changed I get anxious about things but try never to show it I worry about every thing from planes falling out of the sky to kids being abducted by random taxi drivers to getting hit by cars/busses/trains/cows thankfully Mr Lover Lover is a complete laid back, calm as fuck kinda guy and just tells me to shut up when I start stressing … he really is a god send because for one in my life I actually do fucking listen … high five for keeping me on a even keel Mr Lover Lover . Love my life …. cariad mawr 💋xx