Asia Trip – Day 5

Kratie – Sen Monorom

Today I rode on the back of three pickup trucks, each worse than the previous. The first one picked us up at our hotel. It had seats in the back, along the sides, and wasn’t very crowded. That one only took us to the depot where we were stuffed into a similar setup with 20 of our closest friends. After a couple of hours of that, we arrived at a larger depot. As we watched our new pickup being piled higher and higher, I was talking to a young Buddhist monk, who was traveling to a different monastery to continue his studies. It was good to talk to him as I was going to need as much inner peace as I could muster. For the next 6 hours we were perched on top of an amazing pile of cargo and baggage, hurtling down a bumpy dirt road. I did have a rope I could grab to avoid falling off. I had to use it too many times to feel at all comfortable. We arrived bruised, battered and filthy, but alive.

Our guesthouse (hostel) is a garden paradise. A garden paradise with no hot water, but it’s hot enough that it’s not a problem.