So my adventures in Cambodia have finally come to an end. I have had an incredible time, thank you to everyone who made it immensely enjoyable, this experience came just when I needed it. It is tradition at Hope Agency school for volunteers to give a speech at the end of their time after receiving their certificate. I don't remember a lot of what I said but I do remember making 3 important points. Firstly, I enjoyed teaching English more than I ever thought I would, I chose to teach English for my placement because it's a 'skill' that I have but I never thought I would enjoy it as much as I did. Secondly, I met so many great people that I never would of met who really made my time in Cambodia amazing. Thirdly, it was a privilege for me to get to know the country of Cambodia and to have studied it, getting a deeper understanding of the people and their rich history. I am actually really looking forward to gathering all of the information that I have collected for my university degree. Leaving Hope School was actually more emotional than I thought, but it was right for me to go.
Olly (my brother) and I caught a flight to Bangkok on the Saturday morning from Phnom Penh. The flight was fine, we actually managed to get exit row seats without even asking (they must of seen our height and decided we would benefit the most from having extra leg room)! The flight was only an hour or so, once we landed, we passed immigration (Thailand give you a free month) and ordered a grab to our hostel. First thoughts about Thailand was that it is a lot richer then Cambodia. The roads are a lot nicer, there is a lot more traffic, more cars on the road, more western brands such as McDonalds. They have the BTS which is an over ground train, you would never find a train in Cambodia let alone an over ground one! Our hostel was nice, it was called Good One Hostel. It took us a long time to get there because of traffic so when we finally did, we crashed out and chilled for the rest of the afternoon.
The next day we got our free breakfast, CORNFLAKES and jam toast! I have been craving cereal literally since the moment I landed in Asia so this was very exciting for me. We got in a grab to Taling Chan Floating market, it was about 30mins away. The market was great, they don’t really use the floating markets anymore, only for tourist purposes. We actually missed the boat tours around the main floating markets, they’re around 9am so get up early! But there were still people cooking and selling things on boats so I felt like I still got an experience. We took a boat trip along the river to see how village life works on a river. It was cool to see the houses, it literally looked like a street but instead of cars you have boats.
We then decided to take a grab to china town, everything was fine until we got to the river. Police were stopping cars from crossing the bridges and roads were being shut. Later we found out that this was because of a parade being held for the kings birthday. So our grab driver dropped us off at a ferry terminal, we then got a ferry to the palace, on the other side of the river. Roads were still closed so we decided to walk until we saw cars and traffic. We ended up walking for almost 2 hours. There was what looked like a cycling race going on, lots of people in yellow stood by the side of the roads to, I assumed, control crowds, but the funny thing was that there the streets where really empty. It was actually kind of weird, all the roads were empty and there was hardly anyone about. A lot of people used this opportunity to have a photoshoot in the middle of the road, we decided to follow lead and had a go. When we finally got to China town, roads were busy again! After a quick look around, we got in a dukduk and went home, we were knackered!
We had a good day but decided that there wasn’t actually a lot we wanted to do in Bangkok so we arranged to travel to Koh Chang a day early. Bangkok, for me, is good for a day but not great for a long stay. It’s probably one of those cities that takes time to grow on you, but unfortunately, we didn’t have that time.
