There and back again

As I write this post, I am surrounded by beautiful green fields stretching as far as the eye can see. But these aren't the rice paddies of Cambodia to which I have been accustomed to of late, but the corn fields of Essex.

Although my trip was originally planned for 4 months, which would have seen me returning in mid-August, life - as I should know by now - doesn't always turn out the way you plan...

I had settled in Siem Reap, and was enjoying my temporarily stationary state of being. After 3 months of moving every other day, it made a welcome change to unpack my rucksack and create a semblance of normality. I moved into a lovely guesthouse where the kind owners let me have a room for half the going rate. I hired a bike and started work as a volunteer English teacher at a local primary school.

Volunteering was great fun - I was working with Lek, a teacher for the Global Village Association which runs a free school in Krobei Riel village. Each morning I cycled to the GVA offices, then hopped on the back of Lek's motorbike for the half hour ride to the village. The school was in the grounds of a beautiful buddhist temple, surrounded by rice paddies. I had to pinch myself to check I wasn't dreaming; this made a nice change from my old commute on the train to London!

From 9-10am we taught a small group of placid novice monks, and from 10-11am, a large group of excitable children; a real change of pace required! At lunchtime we would either travel back to town, or else stayed in the village and ate at one of the childrens' houses. One day I enjoyed a fabulous meal of home grown rice, vegetables and fish from the nearby pond, finished off by a doze in a hammock alongside the family cattle!

But events transpired to draw this chapter of my travels to a close, and with a heavy heart I rearranged my flight and boarded a bus to Bangkok. When I had passed through Bangkok at the beginning of my trip you may recall that it was the Songkran water festival, so I was unsure what to expect this time around and prepared myself to be slightly underwhelmed this time around. However, I was not disappointed and really enjoyed being in the centre of things on the Khao San road. Luckily my good friend Floor was with me, and we enjoyed a couple of days, mainly spent shopping for souvenirs and eating $1 pad thai (mmm... lecke)!
 

  On the morning of my departure, we were up ridiculously early to visit a floating market. This was one of those things that I have always associated with Bangkok, so was thrilled to finally be going. As ever, the reality was quite far removed from the expectation, but I enjoyed the experience nonetheless. The array of fresh and prepared food available was vast; boats piled high with green and yellow mangoes, fluffy red rambutans, bright purple mangosteins (my personal favourites) and various other unidentifiable fruits.


The market also provided a fantastic opportunity to indulge in one of my favourite past times; people-watching! There were some real characters, including these elderly ladies who all made a living either rowing (mainly fat and obnoxious) tourists around the market, or else serving various food items to (mainly fat and obnoxious) tourists.



My flight home was thankfully rather uneventful and I arrived at Heathrow airport early on Saturday morning. I had asked my uncle Rich to collect me, and he kindly drove me home to my unsuspecting family. I hadn't told anyone I was coming home - the look on my Mum's face as I got out of the car was one i'll never forget. Just the welcome home I had hoped for.

I've now been home for over a week, and almost settled back into 'normal' life. Everyone keeps asking if that's it now - have I got rid of the travel bug? Any fellow travellers will know that it's never that simple - if its in you, the travel bug can never really be expelled. It can be sated for a while but at some point it will lodge itself in your shoe once more and start to give your feet a bit of a tickle...