Day 190 – Getting off the Islands

August 15th, 2019

For myself, today was the hardest day of our trip.  It was because I had the same stomach sickness Brendan had the last couple of days. The dreaded Montezuma’s Revenge wrecks your GI system. Thankfully Brendan is better, but today was my sickest day.  We have been pretty lucky that in all our travels, we have only had this stomach condition once before while in Peru.  We have been doing so well I thought by this point our stomachs were rock solid against any sneaky bacteria, but apparently still not invincible.  The risk for this always goes up in under developed countries where things like E. Coli and Campylobacter reign.  Unfortunately, this kind of sickness goes along with the territory of traveling to see really cool, unique places. 

Anyway, I had a very uncomfortable night where my whole body hurt on top of the stomach pain.  We were scheduled to leave this morning to go back to the mainland.  I debated staying another day because I felt so crummy but figured it was better to get off the island just in case of the slight possibility  I got worse instead of better (this sickness is very common and usually gets better in a few days without treatment).  Brendan helped me pack my bags and we got on the first small boat of the trip.  I never get sea sick and have mentioned in the past that traveling by boat is my favorite type of transportation. 

Today was different though… The loud noise from the exposed boat engine without a muffler made my head pound and my stomach ache.  I began to feel nauseous with the waves but made it to the pier without getting sick.  We then had to wait at the pier for about an hour for the next boat to come.  There was no shade and the sun was extremely hot.  I hadn’t been able to eat or drink barely anything,  and knew dehydration was making me feel worse and my headache more intense.  Once the boat arrived, everyone lined up on the pier with all their stuff.  I had my front pack and backpack on waiting for the line to move and people to get on the boat.  I was getting so over-heated it began to feel like I was either going to collapse or throw up on everyone who was crowding me in the line.  In an effort to avoid a disgusting mess, I threw off my bags and sat down with my head leaning over the pier.  As I sat there trying to keep it together the line began to move, and everyone boarded the boat.  I was the last person on and the only seat that was left was on the very TOP of the boat where the captain was on a bench seat right in the blazing sun.  After a while of being in the direct sun I was so hot, it felt like I was just going to burst into flames.  This made me super nauseous, so I ended up spending the rest of the ride on the floor of the top deck throwing up in a little plastic bag. 

It felt like a really long ride although it was just about 1 ½ hours before we arrived at the mainland in the city of Sihanoukville.  The entire time, my plan was to do everything possible to NOT stay in this city as it is a total dump.  We were going to immediately take a bus to the next town of Kampot.  By the time we got off the boat, I knew there was no way I could get on a several-hour bus ride.  I needed to lie down in a room with air conditioning, cool off and get some fluids.  Since we were back on the mainland my phone had service, so I quickly looked up a hotel that was less than 4 miles away that looked decent and had AC.  We asked a tuk tuk driver to take us there and he wanted to completely overcharge us.  Brendan not wanting to pay the overpriced amount suggested we get on a random bus that was parked in front of us.  I felt too weak and nauseous to get on a bus going an undetermined length of time to an undetermined location.  It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do.  I told him I was sorry, but we just need to go to the hotel so I could lie down.  We got the tuk tuk driver down to $10 from the original $20 he asked for.  We loaded up to go the 3.7 miles to the hotel I found online. 

I had no idea 3.7 miles could be such an incredibly long ride!  It took us almost an hour!  The roads in this town are so bad it is unbelievable.  Huge sections missing from them, crater sized potholes, flooding, trash and debris everywhere. It was just insane!  Not to mention the million cars, tuk tuks and motorbikes going in every direction while everyone was trying to avoid potholes, trenches and each other.  The traffic was also unbelievable. 

Every bump sent sharp pain through my stomach and head.  The entire city smelled like sewage and trash was literally everywhere.  As I sat there holding all my bags on my lap trying desperately not to puke over the side of the tuk tuk, I had the thought “this couldn’t be any worse”.  That immediately took me back to another time when I had the same thought in Patagonia on the W-trek.  I was completely soaked going back to a tent with a pool of water in it and had to sleep in freezing temperatures.  Now, I realized I had also thought that couldn’t be any worse, but right now that didn’t seem so bad because at least I was physically well then.  Its amazing when you are well what you are capable of handling.  It is also amazing how much lower that threshold is when you are sick!  I think any normal time I would have probably just laughed in disbelief as I was being thrown around in the tuk tuk from the terrible, filthy roads.  Today though it felt like it took everything I had just to get through that miserable ride.  Of course, now looking back I know things could have been much worse but sometimes in the moment you just can’t imagine it. 

We FINALLY made it to the hotel and thankfully God gave me a little break as we actually had a decent hotel room.  It is very hard to believe that in the middle of this hell hole there could be a halfway decent place and that I happened to find it in a 2-second search.  We got checked in and I went right to bed.  Later in the evening I asked Brendan if he would go downstairs and get me a ginger ale.  Boy, did I feel bad I did that.  He came back up a few minutes later and said now I might have to take care of him! 

Apparently one of his flip flops broke on the way down, and he fell down the last flight of stairs! I was shocked and of course asked if he was okay, where it hurts etc. etc. Thank God nothing was broken and aside from being a little bruised and sore he is ok.  I asked what the hotel staff did to help, and he said everyone just had a look of terror and acted totally frightened but not anyone moved.  No one came to his assistance and he said they all looked too frightened.  So, at the end of the night we both went to bed not feeling too good.