JOURNEY TO CAMBODIA
The journey to get to Cambodia was LONG! I made the trek with my friends Jeroen, Jorien, and Hilde (Dutch, of course!) We left Don Det, Laos at 8 am and were taken to the main land in a boat. Once there, we waited about an hour to get on a bus. While waiting, we handed over our passports and money to a man who collected them in a plastic grocery bag. No one told us who he was or what was going on, but this is common here in Asia. Just hand over your passport to a complete stranger and wait. So far so good.
When it came time to get on the bus, there was confusion as to which bus we were to be on. Long story short, everyone was called to get on a bus except us so we were last on. Luckily, it was only the bus to the border and the shortest leg of the journey so the crappy seats didn’t matter much. Once at the “border” (it’s really just a toll-booth style bar in the road), we sat for another hour and a half. Just waiting. We found shade and cold drinks and passed the time chatting, playing Yahtzee, and walking back and forth between the two countries to go to the bathroom. The last 30 minutes or so of our wait (we never knew how long it would be by the way) I cherry-picked the hell out of the bus to make sure we got decent seats. My stalking paid off and I was able to grab the first row for Jeroen to stretch out his long Dutch legs. It was a good thing because this turned out to be a LONG ride! And, they packed that bus full---complete with tiny stools in the aisles for extra people.
I forget how long the ride was actually supposed to take. All I remember was the part that was NOT planned. After several unnecessarily long rest stops that put us into the wee hours of the morning, our bus decided to break down on the side of the road. After several minutes of confusion, we followed some locals to a house on the side of the road. Climbed the stairs into the house (homes are built on stilts here), found a mat on the floor, and plopped down for a few hours sleep until another bus came to get us (a bus full of cranky Koreans, lights that didn’t turn off, and a driver that was permanently glued to his horn). Didn’t ask questions about who the house belonged to or if we were even supposed to be there, but I thank the Cambodian who let a bus full of strangers sleep in his living room for a few hours---I’ve never been so grateful to see a floor and a mat!
After a seemingly never-ending ride, we arrived in Siem Reap around 6 am the next day. Needless to say, we promptly slept a few hours and then relaxed most of that first day by the hotel pool. Met some fellas, Johnny (Portugal), Hywell (aka “Jimmy” from England) and Peter (Hungary) who were on the second bus from Don Det that had arrived, on time, about 7 hours before us with no bus problems---boring! : )
Siem Reap is a nice northern town that is most famous for Angkor Wat, a HUGE complex of ancient temples and one of the only things not destroyed by the Khmer Rouge during Pol Pot’s reign. Really spectacular, check out my photos. The girls and I (Jeroen, aka “:Jay”, had already been) went to see the sunset and ran into the 3 guys there. Had fun exploring parts we were (and weren’t) allowed to see. That night, we all went out to eat Mexican and dancing at a local bar. Turns out Siem Reap has a decent night life.
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| Angkor Wat temple |
I had fun but my friends had TOO much fun seeing as I was the only one who showed up for our 4:30 am meeting time to see the sunrise at the temples. (Thanks, guys! J ) We had rented bikes for $1 but I didn’t want to go alone. Instead, I waited for a tuk tuk until 7:30 am, watching the sunrise from the hotel reception instead of the temples. I think my driver thought I was the laziest tourist ever because I was so beat from two nights of no sleep in a row that I barely made it through a few hours of him driving me to temples. I would walk around, take photos, and then hurry to the next one. All the while, all I wanted was to make it back with time to sleep before check out.
In the end, it all worked out and I had a lovely time seeing all I wanted to see (yes, I saw the Tomb Raider temple) and learning from my local driver. I was back before the super intense heat and able to rest before lounging at the pool the rest of the day with Jay. When the girls got back, we got dressed in the dark (power was out, again) and left on a night “sleeper bus” to Sihanoukville.
Ain’t No Sleepin on a Sleeper Bus!
The term “sleeper bus” is an oxymoron. You see, there is no chance you could possibly sleep on that thing. When we first boarded the bus and saw 4 lounge seats in the back of the bus, complete with blankets and a bathroom below, we thought we had won the lottery. What they don’t tell you in the advertisement though is that the temperature is either so hot you can’t breathe, or so cold that the air conditioning fluid drips on you the entire time. No really, I was drenched wet. That had to be good for my skin. Additionally, the back of the bus was so bumpy, we could barely hold on. Above all, the most frustrating part of the bus ride is the CONSTANT honking of the horn that Cambodian bus drivers LOVE. And I don’t mean every once in a while when it’s actually necessary. The horn is Asia is equivalent to a blinker, braking, steering, etc. You don’t actually have to drive. You can just set the bus on auto-[ilot, honk, and expect everyone to move out of your way (they do). The constant honking almost makes you crave the karaoke videos on full volume. I said almost. Luckily, I was sharing the ride with good friends who were able to make it fun(ish) and now that we’ve had some sleep, we can look back at it and chalk it up to another adventurous Asian bus ride. We can add this one to the FB page, Austin.
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| Cozy on the "sleeper" bus |
Our mantra the entire ride was “the beach will make it all worth it”….and it did!
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