Two days in a bus

Days 74 - 75 (12/06/08 - 13/06/08): Four Thousand Isles to Siem Reap (Via Phnom Penh)

The plan for the day was to get to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat temples. I had booked my bus ticket the previous night, and was told it would take two days, overnighting in a small town. And so it was a very early start to the morning to catch a boat back across to the mainland. After a bit of waiting, it was a short minivan ride to the Cambodian border. I had already got my Cambodian visa sorted in Vientiane, but like everybody else, I still had to pay a $1 'fee' to the Laos border guards, and then the same to the Cambodian guards. We all knew it was going into their pockets, but there isn't really anything you can do about it. And at the end of the day, its only one dollar. I was now in the 5th country of my trip, and a country that has a lot of interesting things. Cambodia will probably be the most undeveloped country of all the ones I will visit on my trip, and will be a unique experience.

After a bit of waiting, we transferred into another minivan and had a very bumpy journey to the Cambodian town of Stung Treng. Here we got some food, and after waiting some more (sensing a pattern?) we boarded a larger bus for the rest of the journey. Luckily the bus was reasonably empty, and I headed to the back and got the whole back seat to myself, which means I could lie down if I wanted to. Unfortunately, Cambodian roads are not exactly the autobahn, and it was a very bumpy journey. Some parts were even over unsealed roads, through giant holes and mud puddles. It got so bouncy a few times that I actually bounced right clear of my seat by a few inches, and then came crashing back down again.

There were about 7 or 8 backpackers on the bus, and we had been told we would overnight in a small town (whose name I can't remember, and different people had been told different towns), but not how long it would take to get there. Eventually at 8pm at night, after 12 hours in boats, minivans and buses we pulled into a large city, and upon disembarking, we found out it was the capital city, Phnom Penh! Oh well. We were told that in the morning we would get on another bus that would take us out to Siem Reap. I was pretty knackered at this stage, and so collapsed into bed after having a big dinner.

It was another early morning to catch a minivan to the waiting bus. Luckily this bus trip was slightly shorter, and nowhere near as bumpy, the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap being the major road in Cambodia. I ran into an Andy, an american I met in Don Det, and so at least we could chat a bit. This bus ride was fairly uneventful, except for the brief stop we made about halfway. There were the normal food vendors hawking the usual things, although there were also several ladies with large buckets filled with live tarantula spiders, all clambering over each in a big swarming mass of black bodies and hairy legs. Every once in a while one would manage to climb out, only to be put back in the bucket. The ladies also had plates of cooked spiders to buy as well. I found the whole thing quite amusing, but a few of the more arachnaphobe tourists had a hard time. Unfortunately my camera was still packed in the bus, so I couldn't get any photos.

The bus pulled into Siem Reap in the early afternoon, after a short bus ride of only 6 hours (in these parts of the world, 6 hours is a short ride!). The awaiting crowd of tuk-tuk drivers and guesthouse touts was the worst I have ever seen. People were having trouble stepping off the bus into the waiting crowd, all yelling at us to stay at their guesthouse or drive us somewhere. Luckily the guesthouse from Phnom Penh had a sister guesthouse here, and so there was a driver waiting with our names on a placard! Easy! After fighting the crowds to get my pack, Andy and I jumped on the tuk-tuk and escaped the scene of the carnage.

The whole town of Siem Reap only exists to accommodate the masses of tourists that visit the Angkor Wat temples. As such, it has numerous guesthouses, lots of restaurants and a happening night scene. The guesthouse was very nice, and had a nice little communal area on the ground floor with a tv and collection of DVDs. I spent what was left of the afternoon just wandering aimlessly around the town, taking in the sights and getting a feel for the place. In the evening I popped along to the night market, although once again it was just filled with all the normal tourist trinkets that I have no intention of buying. I did however, buy a small guidebook for the Angkor Wat temples that explains their history, construction, iconography etc, as well as a guided tour of each main temple. It is a nice book, filled with colour photos, so definitely worth keeping. I had another early night, as after two days I had spent most of my time in a bus, and driven across most of Cambodia!