Travelling from Phnomn Penh to Siem Reap

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Tuesday 17th November Phnomn Phenh to Siem Reap Day – I’ve lost count!

We are up early to catch the “Sok Sokha Express Limousine” Bus from P.P to Siem Reap. Well it is a “Limousine” so it must be good. It costs US $9 each with a pick up right outside our hotel. Saves on getting a tuk tuk to the bus station.

A very nice minibus comes to pick us up and we wend our way through the traffic to the bus stop near the passenger port on the river. It’s not quite the limousine we were expecting. It’s quite an old bus and the seats are rock hard. Still we are only on board for 6 hours so I’m sure we will be fine! After all, they have a W.C on board and you get free water and videos apparently!

So we get ourselves as comfortable as possible and the drivers assistant puts the video on! I wish he would turn it off again! It’s playing a constant stream of Cambodian Karaoke music DVD’s ! Now the Cambodian people are lovely, don’t get me wrong. But they can’t sing, and it just sounds like cat’s wailing to me. So I am afraid at this point I stick my i pod in my ears and listen to my own tunes.

As we trundle along on a piece of tarmac not much wider than one bus width, where we play chicken with the buses and lorries coming in the other direction, I have to marvel at the beauty of the place. The ground is flooded and rice padi fields stretch as far as the eye can see. Little villages come and go along the route, some quite affluent, some others just shacks on stilts. But what strikes me is that I am hard pushed to see any one who is older than about 40! A whole generation was lost in “The Killing Fields” and it shows! The population is so young. But one thing that comes across is the way that they value their families, and how patient they are with each other. It is very much a “live and let live” culture. I guess genocide does that to you – you value life itself. I know it’s just a strange coincidence but at the moment I am writing this, Chi Mai by Ennio Morricone – the theme from the film “The Killing Fields” plays on my ipod! How weird is that – and it brings a lump to my throat!

Two and a half hours into our journey to Siem Reap and the Karaoke dvd is still playing. I hope to God that my ipod doesn’t run out of battery. You can’t get bored on a journey like this – there is just so much happening that I don’t want to miss. All the kids coming out of school, on their bikes in their blue and white uniforms, people planting rice in the fields, tending to flocks of ducks or just swinging in hammocks in the shade! However, the serious backpackers take the opportunity to sleep through the entire journey. I personally think that they miss all the good bits!

We make our half way stop at Kampong Thom, a market town where all the buses seem to take their break for lunch. We take a walk and soon come across ladies selling all manner of luscious fruits alongside fried tarantulas (really, I’m not kidding!), fried crickets, fried cockroaches and other insects that I don’t recognise! I suppose being an intrepid traveller I should try these local delicacies, however I am not feeling very hungry today so I pass on the insects and choose a pineapple instead! We walk on a bit further and see a large open-backed truck being loaded up with cases and belongings. Once the luggage is aboard, the people clamber on top. It all looks like a bit of a rugby scrum as the people vie for the best position on the truck!

So after our 30 minute break, we all pile back onto the coach and off we go. It’s only 5 minutes before we have pulled over on the side of the road and the driver tells us that we have to get off again. We appear to have a problem with one of the wheels. Luckily we have stopped at the Cambodian branch of Kwik Fit. There’s a man and his family in a small makeshift shed with a huge air compressor! He hops out of his hammock and several other guys arrive to inspect the wheel. It appears that it has got to come off – and when it does it has absolutely no tread on it at all. In fact you can see through the rubber to what’s underneath. I think that it is fair to say that it would be illegal in Britain! But to be fair to them, they soon have the spare on and we are off again. We have another 120kms to go so let’s hope that we don’t have any more problems.

The driver seems to have run out of those wonderful karaoke dvd’s so we are treated to the Cambodian version of the Chuckle Brothers. Of course all of this is irritating the hell out of some of the travellers, but in usual style the hardened backpackers are still sound asleep! Totally oblivious to everything!

When we arrive at the bus station in Siem Reap a tuk tuk is waiting to take us to our hotel as no buses are allowed into the town centre. Our drivers name is Arvin (isn’t that one of the chipmunks?) and once we have arrived he proceeds to use guilt tactics in order to get us to commit to using his tuk tuk for our trip to Angkor Wat. Eventually he agrees to US $10 for for the day and agrees to pick us up at 8.30am.

Our hotel in called 89! A somewhat strange name for a hotel I think, but the staff are wonderful. A handsome young man whose name is “Hong Kong” greets us and can’t do enough to make us feel welcome. We have found the Cambodians to be incredibly friendly and incredibly genuine. So after taking a shower and getting organised it is time to investigate Siem Reap.

It’s a great place. There are some wonderful bars and restaurants and we eat a fantastic Khmer Curry dinner with drinks for under S $10! All the draft beer is US $0.50 and cocktails are $1.50! So we might just get a bit tiddly tonight! There is also a great night market, massage parlours and pools containing “Doctor” fish that nibble at your toes! Suitably impressed by Siem Reap, we make our way back to the hotel and look forward to visiting Angkor Wat tomorrow.

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