The Road to Nowhere

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Russell -

Bus leaves hotel to take you to bus station at 6:45. Big bus leaves station at 7:30.

Wow this bus station must be a long way away. No actually it was around the corner so we were there by 6:55 even though the bus picking us up was 5 minutes late. It did mean however that the 7 o'clock hadn't left so we were able to leave half an hour early.

At the stop a man asked Lins where we were going and said a free transfer was available at Siam Reap "What is your name?" "William" she replied "Are you married?" "Mehh?!?" "I see my friend take you at the other side free of charge" Now we knew this to be a rouse as the man at the other end will take you to a guest house of their choice not yours. But after all our name isn't William is it so we don't need to take his service if we don't want to.

The bus journey was billed as 6 and half hours so a bit of quick maths says we should be in Siam Reap by 1:30pm. Well things just don't work like that around here.

Firstly I don't think they had taken into account the gazillion comfort stops the bus made. I really think incontinence must be a national sport. So good job we didn't pay extra for a bus with a toilet coz it would not have coped!

The road out of Phnom Penh gets better to the point where there is almost more road than pot holes in places so after a few minutes I had fallen asleep - yes I really can sleep anywhere.

I was woken by Lins's cry of

Where the hell are we?

I opened my eyes to see that we appeared to be near a forest and some fields where the locals were tilling the soil. Half the Cambodians (by the way we were the only none Cambodians on the bus) were crouching in the field taking a comfort stop. (Really - a National sport.) I was about to flippantly answer Lins's question with a

On the road to Siam Reap

when I realised that was what was missing from this scene - a road. Ok there was a 4x4 picking its way across the field and a man with an ox pulled cart doing the same but you wouldn't dream of taking an overcrowded 45 seater bus across it. The thing is the Cambodians have been living on little more than dreams for a long time and they are far better at dreaming than you and I. So the bus plunged into the dirt field and we literally went cross-country. It turned out to be quite interesting as we went through a rubber plantation and were able to see people collecting the sap. It was a worry though I have to admit as it is never far from your mind that this country had a fashion in the seventies for planting landmines everywhere and you can't be sure where.

Eventually however we found the sealed road again and headed off at full speed. That was until we reached any town. For some reason they don't tarmac the towns so you literally fall off the end of the road onto the dirt as you go through the town and then have a ramp to negotiate as you leave. There were a couple more comfort breaks including a dinner break at about 1:30. Those still awake will realise that this was our arrival time in Siam Reap but we were clearly 100 miles away at least. To make things worse they turned the air-con off on the bus so we started to melt. Finally at around 3:30pm we made it to Siam Reap bus station where we still had to get a tuk tuk to the centre. No problem there was plenty of Tuk-tuks available. 100s in fact and 100s of drivers wanting our business. It was madness getting off the bus. We were surrounded by 100s of people shouting their services. We were grabbed jostled and pleaded with as we got our bags from the bus. Lins eventually found her inner teacher and started to shout at them to get back. At this point a man clearly employed by the bus station arrived with a big stick and started beating them back. In the end we just pointed at one of them and he grabbed Lins' bag (of course) and ran off to his tuk tuk with justa few people following us pleading that we change our mind. One them kept saying "Mr. William this is your name isn't it, I recognise your uniform my friend ask me to pick you up" No that's not my name and at this point I just wanted to leave so we boarded our Tuk tuk and left with the sound of Cambodian expletives in the air. Our tuk tuk driver, who has given what I think is his name as "Visa" (rather than his method of payment), won't leave us alone however and is insisting on picking us up tomorrow to go to the temples. Lets hope he is a good guide.

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