Welcome to Cambodia

We woke up early, forced the hotel to get the breakfast out before their standard hours and hopped in a taxi to head to the bus station. Nothing too exciting, which is good.

We got on our bus and managed to doze a bit before arriving at the little town about 10 minutes from the Cambodian border. Then we had to get a tuk-tuk to the border. A tuk-tuk is a motorbike with a little trolley hanging off the back to sit in. Pretty comfortable and nice and breezy.

We got to the border and did the customs bits, before boarding the government bus that takes people to the little town bus station on the other side of the border. At this bus station, we learned that our bus to Siem Reap wouldn't be ready for another hour or so -- we got through the border pretty quickly. Then about 2 minutes later, they said our bus was just over there -- pointing to a little 22 seater minibus -- for the 5 of us. Nice -- or so we thought. We loaded up and hopped in and started our journey to Siem Reap. It was somewhere around 1pm at the time I think. A few people we'd spoken to had warned that the road to Siem Reap was quite possibly the bumpiest road in the world. This couldn't be further from the truth. The mere earth is hardly a sufficient quantifier -- I believe the universe and beyond might be more fitting.

It was BUMPY with huge craters and bridges that looked like they might be strong enough to withstand a small bird landing on it. Maybe even two. Apparently, the government owns shares in the only airline that flies between Bangkok and Siem Reap (quite a pricey route, too) and hence doesn't have a vested interest in the connecting road. After about an hour, the bus pulled over to the side of the dusty road in the middle of nowhere. He looked under the bus -- apparently something wrong with the transmission. He looked in the trunk and then disappeared. We didn't see him leave, but he was nowhere to be found. A bit confused, but really kind of helpless, we sat under a tree in the shade and watched a man fishing in a nearby pond. About an hour later, he appeared on the horizon on the back of a motorbike with two wrenches and a bag of bottled water for us. It was hot. Damn hot. Still wearing long sleeves, he crawled under the bus and in about 45-60 minutes, came out and the bus started. Only at this point did the driver remove his long sleave shirt to reveal another tshirt layer below. I think I nearly died at the thought of layers. On the road (if you can call it that) again.

After about another half hour or so, we started driving a bit slow and saw the steam coming out of the front panel of the bus. Again we pulled over. Blew a tire. We exited the baking bus and tried to find whatever breeze we could on the red dirt road. Some kids came running out when they saw us. Quite possibly the cutest kids in the universe. After the obligatory request for a few baht, we talked for a bit, I juggled some rocks and taught a few lessons, Yen braided the girls' hair, and I learned their version of high five (it involves hands, feet, and asses.)

With the tire finally changed, we were on the road again. But no sooner than we headed out , we pulled into a hut on the side of the road, which was a mechanic of sorts. We were there for a while, as more tires were changed, fixed, reattached, etc... Through the whole ride, the bumps were slowly taking their toll on the screws holding the ceiling panels on -- by this time, there was one screw left and the whole back portion of the ceiling was on the verge of collapse. On one bump, part of the A/C duct systemflew out and nearly landed on one of our fellow riders. We all moved to the front.

Finally arriving in the "city" of Siem Reap, we were grateful for the smoother roads. Almost at the guest house. We turned down one street, and then... stopped again. This time because there were two policemen standing in front of us. The driver and our tour leader got out to see what was up. Apparently, they'd decided that this street was off limits to minibuses. As we watched many zoomed by as they argued outside, we later learned that they were about to impound the bus and all of us. $5 US changed a few things and we were back on track. Finally arriving at about 8 or 9pm, we cleaned up a bit and headed out to grab a Khmer (Cambodian) bite to eat.

We went straight back to the hotel and crashed... hard.