Journey to Cambodia

The bus was leaving for Cambodia in front of the travel agent where I bought the ticket. I arrived in front of the travel agency around 7am and there was no one around. Finally another backpacker arrived and I asked where they were heading. They said the floating markets. Another tourist arrived and she confirmed that she was going to Cambodia as well. There were no Thai people around at all or any buses for that matter, so we were all a bit apprehensive. These round ups for departing are never very well organized, but somehow everything works out. Sure enough, a smiling Thai person arrives, and I show him my receipt and he gives me a bus ticket and tells me to go around the corner to find the bus. Around the corner was the bus, which was of the large, comfortable, air-conditioned variety. I had two seats to myself in the back, which is rare on these tourist buses, as they try to pack you in to maximize their profits. I laid back and stretched out and listened to my music and thought this trip was going to be a breeze.

When I was out in Patpong with the American friends I had met watching the Super Bowl, I was warned that this bus trip was rather hellish, by their friend Christian. Christian was teaching in Chiang Mai. He had never made the trip himself, but he had heard horror stories. I laughed and thought this was one of those rumors where the experience got worse and worse as the rumor mill turned, but yet the actual experience was not half as bad. I kind of knew in the back of my mind that things might be different once we reached Cambodia. As I watched the Thai countryside go by, I was sad to be leaving Thailand, but I was trying to figure out a way to get back here for a week or so before I left for the Philippines. There were still a few places that I had not seen that I really wanted to see. I had not had time to visit Kho Yai National Park, which is supposed to be a wildlife paradise, so I wanted to come back and see that if I could manage it.

The bus trip from Bangkok to the border was restful, peaceful, and easy. It took us about 3 to 4 hours to go the almost 200 miles to get to the border town of Aranyaprathet. Once we hit the border was when things took a turn for the worse. It happened to be Chinese New Year, and apparently many Thai people visit the temples of Ankgor, so the crossing into Cambodia was really crowded.

The guides said we had to take everything off the bus as the bus was going back to Bangkok. We all grabbed our things and headed for the border crossing. The line was incredibly slow, and we baked in the 90+ sun while waiting. There were two lines, one for Thai people and one for foreigners. They only had one person on each line. The Thai line moved briskly as they only did a cursory look at their passport. The foreigner line was painstakingly slow. At first this line spilled outside the customs building and around the corner. We all had our bags on and were dripping with sweat as we roasted in the Thai almost Cambodia sun. All around us were dirty beggar children pulling at our hands. The guidebook warned about these kids at the crossing and wrote that one needed to safeguard valuables from them. While baking in the sun we were all hoping to reach the building to get out of the sun. Once inside the room there was over 200 people in line with nary a fan to be seen, so it was just as bad. Inside we baked in the heat instead of roasting outside.

I finally made it through and was in Cambodia. It was hot and bothersome, but at least it was done with. We then started to advance towards the bus. We then realized we were not done yet. We then had to go through the Cambodian side. All we did in the first line was exit Thailand and now we had to enter Cambodia. We were currently in no-man’s land. Surprisingly the Cambodian side was much more efficient and we passed through this line in about a half-hour.

The first thing I noticed on the Cambodian side is two huge extravagant buildings on either side of the road and then the desolate, ugly, dirty city of Poipet beyond these two buildings. It turned out these two nice buildings were casinos where high spending rich Thais come to gamble as there are laws against gambling in Thailand. There were all these moto-bikes waiting in this queue and they all had these scarves over their mouths to protect from the blowing sand. None of the streets of Poipet were paved. I had no idea where everyone went to, but a Cambodian fellow saw me and waived me over to the waiting bus. I was the last one on. The new bus was a little dingier and older than the Thai bus, but it was comfortable, and I had my own seat, so I was happy.

The bus then drove to a currency exchange and I exchanged some American money for Cambodian real. I forgot to check the exchange rate in Cambodia. The guide on the bus said that they would give a rate of 2300 real per 1 US dollar, which is better than in Siem Reap. He said in Siem Reap the banks will only give 2000 per US dollar. He looked friendly, so we believed him and cashed in some money. I was going to exchange 50 usd, but I decided 20 would be enough for now. This was a good thing as we found out when we got to our destination that this was a major scam. All of a sudden some other Cambodians came on and said to get on another bus. We all thought it was just some scam to get us to pay extra for a VIP bus or something because these people were different from our driver, but it was not the case and we were moved. They told us a larger group needed to use this big bus. A much smaller bus not much bigger than a mini van came up around the corner and we were told this was our bus. I could not imagine how all us would fit as there were over twenty of us. I was one of the last in. I looked inside and all the seats were taken. They had these little mini seats that opened in the aisle that were low to the ground, which I had to take. There was a great ruckus from two German ladies who would not get on. They yelled at the Cambodians that this bus was unsafe, but they were eventually coaxed in and I got on my seat and we took off.

We drove through the town of Poipet and this had to be the ugliest town I had ever seen. As I mentioned before none of the roads were paved and were sand covered instead. Every bike, car, and bus kicked up big clouds of dust obscuring the view of the city as we drove through. This was not such a bad thing as this town looked like how I would imagine Fallujah or some other war torn small Iraqi town. There was garbage everywhere and the buildings in the town all looked like they had been bombed. If they had not been bombed, a well place bomb would have been an improvement.

As we left the town the view in the countryside was not much better. Since it was the dry season everything was completely brown. There were not many trees and the trees that could be found were pretty sad looking sights. The condition of the road was absolutely horrible. Now I know what Christian was saying was no lie. There were small sections where the road was paved, but then they would give way to dirt and gravel and huge potholes. When our over capacity bus hit these potholes, the driver had to slow down to an almost stop. When going through the potholes the whole bus lurched and bounced us around. Since it was so hot, the windows had to stay open and dust kicked up from vehicles in front of us poured through the open windows.

After two hours of this we stopped for dinner. Everyone came out of the bus and walked right in and sat down. No one even said hello to our Cambodian hosts at the restaurant. I said hello and our waitress looked shocked for a second and then said hello. The guy I was sitting with made some joke about the food being fried cockroaches. This kind of annoyed me. Everyone was in a horrible mood because of the strain of the day, but it was not the people’s fault at the restaurant. They still deserved to be treated with respect. As we were leaving the Cambodians said nothing except when I passed the waitress and she said “see you mistuh,” and smiled. I think she singled me out because I was the only one with the courtesy to say hello to her as we arrived.

We got back on the bus, and somehow I got in a worse position than before. One of my legs was wedged against someone’s luggage and the other was penned in by the seat beside me. This meant I could not shift my legs at all. I tried to shift my whole body back a bit and struck the person behind me in the face with my seat. I apologized and realized now I could not shift my back either. I basically could hardly move. To make matters worse, being in the mini seat in aisle I was lower than everyone else and my legs had less room in front of me because of this. I was also not near any open window, so I could not catch the breeze coming in. I am not sure being near an open window would have been any better as I would have been all dusty. It was either hot and stuffy or breezy and dusty. Everyone on the bus was uncomfortable, so I do not think it really mattered much where one was sitting, but I think I had the worst of the worst. Everyone else was probably thinking the same thing. Comfort was non existent on our bus.

Then an amazing thing happened. The horrible road got worse. The potholes became more frequent and we also moved more slowly because we encountered many bridges and each bridge was only one way. There were also these huge inexplicable piles of dirt in the middle of the road for who knows what reason that our driver had to avoid. I have thought long and hard why these were there because they were piled high and in a way that could only have been done by man, so they had to have some sort of purpose. One guess is may be a road crew dumped them there and then someone else was supposed to spread this sand over the road. Another guess was maybe they were there over big potholes that could not be driven on and by putting the dirt there the driver had to avert these dangerous potholes. Whatever their purpose, they slowed us down even more and made this strange trip even more bizarre as we veered back and forth through these piles of dirt. I think it is about a seventy mile trip from the border to Siem Reap. It took us over five hours to make the trip.

Usually when I am making a road trip music or reading is what saves me. I could not read since it was completely dark on the bus. I had a flashlight in my bag, but I could not move, so that was a problem. I did have access to my music though. I listened to one CD for a bit and then just turned it off. It was doing nothing for me in my misery. I was hoping the music would take my mind off of my current unpleasantness, but I was too uncomfortable to enjoy the music. Also, I was afraid that whatever music I listened to might in my mind be linked to this trip and I may forever not be able to enjoy it. I may listen to that CD again in the future and my mind would think of cramped legs, stuffy breathing, heat, and dust instead of the music and it may forever tarnish the songs. I turned off my CD and just sat in a trance trying to meditate myself into numbness. This was not working either. I had had it with this trip. I was hot, I was dusty, I was tired, I was pissed, and my whole body was aching and uncomfortable. I was just about to scream out loud in anger, frustration, fatigue, and any other word that evokes misery and discomfort when the bus started all of a sudden picking up speed. We amazingly hit a patch of pavement that was not broken by a pothole, or a one-lane rickety bridge, or a pile of dirt in the middle of the road. I did not want to begin to hope as I did not want to be cruelly disappointed when we hit the pot holes again. We kept going though picking up more speed. Soon there were buildings, lights, and road signs indicating we were entering town. Then we passed these huge hotels that could only be for foreigners visiting the Temples of Angkor. We all exhaled in relief. The bus then dropped us off at the guesthouse where a new adventure ensued. Our troubles were not yet over.

We were dropped off by the bus at the Sidewalk Guesthouse, which was the first guesthouse as we arrived in town. I was so thankful to get off the bus. I grabbed my things and dropped them off in a corner and smoked a cigarette and just stared off into space. I could hear people talking around me making plans on where to stay. I heard people say there were no vacancies here, and I also heard panicked talk of absolutely no rooms available in the whole town due to Chinese New Year. I did not care. All I cared about was that I was off of the fucking hell bus. I was happy as could be at that point. I would worry about a place to stay soon enough.

A small man then approached me and asked if I needed a room. I feared some scam as I thought I heard that there were no rooms in Siem Reap. I said I did, and he said he had an available room for 2$. He said to follow me. I was really confused at this point because a lot of people from the bus had already left in search of rooms as they were told no vacancies. I followed him into a fairly comfortable room for 2$. I could not believe my luck. I did not know why they refused many others who asked for a room, but approached me and asked if I needed a room when I was simply and quietly minding my own business at the moment. I was not going to ask questions, so I threw my stuff in the room and then headed back outside for a beer. After that trip I needed a drink more than I had ever needed one in my life.

They had this beautiful little table under a thatched roof right outside and a few people were out there having a drink enjoying the beautiful night. I took a seat and ordered an Angkor beer. Another surprise from Cambodia was that this beer was very tasty and much better than any beer found in Thailand in my opinion. I started talking to some of the survivors from the bus trip. The German couple with their mom who had made the big ruckus when we were moved to the smaller bus was there under the roof. There were also two German guys named Ollie and Harry that had arrived earlier in the day. They had had a long trip too and we all shared horror stories.

More people kept arriving and some were put into room and some were allowed to sleep outside. The workers at the guesthouse were doing all they could to accommodate these late arrivals. One gal slept right behind us in a hammock while we bantered away over beer after beer. I kept turning around, but apparently we were not bothering her as she was fast asleep. We did our best to talk lightly. Then the workers from the guesthouse began questioning us about our rooms. I was hoping to have a room by myself, but when they found I did they asked me if for half the price if I would share. I reluctantly agreed. Then more people kept coming and they continued to try and accommodate. I saw them talking to some Germans that just arrived. I could tell the Germans were in distress. I saw a patch of sand right next to the guesthouse and I had an idea. I told the man in charge at the guesthouse that I had a tent and asked if he did not mind I could pitch it in the patch of sand. I then told him if I did that then he could give my bed to someone else. He was very grateful and told me that would be great and there would be no charge for staying in my tent. As it turned out the bed I gave away was to an older German fellow traveling with his son Jorge. Jorge was very appreciative of this gesture and bought me a beer. I told him I was doing my part for improving German-American relations, and we had a toast to this. This was great for me. A free nights stay, a free room, a free beer, and I get to finally use my tent. I brought my tent thinking I would need it for camping, but in my month in Thailand I camped 0 days.

I spent the night talking to Germans, Australians, French, and English people. The Germans from the bus trip were named Ullie and Kerstin. It so happened that Ollie and Kerstin were from the same small town in Germany. I was the only American there. Kerstin worked for the BBC as a free lance producer and was in Sri Lanka one day after the tsunami hit and covered the story from there. We had to keep it down as there were people sleeping all around us. One man sat and read the whole night never once looking away from his book. He never once looked in our direction. A gecko made its shrill sound from under the rafters. I now know why it is called a gecko as it chirps out its namesake in a hoarse voice. G-E-C-K-O it kept repeating as we all laughed. We then heard someone throwing up in the bathroom. Someone made a joke and said it must have been a drunken gecko. We all laughed at this. The vomiting person sensed we were laughing at his misery and began to curse at us in a Russian accent out the window that he would come out there and kick the crap out of us. This made us laugh even harder.

I ended up drinking awful rice wine, smoking opium, and drinking Angkors with Ollie and Harry until 4am the next morning. I could not believe I was still awake after such a calamitous day. I must have been wired after all that had happened to me during the day. I had drunk this awful concoction known as rice whisky in Chiang Mai, and I could hardly stomach it. In Chiang Mai I usually took sips of this devilish potion every time it was passed to me, but Ollie and Harry were taking shots and pouring shots for me. I took a couple and every time I finished one my whole body shook in horror as it tried to cope with this awful liquid I was allowing to enter my body. It reminded me of a billboard for Jagermeister. The billboard has a picture of a man just finishing a shot and he has this awful look on his face and is half spitting out the drink. The caption on the top of the billboard reads “so smooth.” Jagermeister is like a kiddy cocktail compared to this rice whiskey.

As if there were not enough strange things to happen to me during this day, the strangest thing then happened around 2am. Out of nowhere during the middle of our drunken revelry under the thatch roof enters a young Cambodian with his mom and another gentleman. The young Cambodian has no shirt on and he approaches us and introduces himself to us. He tells me that he saw me in the bathroom and he heard me pissing. He then makes this fake pissing sound. I found that many times when I have met Asian people here that they like to inform you that they noticed you before you introduced yourself and then informed you what they noticed you doing even if it was the most mundane thing possible. In this case I was peeing and this person wanted to let me know that before we met he heard me peeing. That is great, I told him, not knowing what to say. If I noticed him noticing me peeing I could have told him that, but I was unaware that he was hearing me pissing, so I just said that is great and smiled.

It turns out that he is a martial arts student and the other guy was his teacher. When Ollie finds out about this he goes crazy because he is into martial arts too, so he challenges him to a fight. They agree to fight with no contact and Ollie takes off his shirt and they move away from the table in order to not wake the sleeping people around us. Harry and I follow with our cameras giggling as they start jumping at each other and doing these crazy pirouettes in the air. After they are done they give the Cambodian guy some rice whiskey. I am glad because the more people to help drink that awful concoction the better. Usually, when it comes to alcohol I prefer to have more, but this is not the case with rice whiskey. After a couple of shots, they offer him another, but his mom says no. His teacher and mom take him away stumbling, and he is bowing to us as he is being led back to wherever it was he came from.

We then retired to Ollie and Harry’s room for some more opium smoking. Thankfully the rice whiskey was finished. We listened to Kill Bill volume 2 soundtrack as the opium pipe was passed around. I finally got in my tent around 4am and slept for about four hours as the hot Cambodian sun plus all the activity at the guesthouse awoke me around 7:45. I had a splitting headache from the previous night’s activity, but it was quite a day. Today was time to see the wonders of Angkor, but I first needed to get rid of the not so wonders of my hangover.

Tags: Angkor Wat, Beer, Cambodia, Poipet, Siem Reap, Thai Cambodia border, Thailand, travel