To Siem Riep

Wednesday Sept 29, 2004

We got up early and taxi’d to Khao San road to catch the bus to Siem Riep. While we were having breakfast in a restaurant there, a guy stopped by and told us where the bus was. After breakfast we headed over there and boarded a nice big “VIP” bus. The bus ride to the Cambodian border took about 4 hours, a significant portion of that sitting in Bangkok traffic jams. The border crossing was pretty easy, we stopped for lunch just before the border, filled out some forms, and the tour company employees went and bought the visas while we ate. We walked across the border with no line to show our passports and get waved through. Guess they’re not worried much about people smuggling things into Cambodia. Walking around in the sun was pretty hot, and Poi Pet is literally a trash heap, so my introduction to Cambodia wasn’t spectacular. Here’s a terrible picture which incorrectly makes it look like a decent place:

Poi Pet, Cambodia

Bill says Poi Pet is the worst (poorest, dirtiest) place in Cambodia, and I believe it. There were large piles of trash lining the streets.

By the way, Cambodia is the English name for the country, they call it Kampuchea, and the people and language are called Khmer.

We waited around awhile and then loaded 9 or 10 of us into a Toyota mini-bus and headed out towards Siem Riep. It was quite a ride. It’s a dirt road, and it is the worst road I’ve ever seen. The combination of tons of traffic, huge heavy trucks and torrential rain is too much for it. The tour company had an interpreter on board, a young Cambodian guy named Pheap, and I sat next to him. He said the government does some work on it each year, but I guess it’s not high quality enough base to work from. There were dried-mud ridges in the road that were about 2 feet high in places, and Texas-sized potholes everywhere. I did see a road crew working on it at one point; one guy, moving really slowly, dumping dirt a hat-full at a time into a pothole. It’s hard to believe that’s somebody’s idea of a reasonable approach to road maintenance, but it’s even harder to believe that a local is out there by himself doing that for fun, so I think that was official road maintenance work.

The driver drove about twice as fast as I would have driven, passed in places that looked pretty much insane to pass in, and hit potholes so fast we were bouncing off the ceiling of the bus. The racket from hitting all the potholes was deafening. I seriously cannot believe that those buses can take that stress. I was astonished we made it without a broken axle or suspension link or something, and the thought that those buses make that run day after day gives me a whole new respect for Toyota. I had no idea a vehicle could take that much abuse. Bill did mention he thought the frame felt cracked, and the driver got out and looked under the bus about 5 or 6 times, but we made it. A woman I met at Khao San road said her trip to Siem Riep was 17 hours due to a bus breakdown. Pheap said the road was “good” then so we’d have a fast trip. It was a 12 hour day of traveling, about 8 on the road.

That ride was the first time I got a good feel for what the countryside looks like. It’s got lots of palm trees, rice fields, and lots of water. It seemed like half the acreage I saw was water with some grass here and there. In places there were lots of people, especially about 5 PM I noticed many people out bathing in the water. Pheap said it’s normal to bathe right before dinner.

We stopped a couple of times for breaks, and got mobbed by kids begging. Here are some pictures from some of the stops:

When we arrived in Siem Riep the bus took us out of the main city to a guest house, encouraging us to stay at that guest house or hire motos from the group sitting there waiting. There’s almost always some kind of deal going on like that. To avoid encouraging that kind of thing, Bill used his cell phone to call a driver from another guest house for some of the other passengers, and then we walked across the street and hired some other motos that came along.

The Rosy Guest House was much nicer than the A-One Inn in Bangkok, and still only about $12 per night for a double.

Bill and I at the Rosy Guest House.