Thursday, August 12, 2010

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

The bus ride from the south to Siem Riep was supposed to take 9 hours, 10 tops. We booked a larger, more comfortable bus with working air conditioning and luggage storage. However, I didn't think to ask if the ceiling was in good repair, I mean who asks about that sort of thing? It poured, I mean really poured for most of the trip...and the ceiling had many leaks. I spent the entire journey with my rain coat zipped up, my hood up, and Cragon's coat spread over my legs. It took 15 hours to get to Siem Riep. Fifteen bloody hours-- I don't even like sitting still for a 2 hour movie.  The following bits I had actually forgotten about (read: trauma induced memory blockage) until chatting with Cragon trying to remember some more details.

What I didn't realize about the first bus to the south is that it had such a lovely horn, you couldn't really hear it inside of the vehicle which is important, considering people use their horn every time they need to turn or pass someone or alert a cow that is wandering in the road or something. This bus's horn was piercingly loud so that every time you had just managed to doze off 'BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP' and you are up again!

There was a TV on the bus, probably provided for entertainment but only served to torment me further with very loud, very terrible music videos and shows that defied logic. The volume was turned up so loudly that my ipod headphones could not drown it out, I had to endure the torture.  I shall never again take a bus in Southeast Asia without ear plugs. Never.

Every 3-4 hours we took a 10-15 minute break to go to the bathroom, let the driver smoke a cigarette, and grab some food. Only, the places we stopped at had seriously questionable cleanliness. Now, I have a pretty hardy stomach when it comes to street food but there is no sense in tempting fate on vacation. I had a few baguettes over the course of the trip that looked safe and the rest of the cookies and dried fruit that I had packed as snacks.  The toilets themselves weren't too horrible...it was just the plethora of bugs, flies, and lizards on the walls of the stalls that started to get to you.

The hardest thing was that there were no bilingual Khmer/English or Khmer/French speakers on the bus so we had no idea what was going on or even a rough idea of when we might arrive. At the stops the few French tourists and I would shake our heads and ask each other if we had somehow discovered something about how far we were.

This is the only whiny post from my trip, I promise. It was just a truly uncomfortable bus ride. I did however manage to put a large dent in Anna Karenina while there was still light. Coming up, gorgeous pictures of ANGKOR!!!!!!!!!!!

Lack of spaz update: I went for another run last night and didn't maim myself. Assah!

4 comments:

Nancy K said...

We've had our share of rides or trains taking twice as long as advertised. Not fun.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot said...

That which does not kill us...

Josh said...

ouch...... i HATE buses.....

Alex said...

Ugh. Well, it was certainly an experience.