From Chang Mai the journey began. I decided to fly back to Bangkok, even for a traveler on a budget, the lure of spending a night in a bed before the long journey to Cambodia was worth the extra £ 6. That was until the flight was delayed, I didn’t go to bed until 2.30am and the bus to Cambodia left at 7am the same morning. The journey from Bangkok to the Cambodian border was comfortable, starting in a nice air-conditioned coach with plenty of free seats to stretch out, followed by a minibus and then a motorcycle side cart on the other side of the border. Everything was going well.
Across the border, a group of us were led into the back of two pickup trucks. We were told that one of the bridges on the road to Siem Reap was broken, so we had to travel by trucks to the bridge before meeting the bus on the other side of the broken bridge. The vans were so crowded that we had 12 people in addition to the 20 backpacks that formed temporary seats for more people who couldn’t fit on the edge of the edge of the truck. For the first hour or so the trip was fine, the scenery was so amazing, completely different from Thailand. I did not expect such a contrast. The road, however, was the dirt track in the worst condition I have ever seen, with huge trucks, buses and motorcycles loading along. They do not appear to be driving on any particular side of the road and the rules of the road do not seem to apply.
Five very hectic and uncomfortable hours later (by which time it had been almost 14 hours since we left Bangkok), we finally reached the broken bridge. We crossed the bridge with our bags and got on the not-so-fancy Cambodian bus, again with more people than seats, and definitely more bags than people. A bit crowded again, but things were looking good, at least now we could expect to sleep during the 2 hour drive to Siem Reap, sleeping in the vans would have led to us falling out of the back. However, 30 minutes into this leg of the trip, we stopped again. This time a truck was stuck in one of the potholes and was blocking the road. There were about 20 other trucks lining up behind the one that was stuck, most with drivers sleeping in their hammocks below.
Residents of the local village had gathered to try to free the truck, but to no avail. Meanwhile, the local children were fascinated by seeing the “white people.” I spent the 3 hours we were stranded there playing with these kids, teaching them songs like ‘The Hokey Cokey’ and ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.’ I knew my days as a game leader would come in handy at some point! Amazing to do this while also seeing fireflies and the moon setting, very pretty.
At 2am another van finally arrived to take us to Siem Reap, this was even busier than the previous day. 1 1/2 hours later we were anticipating our arrival at our destination when the truck swerved to avoid a broken down car, once again the road was blocked! Once again we get stuck. At least now we were on the outskirts of the city and soon a minibus arrived to take us to the last bus stop, from where I stopped a motorcycle taxi to take me and my huge backpack to my hostel. I finally arrived at the hostel at 4 am, 21 hours after leaving and very tired.
In hindsight, do you wish you had wasted the money for the short flight from Thailand to Cambodia? Not one bit. Yes, the flight would certainly have been faster and easier, but this was a trip that I will remember forever.