Quit Complaining, They Didn't Even Have Roads When I Traveled There...

Warning: The blog you are about to read features true accounts of public transportation woes in Cambodia and Thailand. These stories recount character building events over the past week and prove that there is such a thing as travel karma for those that choose to leave their ‘traveler’ ways behind them and go ‘full tourist’ (see previous blog).

In order to maximise our time in Cambodia, we decided to take a night bus from Saigon (Vietnam) to Phnom Penh (Cambodia). While an overnight bus is a pretty standard approach when travelling, it isn’t necessarily the best way to cover a short 6 hour journey with a border post smack in the middle. The premise however was that we leave at midnight, arrive at the border around 4am, park-up and sleep till the border opens, and then progress, meaning we’d get to Phnom Penh for morning tea and several hours earlier than any other option. All good, but what transpired was a pretty random journey.

The first major faux pas was when the driver missed a turn off while chatting to the co-driver. No worries - just back in to the driveway and turn her round. Unfortunately, the driver didn’t see the roadside culvert and ended up backing straight into it and beaching the bus. A 90 minute break in the journey at 2am ensued during which time numerous half-arsed cracks at driving out of the ditch were attempted (one while the bus was still on trolley jacks!). Notable in the attempts were requests for ‘male’ passengers to give the bus a push from behind (this is not a job for ladies according to the fully grown 60kg Vietnamese men).


All previous attempts to exit the mess under our own steam were unsuccessful so a passing truck was flagged down to give the bus a tow out of the ditch. At this point we should recall that the bus has become stranded after backing in to a drive way, thus it is perpendicular/at right angles to the road we should be on and the road that the truck offering the tow is on. So while we don’t have a physics degree between the three of us, it seemed like a recipe for disaster when a truck connects a tow line to a bus and then drives at right angles to the bus in order to pull it out.

Artist's impression of the situation (Morten, 2010).

Turns out we were wrong - you can successfully get a bus out this way, but only if at the precise point when it appears that the bus is destined to topple over sideways, the front wheels lose grip with the road and the bus bounces and grinds away from the right angle it was previously at. How the bus did not fall on its side we don’t know as it definitely listed through 30 degrees at which point all passengers (we were all off the bus) took rapid steps away.

The rest of the bus trip was reasonably uneventful in comparison, apart from the reasonably relaxed border formalities. Everyone onboard the bus got a Cambodian Visa without leaving the bus or showing their face to a border control officer. Excellent service, but as the hours ticked by and our arrival into Phnom Penh became more delayed, it became apparent we hadn’t necessarily taken the direct route from Saigon. So when the bus pulled over in a sleepy little town and 40 or so boxes were pulled from various hiding places on the bus and left on the side of the road, it became apparent that we’d travelled several hours to the south to a remote border crossing where a customs inspection could be avoided. Who knows what it was in those boxes that we carried over the border (we like to think school supplies for thirsty young Cambodian minds), but we finally arrive in Phnom Penh 5 hours later than expected (and after the first direct morning buses from Hanoi that we’d plotted to beat had arrived).


So with that nightmare journey behind us, we cracked into the sights within and around Cambodia’s capital city. First stop was the Royal Palace which was in tip top condition and a great afternoon’s visit was had after a dash back to the hotel to put on more appropriate attire (Mat’s wife-beater didn’t cut the mustard).

These three wish they hadn't agreed to the bet where whoever's team lost the World Cup, they'd keep their supporters kit on until the next World Cup.

Our second day in Phnom Penh was spent looking into the darker side of Cambodia’s recent history with a visit to the killing fields of Choeng Ek and Tuol Sleng Prison, both being infamous places connected with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime of the mid 70’s. We started with the killing fields of Choeng Ek which is just one of hundreds of mass gravesites found throughout Cambodia after the Vietnamese invaded and disposed of the Khmer Rouge. The remains of some 17,000 victims were found buried in pits here, which pales in comparison with the estimated 2 million Cambodian’s who died during the Pol Pot regime (a quarter of the Cambodian population at the time). The memorial at this site, as with others across Cambodia, features a stupa where the bones of the victims are encased, while the surrounding fields are dotted with the pits bearing testament to where the prisoners were executed and buried.

A local erecting some scaffolding around the stupa.

Tuol Sleng Prison, formerly a secondary school in the heart of Phnom Penh, was where those killed at Choeng Ek spent their last weeks and months before execution. The conditions the prisoner’s faced were (not surprisingly) bleak, and when the prison was liberated only 7 survivors were found, with 20,000 that entered the prison either dying at the prison or down the road at Choeng Ek. One of those 7 survivors sits in the courtyard each day, selling a book of his memories as a prisoner at S-21 (as it was coded).

Like the Nazis before them, the Khymer Rouge kept meticulous records on their prisoners.

One of only seven survivors of the 20,000 that passed through S-21.

Through visiting these two sites we were able to get a little insight to the reign of the Khmer Rouge which was brief but barbaric and characterised for us by extreme paranoia. Many of the prisoners were killed on the basis of wildly imaginative concerns that were seen to undermine the regime. A New Zealander killed at Tuol Sleng Prison (Kerry Hamill – brother of New Zealand Olympic rower Rob Hamill) had been captured with two other foreigners sailing off the coast of Cambodia. Despite no evidence to suggest these three were anything more than young men sailing the waters of Southeast Asia, written records from the prison document that they were executed for being CIA agents. The paranoia within the Khmer Rouge was so great that many of those that were executed in the latter part of the regime were high ranking members of the Khmer Rouge that had stepped out of line with command.

With the darker side of Cambodia’s past behind us, we headed west towards the brighter side, the famed temples of Angkor. It’s fair to say that we’ve visited some temples in our time, but the scale and breadth of these temples is something to behold. Sure everyone has heard of Angkor Wat, but us three naive travellers were flabbergasted that Angkor Wat was just one in a series of dozens of complexes that spread out in all directions from Siem Reap.

With limited time, we focussed our intensity on Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Promh and Banteay Srei, four of the more highly acclaimed efforts in the Angkor dynasty. Each of these sights is famed for different reasons and we got a real appreciation for the different styles of architecture used in constructing each of these ancient cities. The stone faces of Bayon (Angkor Thom) impressed greatly, as did the jungle setting of Ta Promh (this is where Angelina Jolie filmed Tomb Raider and started her habit of adopting orphaned children).

Angkor Wat.

Bayon.

Ta Promh.

Some kids using the foliage for a swing and awaiting a return visit by Angelina Jolie.

Our journey round the temples was navigated in a tuk tuk and at the end of the day, trouble struck in the form of a rear right wheel puncture (continuing our recent luck with transportation). We pulled into a roadside shanty community for 15 minutes while the puncture was fixed, during which time we mingled with some locals that usually only see gringos flashing past on the back of a tuk tuk. A little walk through their food stalls revealed some tasty options, including some shish kebabed snake. We passed on the chance of a quick snack and once back in Siem Reap, tucked into the previously mentioned (last post) chips and dip supplied by Morty while watching the live action of the Malaysian police absolutely shmozzling the bus hostage drama.

From Siam Reap, our next stop was Bangkok and as luck would have it, there was an 11am bus that would fit our schedule perfectly. Only one tour operator offered an 11am bus which didn’t raise any concerns when we booked it (surely this guy was clever and had cornered the market). But when a taxi pulled up for us at the ‘bus station’ some questions were asked. All good said our man who’d sold the tickets – taxi 3 hours to the border, then a bus pick you up. Seemed fine, so we piled into the taxi but Mat was forbidden from the front seat- must be because we’re picking up someone else.

There was a 10 minute wait in the back blocks of Siam Reap before we set off on the drive with the front passenger seat still empty. Just as Mat was about to ask if we could put the empty seat to use, the cell phone rang, instructions for the pick-up came through and we u-turned back the 15km we’d travelled out of Siam Reap. We pulled up and saw an old lady, a young man and two infants and wondered which one was coming with us. The answer was all four – the groan from the three of us in the backseat as we each realised what was happening was audible 300 kms away in Phnom Penh. To their credit though, these 4 Vietnamese managed to fold themselves into the front seat and around the gear stick without inconveniencing the three of us in the back for the 3 hour blast to the border.

Our few days in Bangkok were best characterised by great street food, immense heat, far too many temples for one to really appreciate and a bit/lot of shopping. The food was exquisite, with green, red & yellow curries, pad thai and tom yum soup being consumed in copious amounts. Shopping wise, we stocked up on faux-havaianas for the months ahead (8 pairs purchased between the three of us)and some rip-off tee shirts which Morty transported back down-under, assuring us a small supply of clean clothes when we arrive home.

On our last night in Bangkok, we glammed-up (which consisted of leaving the jandals at home and, for Mat, donning some jeans) for a cocktail at the Banyan Tree hotel which Cam had introduced to Mat some 5 years earlier. Basically, the roof top, 61 floors up, is an open air restaurant and cocktail bar offering great night time views over Bangkok. The drinks were a little pricey, but came with free snackos which, at the first sign of rain, were consumed at quadruple time and before a second drop of rain had even fallen.

View over Bangkok from the Banyan tree Hotel.

The checked shirt comes out again, and no sign of one G. Wood wearing the same one on the same night...

At this point in the travels, this is where Morty left us to return to the real world of toilets where you can flush away toilet paper. Given our run of form with the public transport, we giggled when we saw that the pickup for the airport bus was someone on a scooter that would transport Morty, her belongings and all our purchases to the actual bus 200 metres away.

Morty heading to the airport on her faithful Stead.

Having bid farewell to Morty, we made our way to the Bangkok train station for an overnight train to the Laos border. We were not surprised to find a derailed train that had gone through the arse end of platform 9/10 earlier in the day. Thankfully, this was not our train, so perhaps travel karma had moved in our direction....