Siem Reap to Bangkok
This was always going to be a challenging journey, despite the fact that the distance betweeen Siem Reap and the Thai capital is only 420km. The difficulties come from the state of the road between Siem Reap and the border crossing at Poipet. Having read about the condition of National highway route 6 as it is called, we were prepared for a bumpy ride, but we still couldn't quite believe how bad it was: often single lane, only about a third of the road was tarmacced and much of this had broken away. It did not help that the rainy season had recently ended and so parts of the road had completely washed away. The word 'pothole' cannot describe the craters found in this road.The Cambodian government did receive a hefty grant from the US government to fix up the road but improvements have been delayed, apparently because the Thai airline that flies between Siem Reap and Bangkok is paying a commission to the political party in charge (corruption is rife in Cambodia). This enables the Thai airline to charge $150-200 for the 45 minute flight, taking advantage of the many more wealthy tourists that want to visit the Angkor temples. Priced out of flying, we had no choice but to get a bus.
The airline are not the only ones to benefit from the shocking state of the road; there is also a well known scam which arises because some Siem Reap guesthouses pay the bus companies a commission for every guest that is dropped off and stays at their guesthouse. The journey is therefore made as long and as uncomfortable as possible, on the basis that travellers who arrive late and tired are more likely to succumb to the first bed they are offered. Fortunately, we were doing the journey in the opposite direction, but we did still suffer from the poor state of the bus, which proved to be not only very uncomfortable but also quite unreliable.
Our journey started bright and early: we left the bus station at 07:30, eventually leaving Siem Reap at 08:15 after some pick-ups and a change of driver and crew. We had often wondered why Asian bus drivers usually carried a crew, usually of 2 men who seemed to do little more than change the CD. The reason was to become more obvious as the journey progressed. Needless to say, the name 'Anol Tours' was apt.
Within the first hour of the journey we had already experienced the air vent of the bus crashing to the floor, almost hitting passengers on either side of the aisle. We had also established that the air conditioning of the bus did not work (this produced a great scene where an arsey Irish girl in a tiny denim skirt threatened to complain about the bus drivers - as if they care about that sort of thing). We had managed about 30km when we pulled into a gas station, at which point the driver spotted a flat tyre. We waited for half an hour while the crew removed the tyre, which was then taken apart and repaired by a teenage boy. Our journey continued, and we comforted ourselves with the notion that it is better to get these mishaps out of the way.
One hour later we were herded off the bus at what we thought was a scheduled toilet/snack stop as it was one of those over-priced tourist shops we had seen so many of. However, as we vacated the bus we were informed that the bus was broken and would return fixed in 20 minutes. 45 minutes later, the bus returned and we were once more on our way.
We had only travelled about 50km in 3 hours, but we were now making better progress, probably averaging an impressive 30km/h. We rattled through the Cambodian countryside, so much so that when we stopped for lunch we practically had the shakes.
Our speedy progress continued after lunch. Indeed, the way the bus was thrown about the road it seemed that the driver had long forgotten about our precarious rear wheel. Unsurprisingly, it was not long until the tyre finally gave way, exploding with a loud bang. The bus rolled gently into the next village, where we stopped at a garage (or a shack with some machinery and tyres outside). The offending wheel was removed and then, to our disbelief, a spare wheel was taken from under the bus and fitted within 5 minutes. Now just 30km from the border town Poipet, our journey continued.
In the same vein as the rest of the journey our arrival in Poipet was not without incident. As we reached the outskirts of the town the bus experienced a large shudder. Something was clearly wrong because we then rolled through the border town at about 10km/h. When we finally reached the Poipet bus station we came to a rolling stop, and one of the crew members revealed that the brakes had gone. It had taken 7 hours to travel the 150km to Poipet; needless to say we were relieved to get there.
The border crossing and the rest of the journey to Bangkok (we were less than half way there at this point) went without a hitch, and compared with our first leg, we were travelling in complete luxury; the spacious double decker bus had reclining seats, air-conditioning, western movies (although one starred Vin Diesel and the other Steven Segal) and even brakes! The driver was obviously as eager to get to Bangkok as we were to get off the Cambodian bus, as we did the 270km journey in less than 4 hours. It had been a long day.
Chris
<< Home