Back In Bangkok

We survived probably the worst bus journey of our travels so far! What an assault on the senses! Cambodia is a very, very poor country. One of the reflections of thi poverty is the conditon of the roads. They are miserable. After being promised an air-conditioned bus and after being shown a picture of a lovely, sparkly clean, brand new mini-bus we loaded onto this thing (looking my best at about the 1/3 of the way mark):


Keith and I were breakfasting while waiting for the bus, so we were last to get on, and thus had the worst seats (a little welding would go a long way on this bus). Then we hit the road that was paved for only about 15 km. After that it was dirt, dust, rock, potholes....in other words, bumpy, bumpy, bumpy. Mom - be very, very glad you were not with us for this part of the journey. I was in the back row, wedged between some very friendly Japanese travelers whose only fault was that they WOULDN'T KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN. Being last on the bus, Keith and I got the fold-out-in-the-middle seats. What that meant for Keith is that he had no back to his seat...oh, it was there, it was just in a permanent reclining position. What that meant for me was that I really didn't have a back to my seat and so the luggage stacked behind me had no where to fall except on my head with the strike of each pothole. My Japanese friends and I finally got the bags stacked to our satisfaction, only to have the driver demand one be removed so that he could see out the back (don't know why he cared with how dusty it was!).

Here is Keith in his tiny little seat trying not to impose too much on his neighbors (you can just barely make out his crooked, leaning seat back):

And so it went. Keith spent half the ride on the floor leaning on my knees (the other half on his seat). I spent the whole time watching a bus full of miserable people trying to get comfortable, dust dripping (does dust drip?) from the once functional A/C vents, and watching the lucky ones with window seats try to decide if they should leave their window open for air, or closed to keep out the dust....("for the love of God, just leave it open, I'm dying here!" - or so I screamed in silence). I wish I had a dollar/baht/riel/dong for every time someone opened or closed their window.

Five hours later we were at the border where we crossed over to Thailand and felt as if we'd entered a 1st world country. The roads are beautiful here! And we got onto a fully air conditioned minibus for a 3 hour speed ride into Bangkok. What we sacrifice by crossing the border is the lovely baguettes we got used to for breakfast...now it is back to Wonder bread. What a difference a border can make. Kind of strange really.