The beginning of the end
Uh oh Spaghetti-O's
I am back in Phnom Penh, safe and sound, after an epic adventure in Laos and Northeastern Cambodia with my friend Melissa. So many stories and pictures to share that I’m not sure where to begin, so I have decided to begin at the end, since it was perhaps the biggest (mis)adventure of all.
We made better time than expected rolling south through Laos and consequently hit the Cambodian border with a few days to spare. Rather than continuing on to Phnom Penh, we called an audible and made for the remote Northeast province of Cambodia – Ratinikiri. We were “sort of in the area” (6 hours west) and we weren’t sure if we would ever make it out that way again so why the heck not. After a relaxing 2 days at a cool ecolodge called Treetops in the provincial capital city of Ban Lung, we bought a ticket on the 6:30am big bus to Phnom Penh and settled in for the 11 hour journey.
We went with the big bus over the minibus option because we were still feeling the effects of the the crowded 18 person mosh-pit of a 6 hour minibus ride that we had endured from Kratie to Ban Lung on the outbound journey. And because the big bus was $6 cheaper. Sometimes in life it is worth paying the extra $6.
The bus stopped every 2 minutes for the first hour of the journey, picking up more and more people (and bags of rice and other random odd sized objects). There was only one other foreigner on the bus besides Melissa and me. Once all of the seats filled up the driver busted out short plastic stools and soon enough someone one sitting in every inch of the isle. The bags of rice apparently took priority over our backpacks and pretty Hill Tribe Laos souvenirs bags so before long we were wedged into our seats with our backpacks, goody bags, and purses piled on our laps. As soon as we got settled (numb), the bus would stop and the circus would unload for a bathroom break.
Stuck in a rut and he can't get out of it
By 10am the bus stopped and the clown car routine repeated itself. But this time we found ourselves staring at a large expanse of water that had washed out the road. The 2+ feet of water left over from Typhoon Katsana wasn’t the real issue, but rather the thick muddy swamp that had formed on the other side. Vehicles could power through the overflow lake, but then they would get sucked into the mud and that was lights out. Two huge big rigs were stuck smack in the middle of the 1 lane dirt “road” and while trucks and minibuses could snake their way around, anything bigger (like a fricken bus) was SOL. 2 hours later enough trucks and minibuses had gotten themselves stuck that nobody could get through.
A tractor arrived on the scene and one by one started pulling out the smaller vehicles. And one by one some idiot in a SUV or overloaded pickup truck would drive up (blatantly bypassing the line of 50 other vehicles waiting their turn in the queue) and plop themselves in the middle of the muck, making the same mistake as the rest of the bozos. 8 hours later we still hadn’t moved. The heat was miserable and we were starving, but by far the most excruciating part of the day was the stupidity of the drivers around us. There was no patience, organization, coordination, or communication. It was a free-for-all and everyone paid the price.
When the sun started to set, the anxiety level increased. The tractor that had heroically pulled out some 50+ vehicles over the course of the day was now equally as stuck in the mud with nothing to pull it out. The prospect of spending the night on a bus in the middle of a flood plane was rather terrifying, and more upsetting to me was the fact that I had a big day at work starting in 12 hours and missing it would be no bueno.
With daylight fading fast, Melissa and I left the small make-shift tent erected by an entrepreneurial women selling banana chips to hungry waylaid passengers and trekked back across the swamp and flood plane on a makeshift plank walkway. We hauled our stuff off the bus, waive goodbye to our driver, and on a whim/prayer/gamble decided to cross back over and try our luck bribing our way onto a bus/minivan that was giving up and returning to Phnom Penh . It was pitch dark at this point and my camping headlamp saved the day. What a brilliant invention the headlamp is.
We stumbled down the line of vehicles on the west side of the impasse, desperately asking if anyone was going back to Phnom Penh. Remarkably a big bus towards the end of the line was indeed abandoning Ratinkiri ambitions and returning to the mothership in Phnom Penh. We scampered onboard and slunk down in two seats in the rear. Unfortunately the driver decided to check tickets and our tickets were from a different bus company. Busted. But it is Cambodia and for better or worse one can bribe his or her way out of just about anything. Eight dollars poorer we were rolling Southeast once again.
Bus number 2 broke down twice between Kratie and Phnom Penh, but nevertheless, 23 hours after blast off, at 4:45 am, we arrived in Phnom Penh. No tuk tuks were in sight so Melissa and I walked a mile back to our apartment. Our roommates didn’t think we would be coming home so they had pad locked the apartment from the inside. Thankfully Maurtiz, the new German flatmate, woke up after a few minutes of pounding on the door. I had just enough time to shower, curl up on my bed in the fetal position for 30 minutes, and then bike to work.
Goodnight Moon. Goodbye Bus.
Life’s a journey and Cambodia is a special circus. Ah but it was an adventure and worth it in the end. Thankfully work went great today despite the lack of sleep – big week for my SIGU! More on that to come….
