Phnom Penh - Siem Reap



Phnom Penh to Siem Reap


I've had my last day in Phnom Penh which was very enjoyable. I managed to get my Vietnam visa sorted and went to watch Transformers 3 at a cinema in Phnom Penh. This was quite an experience as during the film there was cheering at randon moments. There was also a brief clip which showed Angkor Wat at which point the cinema errupted with screaming and cheering, it was very strange.

Broken down again

However the time had come for me to go to Siem Reap to see the Angkor temples for myself, the journey was expected to take 5 hours. As usual I would have to take one of the buses where the journeys are always full of suprises. I was hoping that my luck would change as i'd had quite a string of bad journeys recently where the last bus had broke down. After completing my last journey I regreted afterwards not taking a picture of the bus being fixed as it would have been good for the blog. As fortune would have it, this bus broke down too. It looked like a similar problem to last time, something was wrong with the tyre.

Deep Fried Spiders and Deep Fried something else

This took about 40 minutes to fix but then we were on our way. After this point on came the Karoke on the TV which stayed on for the rest of the journey.

we stopped for lunch at a Cambodian service station which is where I took the next photo. There was a good selection of food available which included deep fried spiders and deep fried crickets. I waved my chance to have this and opted for the fresh pineapple on a plate next to these.





Kicking everyone off the bus


The journey continued slowly until a few hours later, for no reason, the driver pulled over and started indicating for us all to get off. Fortunaly someone translated this for us so we knew what was going on. We were not given a reason for this but after about 30 minutes he changed his mind and let us all get back on again. This was all very strange and even the Cambodian people, who are all very chilled by nature were getting frustrated.

Eventually we did make it to Siem Reap. The 5 hour journey took 8 hours. These bus trips really are an experience. Ive found the best way is to just assume its going to take most of the day and go with it. I was sat next to an expat who is currently living in Phnom Penh who does these journeys regularly and was very grumpy, I did try my best to cheer her up but it didn't work. It also didn't help that she was only going for the day to see her boyfriend and would be returning to Phnom Penh tomorrow so would have to do the whole thing again.




One way of tranporting bikes

 
Siem Reap seems like a really nice town though and Im looking forward to seeing the Temples of Angkor tomorrow.

I took the final picture as it make me laugh. It says alot about how relaxed these countries are in South East Asia about pretty much anything.