The long journey

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Bus journeys aren’t our favourite part of travelling. Unfortunately, they can’t really be avoided, so 7-8 hour bus journeys are not uncommon for us now. 30 hour bus journeys, however, are another story.  

It was stressful right from the offset when we’re handed two pieces of paper with random numbers and incorrect dates scrawled over them in barely legible handwriting. I asked several people several times whether or not our tickets made sense and got increasingly frustrated answers. Of course these ripped pieces of paper you could have easily written yourself are legit, are you stupid!

It didn’t help that at every stop our tickets were replaced by others which seemed to make even less sense. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong date… At every following stop, the staff took the ticket, understood it, and sent us on our way. In the end, we gave up and just went with the flow.  

10 hours into the journey and things were looking up. We found ourselves on “king of bus” a coach aptly named! We had beds, plug sockets, water, toilets and even a custard sandwich… erm, yum.

After that it was all downhill, I don’t want to rant through this entire blog post so I’ll make it short.

16 people rammed onto a 12 seat minibus along with luggage. Claustrophobic and sweaty doesn’t even cut it.

Then, we are taken to the “border,” which was just a place to scam us all into paying twice as much for a visa into Cambodia. Objections were met with the alternative option of being left alone in the wilderness.

Finally, the last bus, the steaming pile of ancient sh* that it was, was so completely and utterly broken that we couldn’t stop for toilet breaks or food for hours on end… making us go over 24 hours without food. The clutch was burning out so badly that we broke down twice, the driver somehow miraculously got it back into gear both times.

Anyway, this post was meant to be about Siem Reap… so, a little about that. The first thing we noticed about Cambodia was how unbelievably friendly the people here are! Even when you’re turning down a begging woman or a relentless tuk-tuk driver you receive huge smiles.

We visited some incredible temples, the most noteworthy being Angkor Wat; a giant fortress of stunning architecture that has really stood the test of time!

We also watched an acrobatics performance with Laura and Graham. This was one of the highlights of our trip so far: an organisation in Cambodia, called Phare, take children from some of the worst imaginable backgrounds and teach them various life skills as well as ways in which they can express themselves through arts such as painting, crafts and acrobatics. The energy and passion that the performers had was mesmerising! The show itself was incredible and told a story unique and personal to the performers themselves, who had all been affected in one way or another by the Khmer Rouge genocide. If anyone reading this ever finds themselves in Cambodia, go and see this show!