Day 5 of 'A Week in Cambodia'

After snoozing the alarm a few times, I realized there was no option but to get up since our bus was scheduled to leave at 7:00am. We threw in all our stuff in suitcases and went down to the breakfast hall.

All my happiness in the world depends on a nice, leisurely breakfast (specially during vacations). The breakfast buffet at Golden Sand was neither. Rows and rows of cambodian/south-east asian food with no veggie options. I had to satisfy myself with some cold slices of toast, a glass or orange juice and chocolate. After grumbling a bit (actually a lot) about the breakfast, I realized that the restaurant was empty but for the 2 of us. Looks like the others knew of better places to eat.

After breakfast, we set out to find a tuktuk to take us to the bus stop. Abi is averse to bargaining and was ready to pay an atrocious 5 USD for a 5 minute ride. He would have also willingly agreed to pay more if only the tuktuk driver had the good sense to ask for it. I haggled unsuccessfully for a while, not because I like to but because one of us had to. I thought of all the times Abi stepped up to kill the cockroach since I was more scared than him and decided it was my turn to step up now.

We reached the bus stop with 15 minutes to spare. Mekong Express is a bus service between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh whose operational model is heavily influenced by airlines. Ground staff checked our tickets, secuirty tagged lagguage and checked it in. This done, we entered the bus and were greeted by a smiling lady. Every bus has a hostess who smiles, welcomes passengers on the bus and serves food. She also goes beyond the call of duty and acts as a tour guide, pointing out places of relevance in 2 languages. Her English is pretty difficult to understand. I have a feeling she writes her English script in Khmer (thats cambodian language) and reads it out because she paused in the middle of words, combined a few to make a new word and often missed punctuations. But her Khmer linguistic abilities are strong. This I know because I saw a few passengers nod understandingly when she spoke Khmer. Minor technicality that they were not locals.

Needless to say, we were sitting on the sun-side of the bus. After 4 hours we reached Phnom Penh from where we had to take another bus for Siem Reap, which was another 5 hour journey. We decided to eat a quick lunch at a nearby cafe. When we got back, lots of people were getting into the bus. We stood near the bus and someone quickly loaded our luggage inside. Abi tried to rush me into the bus. I decided I wasnt ready to brave another 5 hour journey without freshening up first. So I gave him the responsibility to make the bus to wait for me. I came back to see Abi waiting with the bags and the bus leaving.

I panicked and tried to pick up a bag and run towards the bus and signalled to Abi to do the same. Strangely, he seemed very calm. As I was trying to lift the bag, I vaguely heard him say that this was not our bus. I paid a little more attention to what he was saying and realized that while I was missing from the scene of action, Abi had been through the drama of our bags being loaded into the wrong bus. He said all the ground staff gave him dirty looks since they had to unload a lot of stuff to get our bags out. I was curious to know how he realized that it was the wrong bus. Apparently a couple who travelled with us from Shianoukville called out to him and informed him that this wasnt the right bus. I dont think they even knew where we were headed to ! But Abi being a big believer in the concept of trust quickly arranged for our bags to be unloaded.

Soon enough the bus arrived and we dutifully took our seats on the sun-side of the bus. The first couple of hours of the journey were fairly uneventful except for the occassional announcements made by the hostess. We stopped at a town on the way for some refreshments. We found a fruit-seller selling mangoes and got down from the bus to buy some. The stall next to ours was selling fried grasshoppers. It probably is a popular tea-time snack since people were buying them by the kilo. I had my fill of mangoes, got back into the bus and promptly fell asleep. Woke up to hear the hostess saying "Thank you for travelling with mekong Express". We had reached Siem Reap a little after 6pm. We were expecting pick up from the hotel. The driver quickly found us and we were on our way to relax after a tiring day.

All I wanted was some peace and quiet. But our driver (and later to be tour guide) was very interested in having a conversation. I completely ignored his attempts to be friendly and hoped we would reach the hotel soon. Abi on the other hand patiently answered his questions - yes we were from India, no we havent been to Cambodia before, yes we were married, no we didnt have children, yes we love Cambodia, no we didnt have a tour guide, yes we would be ok with him taking us to the temples. Mercifully the conversation stopped once he established that he was going to be our tour guide.

We dropped out bags at the hotel and went to the Old market area (Psar Chas) to have an early dinner. We ate at an Indian restaruant which was pretty bad - both food & ambience. Then we went for a foot massage to relax after a tiring day on the road.

Suporn (our driver & tour guide) had made plans of taking us to the temples before sunrise so we avoid the crowds and peacefully admire the temples in the early morning sun. Little did he know that sleep meant more to us than sunrise and temples !