Day 13 – The Long Haul
Today I travelled in a bus for 13.25 hours. Well, only 11
were spent in the bus, but still, from the moment the bus started at 7:00 AM in
HCMC, until it turned its engine off at 20:15 in Siem Reap, I was the passenger
on a long, grueling journey. I had to slap myself when I realized that I just
spent more time on this bus than I will in any flight left on my trip except
for one, the first leg of the final flight, from Singapore to Frankfurt. The
one difference is there was no movie to keep me company, there were no rounds
of drinks, or two full meals. To give Mekong Express Bus Service their credit,
they gave a few snacks and two bottles of water as part of the ticket, and
provided a stop on each 6 hour leg (HCMC – Phnom Penh & Phnom Penh – Siem
Reap) for people to get adequate food if they were so inclined (I was inclined
the first time, not so much the second). The bus was comfortable enough, with
fine seats and a very, very effective Air Conditioning system that kept me cool
to the point of being chilly. Still, any amount of time in a cramped bus is a
burden, and 11 hours of it was even worse.
The big issue, though, is the alternative is a lot more
expensive. There is no budget airline currently that services the HCMC to Siem
Reap route. I could have booked one one-way ticket on Air Asia from HCMC to
Phnom Penh, and then a round trip on a budget Cambodian Airline for Phnom Penh
to Siem Reap, but that would have been around 200 dollars all told (if not
more), and I would have saved, like, seven hours. The bus ticket was 24
dollars, 34 if you count the return bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (yup, I
have to do this again). I tried to tell myself that there was one advantage of
the bus: that I would get a nice view of the Vietnamese and Cambodian
countryside beside me. This wasn’t exactly wrong, but a little hopeful. Every
now and then, the bus drove by nice periods of farms and forest, but it was
mostly driving along roads that were too small for their own good, lined with
little shacks that made up various different two-horse towns. What the bus did
give me a great opportunity to do, though, was sleep.
There is nothing that makes me sleep faster than riding in a
car, or in this case a bus. I don’t even have to feel the least bit tired before
the ride starts before I fall asleep. The best part (or maybe, the most
annoying part from my Dad’s perspective) is this extra sleep doesn’t seem to
ever impact my ability to sleep that night. It is a gift, really, and one that
was very much appreciated by myself on this journey. I had set out to
ambitiously read throughout this journey, I would posit that I spent about half
of it reading. Some of it was the Southeast Asia guidebook, which I’m using
more to come up with suggestions of what to do in Thailand and Malaysia, where
I will be reunited with my Mom (kind of ruining my current set-up of writing
these during my meals alone). Most of it, though, was spent reading Catch-22 a book I had ‘read’ in 10th
grade. I use that term loosely, because apart from remember a few characters
names and the general gist of the novel, I remembered absolutely nothing. I
also feel like I can appreciate it far better now than I ever would have done
then with a 10th grader’s understanding of satire and a 10th
grader’s enthusiasm for reading.
Halfway through our ride from Siem Reap, the sun finally
started to set, ending any chance of me reading (got about halfway through –
still don’t think I can name one plot point from the rest of the book from my
memory). Darkness in cars brings out another gift that I possess, one that is a
little more useless. I have a really tough time falling asleep in the darkness
of cars/buses/planes. This is no problem on a plane, as I have movies to fall
back on. In this case, I only had some podcasts and music. Needless to say, it
kept me entertained, but without a view, or light to read, or any noise coming
from all of the other passengers who found it no real challenge to fall asleep
when it became dark, this became the part of the ride that I found the least
appealing.
The bus finally reached the Siem Reap bus station, but that
is a loose description of where we actually were. The more accurate description
would be the ‘Mekong Express Bus Station’ because only their buses were parked
there and we were in the middle of nowhere. Luckily for me, there were a line
of tuk-tuks available to whisk us away to whatever part of the city we wanted.
I was led to believe through my research that a tuk-tuk is essentially an
auto-rikshaw, the open, gas-guzzling, three-wheeled beast that I have grown
entirely accustomed to with my times in Bangalore. At least as far as Siem Reap
goes, this is completely wrong. Here, a tuk-tuk is more of a cycle-drawn
carriage, but instead of a bike, it is a motorcycle. It is surprisingly
efficient and safe (even more open-air than a rikshaw, so it is death on your
eyes). In about ten minutes we reached my hotel, The Lotus Lodge.
I haven’t really described any of the places I stayed in
during this trip so far, but the Lotus Lodge deserves a description. It is
really beautiful. Situated in its own compound, the rooms are reached outdoors,
in long rows. There is a pretty little pool behind a bar and restaurant. It
really looks like a little clubhouse. I’ll be honest, I’m staying at cheap
places in general, but the cheap so far has mainly gone as far as the price. I
had a few ‘must-haves’ for all of the hotels I chose, which were wi-fi, an
ensuite bathroom and a reputation for cleanliness and safety, and all of those
things have been true of each place. That said, I would have found this place
reasonable for double what I am paying. It is also walking distance from the
Angkor complex (though still most take Tuk-Tuk’s because of their availability
and the perils of walking in countries like these). I was also very please to
find Siem Reap quite a bit cooler than HCMC. Definitely being in a much smaller
city (and the hotel in a much more open area) helped, but HCMC seems to be the
exception on this trip, the only true boiler-room of all the places I have
visited.
I decided to stray outside my pre-trip research for the
first time in a place for dinner, passing those places over for something that
was listed in the Lonely Planet that I read about this afternoon (not that my
pre-trip research is useless, since I’ll be going to one of those tomorrow
night). The place is called ‘The Sugar Palm’, and it was better than I expected
in terms of the atmosphere (I expected the food to be good, and it was). The
restaurant is housed in a two-story house, mainly on the second floor, which is
totally opened out with a large ceiling and a round-the-house balcony that is
open (but has blinds for the day-time). It is coolly designed with clean
furniture that matches the outdoor woods theme. The food was, again as I
expected, quite good. I had a pomelo salad for an appetizer. The Pomelo salad
is a Khmer specialty, and it is a rice noodle based salad with pork, shrimp,
peanut, pepper and orange, a combination of things that works better than it
reads. I went with Basil Beef as an entrée. I expected it to be like any basil
beef, but it actually had a stronger peanut taste. The dish was a nice blend of
Vietnamese and Thai flavors, which is what I believe Khmer is based off of
anyway. A nice start to my time in Cambodia, and I am definitely happy I am now
well enough to enjoy it.
** A quick note about my sickness. I was confused what
caused it since I was first struck down during my flight from Johannesburg to
Bangkok. I think I have found the answer: tap water in Cape Town. Tap Water is
supposed to be fine in Cape Town, and it very well could be in other places,
but it wasn’t in my hotel evidently.**
I reached back to the Lotus Lodge by Tuk-Tuk around 10:45,
ready to hit the sheets. It will be interesting to see if my claim of sleeping
during car rides not affecting me at night holds true, because I need to sleep
soon and get up early because the Angkor complex will be packed being as
tomorrow is a weekend. You have to buy your ticket on-site, and the complex
opens at 5 AM. Apparently lines fomr really quickly. I gave myself two days to
do that complex (there is little else to do in SIem Reap – but that is like
saying outside of the Alhambra, there is little else to do in Grenada) which
still probably isn’t enough to do it right. I just want to do it well, and for
that I need an early start tomorrow, in a strange land where cheap hotels are
awesome and they accept Washingtons, Lincolns and Jacksons as forms of payment.
