The fairly smooth, surprisingly short, bus trip from Pnohm Pehn to Siem Reap had made me complacent. I simply wasn't prepared for the ordeal of getting to the Thai border. Granted, I did take precautions. When booking the ticket I attempted to ensure myself the least painful trip possible:
Travel Agent- "New border crossing or old border crossing?"
Me-"Which one has the more comfortable bus?"
TA-"New border is cheaper."
Me-"Yeah, ok, but which way is more comfortable?"
TA-"New border is only $10. Very cheap!"
(I couldn't really fault her for trying to save me some money. I think the general view of young foreign tourists in South-East Asia is that they have money but are reluctant to pay any more than the bare minimum for anything. In most circumstances, this applies to me aswell. On this day however, I was facing a journey of several hundred kilometers across terrain I expected to be anything but smooth. While rough roads where an inevitability, total discomfort was not. I wanted to be sitting on as much protective padding as possible)
Me-"Money is no problem. Which bus is better? More comfortable?"
TA-"Ahhh bus?"
Me-"Yeah, I want the better bus. I don't care which border I go to."
TA-"Ahhh you don't worry, bus same same!"
And with those oft heard words of persuasion my chances of having a comfortable seat quickly evaporated (although I did not immediately realize it).
When the bus pulled up I knew I should have flown. I half expected to see holes in the floor for the drivers feet to protrude through 'Flintstones' style. That's how primitive this thing was. The seating arrangements made a sardine can look spacious. The surly passengers were cramped into their tiny fold down chairs while the mass of baggage was piled in behind. My seat, with a little more legroom and the ability to slightly recline, was one of the best. Then again, that's like having a mild case of crabs, still not that pleasant. I was beginning to wish I'd learned a little transcendental meditation from the monks at Angkor Wat. I could just send my mind off to another plane of existence and let it return when I needed to clear Thai immigration.
The bus was uncomfortable at a standstill, but once it started moving was when the real fun began. Looking more like a crater marked, lunar landscape than a road, the route to the Thai border crossing at Duang stretched out ominously ahead of us. The rolling and lurching of our rickety bus was made only more uncomfortable by the copious amounts of dust blowing off the road and through the windows. Before long, everything inside from bags to passengers was coated in a thick brown film. In an attempt to alleviate this problem, the driver closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning. It was well intentioned, but the results only made things worse: all the a/c ducts were completely full of dust and when opened, they dumped their payload all over the waiting passengers. Not much later, a particularly severe pothole impact jarred the back door open. Three bags had tumbled out into the road before the driver noticed and stopped. Luckily, no-one else had followed us down this road to run them over. We recovered the lost cargo, secured the door with a piece of rope, and set off again.
Several hours dragged painfully by and I consoled myself with the thought that every passing minute brought us that much closer to the paved highways and new buses of Thailand. "I just want to get to the border and get off this bus," was my only wish. Unfortunately, only half of it was soon to be fulfilled. With a pitiful whirr and a defeated clunk, the engine died and we rolled to a stop. I was off the bus but not where I had hoped to be. It appeared we were out of fuel. A surprising thing to happen on a scheduled bus route driven every other day. Then again, it wasn't that surprising. We took a few minutes to stretch our legs and try to make light of the situation. We were in the middle of nowhere. On either side of the road stood a few rickety dwellings in scrubby fields with palm trees protruding above the long grass. A couple of local kids rode up on bicycles and the bus driver gave them some cash to go get gas. I doubted we would ever see them or the money again but, within minutes, they came back with a couple of gallons of much needed fuel. I walked a short distance down the road to be out of view while I 'watered some of the local vegetation'. I was about to take a few steps off the road but then thought better of it. The last thing I wanted to do was piss on a landmine.
When I arrived back at the bus it was ready to go. The gas was all in the tank, everyone was aboard, and the driver was turning the key. Only, nothing was happening. The engine churned and squealed but refused to turn over. Apparently we hadn't run out of fuel. Another delightful turn of events. We were back off the bus but now, with only about an hour and half until the border closed, we didn't have much to joke about. Groups started to form and discuss hitchhiking strategies and what would be a reasonable offer to get us to the border. The planning proved unnecessary as a small pick up truck emerged before us through a cloud of dust. The driver looked at our group of 17 and gestured to the truck bed. "I guess we just through all our bags in there and then something bigger will come for us," I rationalized. The bags were all in and decently secured and I was still fairly confident in my initial assessment. As you may have already guessed, I was completely wrong. The driver pointed again to the back of the truck and, since we were no longer carrying anything, it was generally assumed that we would be joining our bags for the trip to the border. We got in and adjusted to the new seating arrangements which were only marginally more uncomfortable than the old ones.
Perched on the 4 inch edge of the truck bed, I gripped anything I could to keep from being hurled out. The road was still just as bad but we were more acutely aware of it due to the hard metal under our already sensitive rear ends. As we lurched and banged over every new pothole, the passengers let out "ooohhhh"s and "ahhhhh"s to articulate the general feeling of dread and discomfort. From small houses set back in the trees along the road I could hear the mirthful cackle of locals splitting their sides at the sight and sound of us. It lightened the mood a little watching children see us and instantly collapse into laughter as if it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. Perhaps it was.
Dusty, suffering, and several hours behind schedule, we finally arrived at the border. We squeaked through with about 20 minutes to spare before the gates closed for the night. Because it was so close to the end of their shift, I think the customs officers were in a rush to get us through and didn't bother trying to bilk us for a few bribes (which, if one can trust the word of fellow backpackers, are almost considered customary). It was a great relief to sink into the plush seat of the new minibus and pass out for the final leg of the trip into Bangkok.
I was woken up by the bright glow of millions of yellow lights dangling from trees along the main streets. The city was lit up in celebration of the King's birthday. The King of Thailand is a beloved figure and the mood for his party was literally electric. Finally escaping the bumper to bumper traffic, the bus dropped us and our dusty bags on Khao San Road, Bangkok's backpacker haven. I dragged myself and my bag from one guesthouse to the next in search of a cheap room. I watched enviously as other travelers, already set up with accommodations, whiled away the night at patio tables covered with beer and savoury Thai food. I eventually found a room and went out to join them.
As with most places I've been on this trip, it would be hard to fully convey Khao San Road in words. Of course I'll try. Perhaps a list of some of the things you can see: Volkswagen vans converted into traveling traveler's bars; pots and plates of bubbling, fragrant Thai cuisine; English Premiership matches or the latest Hollywood offerings playing on every TV screen in every bar on the street; dogs and cats that rival stoned backpackers for their level of laziness by sleeping in the middle of the street and barely flinching as cars, tuk tuks, and people navigate within inches of them; tailor shops where one can shed the scruffy facade of budget traveler and slip into a custom made suit for less than $50 US dollars; ongoing social and political discourse scrawled on the walls of dingy bathrooms (examples: "If you give up peace as a goal, everything is fucked! Don't believe any idiots who say otherwise.";"I'm German and I hate only two things: racism and Israelis") by Khao San's diverse international population; thousands of gravity-ignorant geckos chirping, crawling, and hunting flies at impossible angles on walls, ceilings and signboards; travelers getting their hair braided, their bodies pierced, or their skin inked at the many hair salons, piercing studios, and tattoo parlors; the list goes on and on.
On Khao San Road, authenticity is a four letter word. At every turn you can find a fake something: street stalls sell knock off brand name clothes and shoes; bulletin boards advertise fake ID's and press passes that can be made in less than an hour; bookstore shelves are loaded with photocopied editions of Lonely Planet and popular novels; pirated software and burned CD's and DVD's can be picked out of bulky catalogues for less than a dollar each; if a guesthouse earns a recommendation in a popular travel guide, within months, five others have popped up, all with the same name in an attempt to attract uninformed visitors; even some of the women aren't real! Where as a 'not-so-North Face' bag can be spotted by its shoddy stitching and crooked logo, the low pitched voice and massive hands are dead give aways of a transexual. In both cases, you can only tell from close range: "Good from far, far from good," as one fellow traveler put it.
This is the environment in which I've passed the last few days. I needed some time to recover from the brutal trip from Cambodia and this was an entertaining place to do it. This afternoon I'm off to Koh Lanta down in the south to catch some sun rays on the beach and hopefully see some manta rays in the water when I take my open water diving course.
Human traffic flows up and down Khao San Road, Bangkok:
About me
- Name:Chris Rae
- Currently Located In:
- My profile
Last posts
Archives
- July 30, 2004
- November 06, 2004
- November 10, 2004
- November 12, 2004
- November 14, 2004
- November 15, 2004
- November 19, 2004
- November 24, 2004
- November 26, 2004
- December 06, 2004
- December 10, 2004
- December 16, 2004
- January 15, 2005
- May 15, 2005
- November 21, 2005
- December 20, 2005
- December 23, 2005
- January 23, 2006
- January 31, 2006
- February 13, 2006
- February 23, 2006
- March 30, 2006
- April 24, 2006