Best Seat on the Bus

Since our last plane ride was a little bumpy and neither of us are huge fans of air travel we have decided that travelling by bus might be more ideal. We booked the bus to Phnom Penh through our hotel in Siem Reap where the receptionist that did the booking was very pleased to be able to get us the best seats on the bus. It turns out that the best seats are right up front on the top of the double decker bus. Not only did we have a view out the side window, we were also able to look at the road out in front of us. It was a very interesting ride and unlike air travel you get to see the landscape change in front of you.

We drove through small towns with lively markets, houses on stilts where small children ran around while their parents napped on hammocks under the house or prepared food with a baby at their hip. There were chickens, roosters, oxen, cows, pigs, ducks and many dogs. Ponds full of blooming lotus, rice fields stretching out from either side of the road, and kids going to and from school on bikes with their blue and white uniforms on.

Our bus driver was confident behind the wheel and had no qualms about using the horn as any good Cambodian bus driver would. His horn would sound to say 'watch out here we come' or 'please move over so we can get by' as he passed large trucks, cars and a plethora of scooters on the undivided highway. The scooters that we went past seem to be able to carry anything imaginable from entire families with televisions to 6 double mattresses (the driver had them strapped his back and the sides of the scooter).

Our next bus ride from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville was on a slightly nicer bus. It was the first bus I've been on that had a stewardess. We got sugar buns for breakfast and were treated to the most mind numbingly horrible pop songs ever conceived. The highlight of the music was the backstreet boys (I'm not even being sarcastic) and also included such gems as Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On'. We only had one set of headphones with us on the bus so we both decided to suffer, it wasn't fair for just one of us to get those songs stuck playing in our heads over and over and over...

We arrived at the bus depot and as we departed our bus the tuk tuk feeding frenzy ensued. They swarm you, trying to be the one to take you to your hotel. Luckily for us we had pick up arranged and broke free from the crowd with our driver. The tuk tuks in Cambodia are a little different from the ones in Thailand. Here you sit in a two wheeled covered cart that is pulled by a scooter. In Thailand the tuk tuks were all one piece units, in Bangkok they had three wheels, in Phuket they had four. They have all been quite comfortable to ride in, even though there is no air conditioning you get naturally cooled from the wind in your hair and the dust in your face (there is more than one reason to wear sunglasses here).

In Cambodia, as in most of Asia, traffic runs on a give way system. That means that every driver worries about the vehicles that are in front of them and if someone needs to get into your lane, or turn left in front of you, you slow down to let them by. The whole system seems to work very effectively considering the amount of vehicles and we have only seen one minor accident since we've been in Asia. There are hardly any traffic lights, only on very major intersections, and even those lights aren't paid attention to like they would be in Canada. Traffic lights have count down clocks to tell you when the light is going to switch so everyone starts going a few seconds before the green light.

Pedestrians do not have the right of way here as they do in Canada. Crossing the road is a little like playing frogger. Sometimes you can get all the way across when there is a break in traffic, but often you have to cross half way and then stand in the middle of the road until the other side is clear. As long as you are deliberate while you are walking you can cut in between the traffic coming along and all the scooters just go around you and compensate for you. The few pedestrian cross walks that there are have the funniest symbols to let you know when it is ok to cross. There is an animated running man on the sign and as it gets closer to a red light, the running man starts moving faster and faster. We got quite a giggle out of it the first time we saw it.