Worst Bus Ride Ever - Introduction to Cambodia

It would have been hard to leave the relaxing and magical Don Det anyday, but especially when we had what was supposed to be a 13 hour multi-connection trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia ahead of us when Duncan woke up the night before with what would become his 7-day experience with dengue fever. After 22 hours, one boat ride, one mini-bus ride, 2 bus breakdowns, one 2 hour stopover in a dusty Cambodian town for 2 hours waiting for a new bus, being crammed with 80 fellow passengers on a sleeper bus (in the daytime) meant to hold 35 people with barely functioning AC, fear of death by bus accident, worry of being left on a Cambodian roadside at 3am (after the second bus breakdown), and one very sick travel companion, I would have done anything to be resting in a hammock with a happy shake or beer lao. Travel in foreign countries, especially by bus, is wrought with the unexpected but this trip definitely has taken the prize for worst bus ride ever for both of us....for now and hopefully forever.

We should have known it was going to be a long day when the bus that was going to take us to Cambodia never arrived after waiting 2 hours on a hot dusty roadside. Eventually a barely functioning sleeper bus (not our bus) pulled aside and agreed to let 60+ people load onto an already full bus. Apparently there are no safety regulations in this country.

After 4 hours (it should have taken less than one), we arrived at the Cambodian border.

The beautiful town of Stung Treng, Cambodia where we were stuck for 2 hours waiting for a new bus after our first bus (which was just a fill-in for the bus that never showed) finally broke down after several attempts at us passengers demanding a new bus (because we felt there was a strong possibility that we might die on that sleeper bus).

After our second bus rescued us (but was still not big enough to allow everyone to have a seat, so the aisles were filled with people), we continued on for 5 hours to Kampong Cham where the people heading to Siem Reap got off and boarded another bus, which was basically a very old school bus. The ride was uncomfortable but uneventful until around 2:30am when the bus broke down about 30 miles outside of Siem Reap in the middle of nowhere for about one hour while the bus driver & others attempted to fix it. As we had come to expect both after traveling in SE Asia for 6 weeks and after the nightmare day we had, no explanation of anything was given. At that point I resigned myself to the fact that we would probably spend the night on this bus in the middle of nowhere Cambodia. But surprisingly, at around 3:30am the bus started moving again and we finally made it to Siem Reap. And of course, one of the bus drivers assistants owned a guesthouse where the bus made it's final stop...but at that point I would have stayed anywhere. Welcome to Cambodia.