Just an inside note for all of you planning on heading to Angkor Wat for your next weekend getaway - when they tell you in the guidebooks that the journey by bus from Bangkok is a frustrating, all day affair (even though it's only 400 kms) and that the road from the Thai-Cambodian border to Siem Reap is bad, that would be bad by Southeast Asian standards...believe them, every single one.
Believe that you will have a nice, pleasant 4-hour journey in an air-conditioned bus on smooth, paved roads from Bangkok; believe that you will stop at a restaurant 3 kms from the border, be told to eat lunch and hand over your passport, please; believe that you will wait for an hour, a little bit anxious since your only valid identity has just driven off on the back of a motorbike, choking down fried rice in the open air; believe that you will then be herded like cattle through immigration (passport returned, thank you), and walk into a world of dusty streets and border-town trading, where since you left one country and haven't yet arrived in the next, do you even really exist for those minutes?;
believe that you will have your Cambodian visa stamped and be shuttled into bus to be driven 200 meters down the road to a room empty but for a few chairs set in rows, occupied by a few blank white faces who look like they have been waiting for a few minutes or several hours; this is where you will wait for your bus to Siem Reap, gateway to the majestic Khmer temples of Angkor Wat...and wait...and wait...until the bus drivers' friend who also rents taxis garnished enough business from frustrated travelers (who already paid for the bus, but the taxi leaves now...) and decided, yes, okay, we can finally leave;
believe that all the bridges will be out and, yes, that pothole we just drove around did swallow a car yesterday; believe that the air-conditioning will be broken and the windows won't open for the first three hours and the dust will pour in through every gap and the seats do make the steps on those temples you are about (someday?) to see feel like feather pillows...welcome to Cambodia, pleased to meet you that will be 5 dollars please...
yes, believe that prices will be in US dollars and it really doesn't get any cooler at night; believe that it will feel more like the chaos of Calcutta than the organized calm of Chiang Mai; believe that you will arrive late at night (if you are lucky and the bus only breaks down once), be accosted by beggars and wonder what was it you were coming to see in the first place?;
believe that the $150 flight back to Bangkok is sounding like a right fine idea and can you get a ticket for tonight, please?; believe that you will sleep soundly across from a river that resembles a green version of the Yamuna and wake up eager to bike 30 kilometers in 95 degree weather with 90 percent humidity...yes, believe that the Japanese tour groups are almost as annoying as the American tour groups, and believe that you will find a tiny corner in a deserted temple with stone carvings on every side and the sun hitting just right so the faces seem alive, 300 year old banyan trees spreading roots through 3000 year old rock temples built by hand and, yes, believe that despite the rash on your bum from sweating on a bike (which has a bell and a basket!), you are really glad to be here...
(and believe that really, i did take photos (about 1,000), and soon i will be somewhere where the internet connection rivals the cell phone reception and i will post some of them for you to see - unfortunately, the place where Thai cover bands sing Nirvana at 2 am doesn't seem to be that place...)
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