If you’ve been following along in recent months you’ll know the Joker has an aversion to buses. Okay, that’s totally an understatement – he hates bus trips with a vengeance.
It’s not a new thing. As a long distance driver who could cover 900 kilometres in nine or 10 hours, he has long been frustrated by a bus trip of the same distance that could take anywhere up to 18 hours, or possibly more. Not to mention being cooped up with strangers, unable to stop when he wants — it’s just not his thing. But the icing on the cake – the event that sealed the deal, so to speak — was the bus trip from hell.
It happened on our last trip to Asia, six years ago, almost to the day and followed a couple of hair-raising experiences in Vietnam and annoying trips in Cambodia, before he finally reached boiling point and gave bus trips the metaphorical finger.
The scene of the crime was between Kratie, in Cambodia and heading north to the Cambodia/Laos border.
But let me back track a little first and give you some background to this event.
It started, a few weeks earlier, with a bus trip from Hanoi to Halong Bay in northern Vietnam. The problem with this one was that they forgot to pick us up. Yes, just a slight oversight. We waited and waited. And waited. And waited. We asked our hotel guys, who had booked it and they said it would be okay, so we waited. And waited. And when we asked again they rang someone to find we’d been forgotten.
They redeemed themselves and promptly sent a private car, and the driver went at break-neck speed for a couple of hours to meet up with the bus and the rest of the group. The rest of that trip remains fairly uneventful (apart from the little matter of our boat being rammed by another boat — but we’ll save that story for another day).
So, back in Hanoi, we planned to head south to Hue and decided the most practical method of transport might be the sleeper bus — a friend had vehemently warned us off the sleeper train. So we got picked up in a mini van and piled in with a heap of other budget travellers and taxied off to the bus station. We were finally ushered on to our bus to find they had overbooked. I know, Asia right? Fortunately we arrived early enough to get our sleeper beds, down near the back, but others had to sit on the luggage crammed in the aisles.
The “beds” had a back rest angled at about 45 degrees and they were too short for a western man so the Joker had to have his feet at a weird and uncomfortable angle for the journey. Our beds came with a light blanket, which smelled faintly of urine, and you can imagine how the Joker’s blood pressure was rising.
We finally got going, an hour or so after the scheduled departure time and any hope of sleep was quickly dashed for the Joker. On top of the cramped conditions and the smell of urine-soaked blankets there was the constant blaring of horns from our driver and others on the road. The sudden braking, the acceleration to speeds that felt like they would rival the space shuttle’s ascent into space and the Joker staring wide-eyed as our driver veered into oncoming traffic or braked and swerved to avoid traffic hurtling towards us in the wrong lane. His nerves were shot, his blood pressure up and his temper short by the time we arrived in Hue the following morning.
A few days later, after some downtime in the slower-paced Hue, we opted for a day bus for the three or four hour trip (it might have ended up being five or six hours) from Hue to Hoi An. I rather enjoyed the passing scenery and there were only a handful of people on the bus. But the Joker was unimpressed with the driver’s ability — especially when he took a wrong turn and then drove head-on towards a truck in a section of roadworks (fortunately not fast). He ended up having to reverse and retrace his steps and give the truck right of way.
A few days later we booked a flight to Siem Reap. No more night buses. No more buses.
Until a few weeks later when we took a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh (a six or seven hour drive), which had the Joker gritting his teeth. Then we took a bus from Phnom Penh to Kratie — a four hour trip we were told. Definitely be there in four hours. Seven hours later, with the late afternoon sun shining a golden glow, we got off the bus. It had been another nail-biting experience dodging oncoming traffic and was coupled with the whining, high-pitched twang of Cambodian love songs playing the entire trip. I had a book and could tune it out but the Joker was in no mood for it and he was somewhat frazzled. But I have to admit, while Cambodia has so much going for it, it’s love songs are horrendous. The Joker disembarked, told the four tuk tuk drivers vying for our business, he needed a beer, and then to be fair, he went with each one of them to look at the various accommodation offers while I waited with the luggage. About half an hour later he was back with another beer in hand and in slightly better spirits — he’d found a room overlooking the river.
So, that brings us back to Kratie. It’s a sleepy little town — well it was six years ago and I don’t imagine much has changed. But it’s clean and if you venture out of the town square and along the river a way, there’s some pretty sites. Like Phnom Sambok. We hired a motorbike and went exploring and Phnom Sambok, with it’s pagoda at the top of the hill, was quite a find. Of course, being on top of a hill meant stairs. Steep stairs.
But the views were stunning.
And the pagoda and surrounds were delightful.
But it’s the dolphins that are the main drawcard to this neck of the woods. The rare Irrawaddy dolphins are a freshwater dolphin, found in this stretch of the Mekong River. Sadly, according to Tourism Cambodia’s website there are only about 15 to 20 of them left but I’m unsure if this is just in the Kratie region or heading further up towards Laos as well. They are much shier than their ocean-going counterparts and don’t jump out of the water so they are harder to spot, but we still managed a few good sightings.
The other awesome thing about Kratie is the sunsets. The sky turned on quite a show over the Mekong every night we were there.
We spent New Year’s Eve there and didn’t stay up for midnight. I don’t think anything in town stayed open long enough to ring in the New Year.
Then it was time to move on. Further north to Laos and 4000 Islands. And the only way to get to the Laos border at that stage (that we knew of), was by mini van. We shopped around and the guy we eventually booked through was more expensive (about double) but promised everything would be smooth-sailing and there would be no problem at the border (officials on both sides were renowned for demanding bribes) because he had a guy who fixed everything. Rookie mistake. We should have known better. On top of hating bus trips, the Joker was furious at the notion of paying bribes — even $1 or $2.
It was the bus trip from hell. When it picked us up, we thought we were the last ones to get on. There were two seats left right in the back. When we got in there were about 11 or 12 adults, a baby, a motorbike — yes, motorbike — a saw bench and all our luggage inside the van, plus a motorbike strapped on the back and a guy sitting on it holding on. I was sitting over the wheel arch with my legs up to my chin, my small backpack on my lap and the other daypack (minus the $9 bottle of Jim Beam, which the Joker thought he was going to need) on my shoulder to try and stop the speaker from shrieking in my ear.
It was not a good day to be feeling crook. Five minutes into our journey we stopped — apparently so the woman in the front seat could pick up a duck in a bag, which was strapped on the back next to the motorbike. Then we stopped several more times — not to let people off, as we mistakenly assumed, but to let more on.
The Joker was looking like he was going to blow a fuse. At it’s peak the minibus had 17 adults, two children, a baby, a motorbike, saw bench, luggage and sacks of vegetables inside the vehicle, as well as the motorbike on the back with three guys sitting on it! Oh, and I think the duck was still strapped on somewhere.
You could hear the mudguard rubbing on the tyre every time we hit a bump — and there were a few bumps. And sitting over the wheel arch, I felt every one. There were four of us on the back seat and we were crammed in like that for about four hours. There wasn’t even room to adjust the weight from one butt cheek to the other.
We were told we’d go straight to the border so we were surprised when we stopped unexpectedly at Stung Treng, which I think is the closest town to the border, and they offloaded our bags and we waited around in a restaurant for an hour or so, not really knowing what was going on. Apparently we were waiting for another bus to collect us but the Joker was having all sorts of fears that we’d be left stranded and have to try and organise another bus. I was not feeling well at all by this stage and was wondering how the next stage of the journey would go when a little beaten up sedan pulled up in front of the restaurant. The boot was loaded high with crates of eggs — it wouldn’t close — and they started piling our luggage in next to the eggs and told us the car would take us to the border. Two other girls were going with us, whose names and nationality I forget, and we all had to cram onto the back seat as an older lady and a boy had to share the front passenger seat. The air con was the old fashioned open window kind. It was about 40 minutes to the border.
The Joker survived the trip from hell but I think he was psychologically damaged and promptly ruled out any further bus travel.
We also got through the border crossing with no problems and the Joker managed not to kill anyone, despite the bribe demands.
It was a relief to get to the stunning, remote and very rustic 4000 Islands.
Does anyone else have such a strong dislike of bus journeys?
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