We headed out of PP to the Northeastern part of the country. Destination Kratie....and we went with the locals. $14 buys you a 7 hour bus trip with the locals. Bus is air conditioned sort of and the seats are moderately clean. No toilet so I used the one at the bus station....if you ever think a gas station toilet in the US is not acceptable try the bus staton in Phnom Phen - enough said. Thank goodness for hand sanitizer and wipes. Most of the time we are on the right side of the road but sometimes we swerve to miss the oxen or the Tuk Tuk with mattresses on he roof. For about an hour the "highway" was not paved so we merrily bounced along. We played a few games of Indian Poker- so picture 4 white people on a Cambodian bus with playing cards on our foreheads. Good entertainment for the others. Entertainment- yes Cambodian soap opera on the tv precariously hanging in the front of the bus. The co-pilot sits in a kids blue plastic chair I the front sliding about. He is well dressed with coiffed hair. Quite impressive.
On a side note.. I'm fairly sure the malaria pills make me crazy every morning for a few hours.
At the first rest stop we used more delightful WC's, enjoyed a Korean energy drink and an ice cold beer. Food stalls all around offering tiny birds on a skewer, what looked like huge roasted cockroaches, many fried banana like chips, hard boiled eggs odor some kind and roasted giant spiders, which the german on the bus "recommended" . We asked the kids I'd the wanted one, ha ha, and .30 cents later we had one in a bag. Yes they ate it..... Crunched it down - OMG you could not pay me to eat one. I hope in the next 4 hours on the bus they don't start puking. So far do good......Turns out the town is nicknamed "spiderville" good thing the kids tried there as they are a regional delicacy.
When the bus driver honks the horn it often means a game of chicken of sorts.... Usually the bus trying to pass a big slow(er) truck, while avoiding a Tuk Tuk with another large vehicle coming at us- and since we are on the wrong side of the road it is a tad scary ..... But so far so good.
So far so good until we pulled over in the middle of nowhere with a smoking engine. Gallons of water on the engine, lots of steam and 20 min later we are off. 7 hours is now 8+ and I am still on the bus. Another game of Indian poker, watched The Killing Fields on my iPad, got goofy, grumpy currently really, really hungry. Shoulda had a spider.
Made it.... 8.5 hours
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