Worst Bus Journey in the World

Can you imagine the worst bus journey in the world??...........if you can, then you must've crossed the thailand-cambodia border too courtesy of an organised tour bus.

First border crossing for us and we really dont know how these things go, so with visa already prepared we book ourselves on some bus through one of the local travel agencys to take us over to Cambodia.

All starts well, as you're lured into a false sense of security. Luxury double decker bus sees you safely out of Bangkok after about 4 hours, each of us now wearing our obligatory blue sticker. Not so bad and as we already have our visa dont have to worry when we stop at some cafe 4 miles from the border and the nice people there are trying to tell everybody else on the bus they need to buy their visas here and not at the border. Scam?? We dont know and are glad we dont have to find out.

Here's where the fun begins...imagine a mini bus with 11 seats, squeeze 12 people into it then add their 12 rucksacks and hand luggage. Add 30 degrees of heat from the midday sun and air conditioning which doesn't extend beyond the driver's seat. Put that mini bus on a dirt track with pot holes every 30cm, for 7 hours. Sleeping is impossible; the saying now goes, "everything is possible except skiing through revolving doors and sleeping on the bus journey from the Cambodian border into Siem Reap".

Rumour has it that the airlines pay the government not to fix this particular road up so that people still fly into Siem Reap. The scam goes that the bus driver drives as slowly as he can along this road so that you arrive in town too late to leave the hostel they drop you at. This is indeed what happened. The driver didnt get above 20mph and there was people overtaking us (some on foot ;) at every pot hole! This lasted till we reached the proper road with a speed limit of 30mph (6 hours and 50 minutes down the way)...then he drove at 60mph! genius.

The first few hours were ok, watching the suburbs of Cambodia go by. Huts which look like my Dad's allotment shed line the side of the road act as people's place of work, rest and play. Tiny children roam the streets alongside anorexic cows and goats, people sleep in hammocks, kids cycle themselves and siblings on one bike to school and back, trucks with 10/20/30 people crammed in drive by. Then the darkness descends and all that is left to do is answer the question, "if you could throw any one object at the driver right now, what would it be??" Amy - a speed limit signpost, Gem = the minibus.