The long road to Battambang

Yeah folks, I couldn’t believe it, I finally arrived in Battambang. But what a journey it was. I got a bus pick-up at 7 am from the guest house. My ticket said that my bus would be leaving at 7:30 so I was a bit surprised, when the pick-up picked up even more travelers and did not drive directly to the bus station. One group had mistaken the time, so they hadn’t yet checked out which led to a huge delay of the bus. We finally arrived at the bus station at 7:35. By that time I was so stressed that I just barely managed to feel relieved when I found out that the bus was not leaving until 8:00.

When I bought my ticket the lady in the ticket office told me that Kneak Knohrodrom was a company with nice buses. Ha-ha, only in South Africa have I seen buses in a worse condition than the one I was getting on now. The seats were all torn and mangled, there was a mean smell of urine in the air and there was absolutely no ventilation apart from the possibility to open the windows. Opening a window is pretty much the worst idea one can have in Cambodia since most roads are not paved and you’ll be sitting in a constant cloud of red dust. So the bus finally left at such a slow speed, that people were overtaking us on bikes. Great stuff I thought plugged my mp3-player in and went to sleep. When I woke up the bus came to a stop in the middle of nowhere and everyone went out onto a field to take a pee. I didn’t really dare to though, because Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world and my travel guide strongly recommends either holding it, or doing it in full view rather than stepping on a land mine with a bare ass. Well, everybody got back on the bus and about 30 minutes later we stopped at a little market. Overland buses usually stop once or twice for ca. 15 minutes during long trips to let people refresh themselves and to spray the motor with cold water. The odd thing here was that the bus was just sitting there for at least 30 minutes without anybody getting back on. So I made myself comfortable with my travel guide, waited and therefore didn’t notice that everyone was getting into taxis. After one hour the only English speaking Khmer on that bus finally came up to me and told me that the bus had broken down, that it would take ages to fix it and that I would be better off to take a taxi. A taxi, as it turned out, is a Toyota Camry shared by at least 7 people. I have never been that uncomfortable in my life, 5 people squeezed in the back seat, 3 including the driver in the front. And I had to hold on for dear life as well because he was flying down the red dirt road and there was no chance to buckle up. After about 50 minutes we arrived in Banteay Meanchey, the next largest town to Battambang. From there we were ushered into the next taxi, nobody spoke English except for my bus companion and rushed off to Battambang, sharing the backseat with only three other people this time, all of them male. The one hour drive to Battambang passed very slowly and when we finally arrived we weren’t at the bus station where Rath was supposed to pick me up. The bus dude was so nice to call him and as it turns out, I arrived one hour before the bus should have arrived. Next time I’ll take the boat.

Rath took me to the Royal Hotel, my home for the next couple of weeks which is by far better than anything I have lived in so far and costs only $6 a night. I could get a room for $5, but then I wouldn’t have a TV and this TV even has Deutsche Welle TV and HBO, so for now I’ll stick to it.

At 5 Rath gave me the whole Battambang (you actually say Battambong) tour on his moto and then took me to dinner at a really nice and inexpensive restaurant. Prices here are really much more moderate than in Siem Reap.