Bus To Bangkok

Today I rode the bus from Phnom Penh to Bangkok. It costs a full day but saves US$50-100 compared with flying.

I've done the trip a couple of times and have noticed four distintive groups of people.

Firstly, there are the locals. There's the one, young, Khmer woman who is so impressed that I speak her language she becomes my new instant best friend and guide. Then there are the group of aunties. Some are wear pajamas, some wear floral sarongs and the rest wear dark trousers with long-sleeved, sparkly tops. They bargain hard at the snack stops on the Cambodian side and continue this habit on the Thai side too, using whichever poor bystanders dare translate for them. There are always a bunch of young guys going for work or at least the hope of work.

Secondly, there are the hard-core backpackers. These are the same people you see at 6am wrapped in sleeping bags on the beach and passed out on plastic chairs at airports where they wait 19.5 hours for their connecting flight. They won't spend $10 on a taxi but $100 for drinks is usually about right. My hard-core backpacker was a Korean uni student so he spent the first 6 hours sleeping and listening to his iPod. But after that we built some rapport and the second half of the trip was filled with amicable bursts of speech as well as silence.

The third group are the weirdos. I spoke to one guy who grew up in four Asian countries and speaks about five different languages- badly. He has a US passport but spends months wandering around Asia- restless. There was another strange guy sitting directly across the aisle. He was so loud, rude and inconsiderate that one of the women said behind his back, "He is drinking soda but he acts like he is drunk!" Profile: 69-year-old male using his European pension to support himself and his new Cambodian wife. (He kept calling her and shouting his abrupt greeting, "hello wife!") Anyway... Mr almost 70 was heading to Bangkok to try to save the infected big toe that the Khmer doctors insisted needed to be cut off. It was hard to be sympathetic- worst case, he's still got 9 right?

Finally, there are those who find cheap enjoyment in meeting and mixing with these strange tribes. It takes 13 hours on 2 sweaty buses but it is great!