Itchy feet and ltd. time got us up early, wandering once again through the city, seeing what we could before we boarded the bus to Siem Reap. We went to Phnom Hill in the north of the city, where we missed the temple because we refused to pay the dollar entrance fee; it did not look very interesting besides. We also found out that the Silver Pagoda, which is the Kingdom of Cambodia’s royal residences, closes at precisely the time we arrived and reopens at the exact moment we would have to depart. We had scant money and a little more than a hour to kill. Did we enjoy another happy pizza? Outlook is good. Did we spend the last of our cash on an extra one to bring with us on the bus to Siem Reap? All signs point to yes.
We barely made the bus in time, and were immediately on our way. The terrain passing by outside the window of the air-conned bus was beige, dry as a bone and so destitute that in some areas it appeared not so much poor as ancient, belonging to a time before any of our modern conveniences had yet to be dreamt of. Houses constructed of wooden slats and raised 5-10 feet off the ground on stilts lined the dusty road. Naked children played in the dirt and behind the houses their parents and older siblings toiled in the hot and not so verdant fields. I felt like a chump in the bus' cool, upholstered interior. Occasionally catching the eye of an other on the outside, I could feel the abyssal gap between our two perspectives.
Nonetheless, the 4 hour trip moved slowly onward. The pizza churned in my stomach and Jeff and I mindlessly gaped at Mr. Bean and his ridiculous slapstick playing on the bus’ television monitor. They had also played Mr. Bean on our trip from Ho Chi Minh, and they would play him again on both buses back to Vietnam. A truly unique form of torture is Rowan Atkinson.
Our arrival at the Siem Reap bus station must be documented, for it shows just how reliant the town has become on tourism, and the absurdities faced being a foreigner in such a poor and struggling country. It was as we stepped off the bus, into a dusty lot encircled in a chain link fence, that we heard the noise. It was dark and we wanted an ATM; then we wanted a cheap hotel to drop our bags and catch our breath; finally we wanted a quiet bar with cold beers where we could relax after a long bus ride. We did not want a mob of thirty or more Cambodians massing up against the only exit from the lot, shouting and pushing like a pack of starving hyenas, their hungry eyes trained like fangs on Jeff and me.
We paused a moment, just to take in this awfully ridiculous sight. The guard manning the gate could barely keep it shut and he gave us a meaningful glance, like, ‘OK, you ready?’ Jeff and I exchanged bewildered expressions and the humor of the situation hit us both at the same moment. Assuming the ready stance, we nodded at the guard, who nodded back and opened the gate just a crack to let us through.
Like running backs busting up the middle on a 3rd and 1 rush, or the Beatles escaping their hotel through a mass of hysterical teenage girls, we lowered are heads and pushed through the crowd. I could feel hands grabbing at me from all sides, shouts of ‘You want ride?!’ and ‘Where you go?!’ melded into one terrible howl. I kept my head down and pushed on, dodging the human obstacles that tried to block my path and finally reaching breathing room about twenty yards from the gate. We now made a break for freedom. At not quite a dead sprint, but certainly more than a stroll, we distanced ourselves from bedlam. But it was not over yet as the tuk-tuk drivers mounted their vehicles and gave chase. We walked fifty yards with four or five tuk-tuks following us, hollering nonsense. After another fifty yards only one persistent driver was left. We very well might have given him our business, had there been any business to give. But he, too, eventually gave up and motored back to his pack of fellow drivers.
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