Sometimes, on an around the world jaunt, you’ll run into problems. You’ll have to classify these problems after the fact as something that was either totally out of your hands, or, what Kate and I like to call, Kelley and Skye hijinx, i.e. we most likely caused this to happen but are safe now so let’s crack up about it endlessly.
Last night was a slight combination of both. It started out completely out of our hands, but slowly dissolved into the hijinx that would land us using an emergency credit card at a 3 star hotel, drinking instant coffee and using the free internet to write about this very instance. You see, yesterday, Kate and I boarded a rickety old bus to take us to another rickety old bus. On that rickety old bus we stayed, for nine hours. NINE hours to go about 300 kilometers. I know what you’e thinking, “how in the fresh hell is that possible?” and the answer is, that’s typical, and not even the longest bus day we’ve had on this journey. it was, however, the most frustrating. We stopped about every other kilometer for about fifteen minutes to load on people in surgical masks carrying boxes. What was in the boxes, we wondered? Fruit? Clothes? Which quickly turned into talk of drugs? Fake Prada bags? Child slaves? Guns? The fact of the matter is, no one seemed to know but the bus driver and the men getting on and off. So, here are some Dos and Donts about what to do on a Southeast Asian intercity bus ride:
DO bring a sweater, because even though it’s searing hot outside. Like, baking your skin off hot, they WILL attempt to freeze you off of the bus. The a/c vent is a personal one, like on an airplane, only you can’t close it, and it WILL pound you with freezing cold air throughout the entirety of your journey.
But also, DON’T dress only for cold weather because the bus a/c might be broken in which case prepare for the hottest, sweatiest, sick nasty bus ride of your life. There will be B.O. It will mix in the air. But at least you won’t have to pee as much since your body will need all the water it can get. Really, it’s just:
DO prepare for all climates from Everest Base Camp to the Serengeti.
DON’T ask what’s in the boxes or question if it’s okay to bring this many live roosters onto a public bus. You may implicate yourself should your bus be pulled over and searched. Better not to know. Better to try and sleep. But,
DON’T sleep unless you have a fanny pack for your valuables or a friend in the aisle seat who cannot sleep on the buses or airplanes because locals WILL rifle through your shit to find money, cell phones, really anything of value.
DO use the squat toilets at the rest stops because you won’t have another chance. Learn to use them while wearing a backpack and a purse dangling dangerously below your knees. Do bunch your pants up as much as possible but don’t squat too low because then you risk getting your self soaking wet with water from…where? Who knows? Punjabi pants are great for bus rides because you can pull up the elastic around the ankles.
DONT eat the food at the rest stops, even if you have a strong stomach. Trust me implicitly on this. Even though your bus driver will pull over what feels like way too many times to get off the bus and have a full half hour long sit down meal, you shouldn’t.
DO bring Pringles.
DONT get excited when you see GI Joe Retaliation is playing because you won’t be able to hear it. But DO prepare to watch, on full blast, the same Cambodian music video DVD on every single bus ride. You’ll memorize the songs and vampire movie commercial in between. You’ll be an EXPERT at Southeast Asian dance moves. You’ll turn the volume up all the way on your iPod and just be mixing the sounds of the Vaccines with the sounds of a Cambodian karaoke music video superstar and at first you will think it’s hilarious. But slowly, it will drive you to the point of asking the person next to you to knock you out. Just punch you right in your face to avoid this fate.
DO get over your crippling fear of spiders because they will be crawling around in a tray on the floor of the rest stop that doesn’t offer Pringles, but does let you pick out your very own giant spider with a giant stinger on its butt so they can fry it for you on a stick. And you can eat it.
DO get over the fact that the person behind you is eating a giant bag of crickets. Snack with them if you’re adventurous. Yolo.
It probably sounds miserable. It probably sounds like I’m complaining. In actuality, if you have any sense of humor at all, you will find it hilarious. HILARIOUS. The first go around. Then it goes from funny to zany, funny but seriously what is happening, what is life, am I a person, do I have a family, what is my name? These are the stages of intercity bus rides. You will feel them all. And then you will arrive in your destination city, in this case, it’s Phnom Penh. And in a matter of hours you will have been threatened by a Cambodian street gang.
Kate and I had stayed in Phnom Penh before. You may recall, if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, that we were upgraded at our hostel, MeMates Place from the dorm to a private air conditioned room with an ensuite bathroom and HOLY SHIT it was awesome. When things like that happen, because someone overbooked the dorm, you truly feel your guardian angel kissing your forehead, telling you that you deserve this. You can now not worry once more about top vs bottom bunks, snoring, farting, hard partying roommates who don’t shower, etc.
So we booked for our layover night in Phnom Penh at MeMates because DUH they were a great hostel the first go round and they had a delicious cheap breakfast AND you could book your 30 hour bus ride to Laos through them. And we were SO looking forward to that bus ride. So we got to our hostel, and, here is a copy of the email I sent to my Dad about what happened next, edited to exclude certain details (since this is a public blog and I’m apparently on the run now):
Hey Dad!
Hope trial is going great! So Kate and I got off of our 9 hour bus ride from Siem Reap and took a tuktuk to Me Mates Place, where we had stayed before, and booked another night, to sleep before catching our bus to Laos. We booked the room two days in advance and got a confirmation email that it would indeed be ready for us.
Upon arrival, they had overbooked us and were acting REALLY weird. Also, the staff we had known before was not the same. It was all strangers, which should have been a warning sign, and kind of was. But they quickly told us they could book us at a hostel up the road (read: in the red light district) if we just gave them $10. It was all sorted! “Great!” we thought as we headed into our free van to drive us to the hostel
So we get there, they have us sign in and take us to a room and I’m not exaggerating, Dad, there was blood and water on the floor, Kate’s pillow was stained with brown, and my sheets had been eaten by a rat. Also, there was poop in the toilet. It was basically a Hungarian torture chamber, or a jail cell. We went and got dinner, thought about it, came back, and there was even more water on the floor. So we decided to NOT stay there.
Because we had already paid $10 to the strangers at Me Mates, we asked the staff of the 11 Happy hostel (the red light one) to please call them so that we could get our $10 back since we weren’t staying at either place. They graciously let us use their phone, and when we called back, we may have incurred the wrath of a Cambodian street gang. I DON’T WANT TO FREAK YOU OUT, and as such, we are checked in (on the emergency credit card) to a nice hotel with 24 hour security filled with Westerners. But back to the story: so we asked the guy for our money back and he said he wouldn’t give it to us because he had had to pay $3 to book us at the other hostel. But it was his mistake that they overbooked. I know what you’re thinking, Dad, “Erin’s it’s $10, let it go”. But when you’ve been ripped off by lazy Cambodians for three weeks, it gets a little old and $10 is a small fortune here, so we insisted they give us our $10 back or we would involve the police because, in essence, what he was doing, was STEALING from us. He then said, “he’d find us” and demanded to know where we were staying, we told him hell no, and hung up, but before we did, he told us he’s find us whether we told him where we were staying or not. The people at 11 Happy hostel told us they didn’t even know this man, they’d never met him before, and they didn’t know what to tell us because THEY WEREN’T EVEN SURE HE WORKED AT MEMATES PLACE! This. is. Cambodia. We then high tailed it to a hotel. HOWEVER, do I feel safe in Phnom Penh now, not really? Are we planning on taking the 30 hour bus ride to Laos? No. Am I sleeping with my knife next to me Fiji style? You betcha. But really, don’t worry. We’ll laugh about this in Hanoi together.
I love you!!!!
EK
Oops! Typical Kelley and Skye hijinx! But don’t worry, y’all. We are leaving Phnom Penh in a matter of hours and headed to new lands, sans any street gangs trying to “find us”, and have learned our lesson about overbooked hostels. If they don’t have your reservation, just go find somewhere else! Also, never stay at MeMates place again! Also, the red light district’s hostels, while affordable, are in fact, scary as hell and could give you an incurable disease, and are therefore, not worth the money. Also, don’t you dare try to get your money ack. Also, rats will eat your sheets here.
Also, don’t threaten scary men with the police. Also, maybe don’t come back to Phnom Penh for awhile, and if you do, wear a disguise.
So there you have it, those have been the last 24 hours for me. How’s everyone else’s week going?
erin on earth 