"Is that the front of the bus?"

Why did I ask that? Read on to find out...

8am: Today is the day we leave Laos for Cambodia. Our VIP bus was scheduled to leave at this time, but it wasn't until 9am that we got to leave Siphandon in Laos.

10.30am: The bus arrives at Dom Kralor border crossing to Cambodia. This is truly the smallest custom I've ever seen. From my research, I knew that we had to pay US$1-2 for "processing fees" (aka bribes) at both sides of the border. Kh prepares four US$1 bills. The British lady in front of us takes out a US$5 bill and we think about how silly she is. To our amusement, she receives US$4 in change from the customs officer.

Border crossing at Dom Kralor

11.40am: After an hour long delay, the bus finally leaves. More people got on the bus. A few angmohs even had "aisle seats", and I mean that literally. They had to sit in the aisle. One angmoh took out his camera and said,"Everybody say VIP!" Ah, what a lovely day.

1.30pm: The bus stops again. 2 angmohs got down to puke, and some men-and women- went to pee in the bushes. One of the angmohs who puked happens to be sitting next to us.

3.30pm: The bus stops at Kratie. The 2 angmohs who puked couldn't take it anymore and decided to rest there for the day. The rest of us had a half hour break for lunch and loo.

4.15pm: Back on the bus, a Cambodian woman takes over the seat which the angmoh had left. She had an elbow on the armrest with her head resting on her palm, and had her two large eyes fixated at me. I was feeling extremely uncomfortable with the extra attention. I looked at her and she smiled at me. That could've been a nice gesture if it wasn't so freakish.

4.30pm: A guy from the bus company apologises for the tardiness. He claims that the VIP bus had broken down, hence our lousy a/c bus. I think they were trying to make up for the long delays by taking a short cut, because we soon found ourselves on a heavily potholed road. I had a can of Yeo's grass jelly drink in one hand and it was 3/4 full. The bus was rocking so badly that I spilled some of the drink on myself. I wasn't sure if I was going to be sick, so I took an anti-motion sickness pill just in case. The medication proved effective because I was starting to enjoy the rocky ride.

5pm: The bus stops again in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere. Curious, I draw the curtains and see the bus driver peeing in the bushes. Several minutes later, he lugged something up onto the aisle. It was the bus bumper! Apparently it fell off from all the rocking.

6pm: The Cambodian woman next to the one who was staring at me starts puking into a plastic bag. Seems like we have lots of luck sitting with people who puke. If it weren't bad enough, she also started spitting on the floor. The bus stops at Kompong Cham and a couple of people got down. The women quickly took their seats and left their puke bag and spit behind.

7pm: The bus stops somewhere for dinner. I ordered a bowl of chicken noodles and had plenty of extra ingredients- in the form of large black ants. I complained to the waitress and she brought my noodles back to help take the ants out. I'm guessing she didn't do much because there were still many of them in there. I spent the rest of our dinner time inspecting my dinner, taking the ants out one by one-and sometimes in clumps.

9.30pm: The bus finally reaches Phnom Penh, 3 hours behind schedule.

Welcome to Cambodia!

Travel Planning

Sometimes I think I plan too much for everything, holidays especially.

Well, of course I love spontaneity--who wouldn't? But unless you have a lot of time and money on your hands, it is not the way to go. Kh and I backpacked through Vietnam in 16 days, covering as much ground as what some people would have done in 3-4 weeks.

Reason being, we don't miss buses and trains and spend days waiting for them. We don't miss opening and sightseeing hours to sights and attractions and have to wait another day to see them. We don't spend our daylight hours on transportation but rather on whatever that operates during working hours.  All these due to a little research ahead. Travel efficiency--Maximising travel experience, minimising time, minimising cost.

I think I'm just being annoyingly meticulous. Someone help me.






With the bus timings from Ha Tien to Can Tho.

My YouTube!

Lol... I just realise that my old YouTube video has 10,294 views! Actually I just uploaded it so I can embed it into my blog. Didn't expect so many people to view it. Hehe. Ah, I miss cruise already.

3 more days till I fly! Busy busy busy.

Anyways, Kh will be bringing his netbook along, so I'll do live updates about the trip here as and when I can get access to the internet. Stay tuned! =)

Amy's Back!

4 long years eh, Amy? Finally back for good!

Some pics from Amy and Jf's birthday celebration at Waraku...

Present-giving ceremony. Lol...

9 more days till I fly!

Route Map

Last year, when I told my mum I was going to Laos and Cambodia, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into.

I remember saying something like I didn't know why Vietnam was considered as a developing country until I got there. Well I've come to realise that travelling in Cambodia and Laos really does make Vietnam look like a walk in the park. Looking back, I think it is a perfect destination for amateur backpackers like us. Now, having conquered Vietnam, Kh and I are ready to take on the extra challenge. We're ready to battle red tape, seemingly endless scams, frequent transport delays and -yikes- potholes.

Speaking of potholes, the road conditions have significantly improved since a couple of years back, when all the roads were still unsealed and having 2 flat tires in a single journey is common. All thanks to external funding from China and Thailand that we might enjoy the luxury of a flat road. However, smaller roads (aka non-highway) still remain unsealed and travelling can be quite a bummer.

After weeks of research, I've finally came up with a route map for the whole 25 days of our trip.

Ideally-keyword Ideally-, this is the way we want to travel.

We'll be flying to Bangkok, then take a train up to Nong Khai, bus to Vientiane, bus all the way until Ho Chi Minh and we'll fly back from there.

Flying direct to/from Laos/Cambodia is possible seeing that Singapore is one of the 4 countries that fly to these places. However, budget flights do not fly to these places, and non-budget flights are not cost-effective for us. Kh and I decided to do what most backpackers have done--go overland from Thailand/Vietnam.

That said, everything is still very unpredictable in there. I'm having at least 2 backup plans to make our entire trip more time-flexible and adaptable to changes.

Well, 25 days is very very little time. We'll just try to get the most out of this trip.

Flying in 12 days time! =)