We were told to be ready for a 12 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh with no air conditioning, so it was no shock to see two small city buses with no AC pull up to the YWAM base in Bangkok. After four hours of driving we arrived at the Thailand/Cambodia border. A man approached our group and informed us that he was a friend of YWAM Cambodia. He led us away from our stuff to a restaurant and told us to sit and eat as we filled out the immigration forms. The whole situation seemed shady. We were not hungry, but he kept encouraging us to eat. Then he asked for our forms, our passports, and 1000 baut per person (about $30 US), which also seemed shady. At the beginning of the World Race I would have spent the next 30 minutes worrying about my stuff and would have come up with the worst case scenarios in my head. Now I feel like I recognize the risk and do what I can to avoid mishap then I leave the rest up to the Lord to protect our passports, money, and bags. A few minutes later men pulled wooden carts up to the restaurant and everything we had left on the buses was on the carts.
We waited about 30 minutes then the man brought back our passports with new Cambodia visas in them. It took us another hour of waiting and going through customs to get our passports stamped and walk into the country of Cambodia.
On the other side we dashed through a sudden rain storm and took a shuttle to the bus station where we boarded, much to our surprise, an air conditioned bus. The rain came down in pelting sheets as we started along a muddy bumpy road. There were so many pot holes in the road that we bounced along at snail’s pace; probably under 25 mph. From the nice dry air conditioned bus I looked out on people riding mopeds and in the back of trucks. Most people were getting soaked with rain and mud; I watched as a woman got drenched in mud that splashed 6 feet up from the bus. Some people on the backs of trucks covered themselves with plastic sheets or tarps; I’m not sure how much that would help. I saw one man wearing a red poncho that had a clear plastic circle built into it; the circle went over the headlight of his moped so he could stay relatively dry and be seen on the road. We continued to bounce along and in some places slide back and forth until much later when we finally hit a semi-paved road.
The rain stopped and we continued to drive. Our bus driver really enjoyed using his horn to honk at least 3 times at anything on the road; the horn was exceptionally loud. We passed many flat rice fields and houses made of wood on stilts. The driver pulled the bus over at the side of the road and told us we could take a bathroom break.
There were many wooden houses on stilts, but nothing that seemed like a public restroom. The driver pointed to an outhouse near one of the houses, so we lined up to use the “squaty”. Outside of the restroom an elderly lady chatted away in Khmer.
I have no idea what she was saying, but at one point she pointed to all of the girls that had exposed knees. She would bend down and look at the knees then stand up and go off talking and dancing. A few of the World Racers danced with her. I took pictures and video then showed them to her, which made her dance even more.
Hours later we stopped for dinner at an open air restaurant. It was dark; I have never seen so many bugs around lights as we saw there. Unfortunately the bugs found the lights in our bus too, so we were swatting away as we went back on the road. It seemed like the road would never end, but finally we drove through the city of Phnom Penh and arrived at the YWAM base. There are semi-soft beds; no air conditioning, but we do have fans. Our trip began at 7 am and arrived at 12:30 am, so I’m pretty sure we drove for a little longer than 12 hours.
