Onwards and Upwards (north, that is) in Cambodia

  The journey north to Siem Reap, Cambodia
Monday, March 27, 2006

Lined up the "fast" boat up the Mekong for the 27th, costing 5X as much as the bus, and against the advice of others who said it was not that pleasant to justify the cost! I had my reasons. I had times and dates now worked out with almost military precision - reason being, I had booked the flight from Phnomn Penh back to Thailand (Bangkok) on the 30th, being the best price I could get. This meant I would have some of the 27th, the 28th, and some or all of the 29th to explore the ancient temples of Angkor Wat - 29th still in doubt as I couldn't find out for sure if there was an overnight bus, though early indications were that there is not.
The idea of the fast boat was that it claims to be 5 hrs, whilst the bus states 7 hrs. However common to all this region of Asia, with buses you can be sure they will actually depart 1 hr later than they quote, usually after lots of local pick-ups at guest houses, and what seems an extraordinary amount of paperwork to return to the tour office before they are on their way - allow another hour for god knows what reason, it just does, sometimes even more extra travelling time. The Boat was an early 6.30 pickup, but in true Camodian/east Asian style, it didn't leave exactly on schedule either - at least, however, it made no stops and we did in fact get to the guest house by 12.30. This is the normal high sun part of the day when visitors would find it too hot anyway to trek round the temples. So I would get the most of the 3 day, $40 pass, ie 1/2 on Mon (my arrival),full day Tues, and morning of Wed, since I then established that the latest return bus was at 12 noon.(+ usual delayed departure, overlong stops etc. etc!)