Coffin on Wheels

In order to get to the islands, Caley and I had to travel from from Siam Reap to Sihanoukville. This is about an 11 hour ride via bus or a very expensive and short plane ride. The plane ride was not an option so we started to research the best bus company to use. We wanted to ride a “night bus” because we had such a limited amount of time and did not want to spend two days sitting on a bus. Every night bus review we read described them as horrible and dangerous. Reviews said that accidents occurred all the time, drivers fell asleep, people stole your stuff…the list went on and on. However, we were unable to find any actual deaths other than one that occurred about 5 years ago so we decided to go for it.

The bus, which operated under Virak-Buntham Express Travel and Tour cost $18.00 per person. Our bus was advertised as a “Luxury Hotel Bus with wifi”, none of which were true. There were 2 rows of beds on each side of the bus, one on the top and one on the bottom. Two people were crammed into each bed.  The beds on the top had the window and you could sit up. The beds on the bottom, had no window and you could not sit up.

As soon as we got on we both panicked a little. We were in the way back and on the bottom bunk. All we could think about was if there was an accident or a fire we would be trapped and die. We both decided that if it was horrible we would get off at the first stop and figure something out.

Once we started moving it was actually kinda of nice. The bus rocked us to sleep and I fell asleep quicker than I usually do. We met as series of interesting people on the bus. About 7 hours into our journey a cell phone was passed to me from one of our very close bunk mates. The owner of the cell phone was a Russian gentleman who wanted to climb into our bunk and have Caley climb into his friend’s bunk so that we could “talk”. I declined his offer and shut our curtain.  We did however meet a really sweet girl named Cecelia who was also headed to the island of Koh Rong.  Cecelia was traveling alone and offered to share her bungalow with us when we got to the island. Unlike with the Russians, we were happy to share our sleeping space with Cecelia.