Bus Ride #1 From Hell and Bus Ride #2 Mini-Bus Ride From Hell

I have heard stories about bus rides in cambodia from mike and gabe but you never think that those crazy tales would ever be true much less become your reality but it did. Bus ride #1 imagine if you will that you are on a bus in which the bus driver honks his horn at everything and by everything I mean everything. From empty spaces, mopeds clearly on the side of the road, stoped and empty cars, horse drawn carts, people wal king in the opposite direction of the bus in plain site to just about anything else that you can think of. Then imagine that you are sitting right behind the driver for the whole 7 hour trip. Its enough to make you believe that murder is justified.....really and I'm a Buddist.
Bus ride #2 which will take a little more space to explain so sorry for that up front. So this mini-bus ride came about becasue I did not make the bus ride to Sihanoukville via the nice tourist bus. So as fate would have it I instead was going to travel Cambodian mini-bus style for the 3 1/2 hour that it should of taken to get to S'ville the coastal town in Cambodia. I was taken there this mini-bus by a tuk-tuk driver after I checked all the l real bus operations out of Phonm Penh. After finding out that they were all gone and it was either stay there for the night which I didn't want to do or travel Cambodia style. So I opted for the Cambodia style.
I showed up to this street which was full of mini-buses and bigger buses to a Cambodian kid running up to the tuk-tuk and then after getting were we were going from the driver leading us to a waiting tuk-tuk. After paying $6 which I found at later was about double the going rate the waiting game started to find other passengers....and keep in mind that it was already 4 and the Lonely Planet said that traviling after dark was not a good option.
After we finally had 12 people we took off slowly in constant search for other passengers which was done by a guy in our min-bus who would hang out the side with the door open yelling at people who were standing on the side of the road with bags at there feet....no kidding. We found 1 more passenger which brought our number to 13 but still he looked for more...all the time with an old lady seated right behind me that talked non-stop for at least 2 hours.....I swear.
Then there was the half good half devil child in front of me that I saw at one point kiss his mom all over and then 3 seconds later punch her and spit in her face. When our numbers reached 15 I was sure that we were done but apparently we had just gotten started. Finally when we reached 18 and the darking skies were setting in did our search finally end.
By now I was cramed tighter than a sardine and we were still 100km from S'ville. I think that it was the darkness and the Lonely Planets advice that started my paranoia of being robbed or worse but when you take into account that I was not on a typical tourist transportation and that we were dropping off more and more passengers the closer we got to S'vill I think that my fears were justified.
Finally we had dropped all our passengers and now they were trying to findout where my hotel was when I finally decided to just get out of the taxi and find a real taxi at what looked like a hotel. well it was a hotel but it was also a karaoke bar and aparantly karaoke over here doesn't mean the same thing. I made about 3 steps toward the door when I realized what it was by then I had 4 new friends that all wanted to take me on their motorcyle taxis to my hotel. Fianally I decided to pay this guy $2 to guide my taxi to where my hotel was because my drivers obviously didn't know where it was. But much to my surprise when I got there my taxi now wanted $5 for driving me the 5 min that it took to get there. apparantly the going rate for taxis there was $5 to drive out to the beach. well a small argument started in which I know had an interpretor from the hotel. finally it was resolved for $2.50 which was not that much to pay to end the bus ride from hell 2.
Since it has taken me so long to publish this blog I actually had a 3rd bus ride from hell going from S'ville to Bangkok. the pitcure it a pitcure from this. the start of the ride was not that bad. we had a nice bus and good weather. but within 3 hours though the rain had started again which would of been fine but we were on dirt roads crossing rivers not by bridges but by to canoes with some boards on top and a motar......I'm not kidding. After a while the dirt became muddy and at one point where this pitcure was taken I thought for sure that I was going to be stuck in the jungles of cambodia waiting for the roads to dry. but after me, a girl from austrailia and another girl from the states pushed the van out of the mud all the while 4 germans were standing there just watching.
After finally getting out of the jungle and all the river crossings we made it to the thai boarder where we changed vans. all was going good until this guy from noraway who made a big comotion because he had to get off the van to changed to another van. well he apparently scared the shit out of the driver and instead of going to bangkok and dropping off the other 3 people in the van we made a slight detor to pattya to drop off the jerk from noraway. that guy gave the rest of us a great lesson in humanity.
Well that all for now I am going to post soon about my trip to sagarmatha national park in nepal. the trip was amazing.