The Minibus Of Death

We needed to get a bus to Phnom Penh, so were given the choice of slow coach (takes approx 6 hours) for $7 or a $10 “VIP Super Fast” minibus which we were told had aircon, would pick us up directly, and would only take 4 hours. No-brainer, we paid the $3 extra and eagerly awaited our VIP bus.

The bus for us Very Important Persons was tiny, cramped, had questionable aircon and no seatbelts. And it had Michael-bloody-Schumacker (with some sort of sadistic, kamikaze inclination) driving it! 

Not a very photogenic post so here's a piccie I took out of the back window...yes it is a van covered in chickens...and yes all of the chickens are alive. Welcome to Cambodia!

For anyone who’s not been, Cambodian roads are only 2 lanes wide and appear to have been taken over by a crazy breed of thrill-seekers. So that’s 2 lanes…one lane for one direction and one lane for the other. This means that if you want to overtake, you have to drive on the wrong side of the road. This also means that there are sometimes 2 vehicles in one direction, driving headlong towards the 2 vehicles driving in the other direction. Our driver liked overtaking so much he probably spent 80% of his time on the wrong side of the road, tooting his horn furiously (this is very common in Cambodia) and only ever reluctantly pulling over into his own lane when the oncoming vehicle was 2 foot from his bumper, presumably to avoid imminent death. Needless to say every manoeuver he took was coupled with a collective gasp of horror from his poor passengers. I swear the poor Chinese man in the second row was having heart palpitations, and I am ashamed to say I even envisioned my own epitaph in a self-indulgent moment of weakness (I am embarrassed to say that I even toyed with the idea of leaving a goodbye message to my family on my phone…just in case). It was that bad.

That said, we miraculously completed our journey and arrived safe and sound in Phnom Penh, having spent a mere 3 and a half hours in transit, so who am I to complain?