BUS, CRASH

Writing this after recovering from yesterday's bus rides and a crash. Leaving the southern beach area, we were told the 2-bus segments would take 10 hours, or 11, or 12. So we were on the dark streets of SohanoukVille by 6am and on the first leg ready with an extra sandwich, yogurt, and carrot cake (guy's gotta have some fun, no?). 5 hours of garbage-strewn roads later we arrived at Phnom Penh to change buses. Hot, Saturday market-mobbed, and sticky-humid. As in many Asian capitals, there are anti-government protests in the streets here. So the standard riot police were amassing but more ominous were the attack helicopters overhead --- booed by the locals around us. As if in comic relief, I noticed the urinals' deoderizer was chunks of pineapple! Try that at home?

The second bus took a slow bumping 8 1/2 hours instead of 5 to the central city of Siem Reap.  A real grind but with interesting scenes out the window. Floating villages. Rice fields with oxen. A 30-passenger minivan! Skinny cattle munching head-first in a pile of rice stalks. A monk-bike. Women bagging the rice harvest with style.

Arriving anywhere in the dark is never a good idea. But fortunately our online-booked guest house rescued us with a tuk-tuk pickup! Relief to ride through dusty lanes and Saturday-night fever bikers.The Popular Guest House is a beautiful rambling French colonial-era survivor with very attentive staff. And the "Crash" in today's title?? We wolfed down a protein meal and zonked out after the 16-hour grind.

This morning we were switched to our permanent elegant corner room, $11 a night. The towels are folded into lotus blossoms! No wonder Pat is smiling from the balcony, this place feels really good so far.