on the road again

Wednesday, March 7th, as my mini-bus pulls up in front of my guesthouse, i couldn't help but laughing -it is a mini-van packed with local passengers and their luggages, and all the products -coconuts, tomatos, noodles and snacks etc. in bags are strapped on top of the vehicle, where also another three passengers sit. An eldery woman gets up from her seat inside and offers me a tight-squeeze spot on the back seat. "No," i say, climbing up to the top of vehicle and that becomes my special seat for the next 6 hours, just a couple of sacks of coconuts with a bunch of Khmer riders. The view is incredible, and the dust from the road doesn't get high up 4 meters above the ground.

Within this 6 hour ride, we come across four times rivers where bridges are under construction and not accessible. Each place we pull up to the side of bridge, wait for a 'Ferry' which is nothing more than just some wooden floor rigged onto a couple of fishing boats. It's not so bad since i can get off from the roof of mini-van, stretch my back, go to bathroom and taste my last Angkor beer. As these crossing points comes one after another, i notice more Thai signs and Thai products, it tells we're nearing the border town.

All along the road, i see so many road-works to build bridges or cut through the mountains. This southern coastal road is full of hills and mountains, it must be difficult to do any road work here, unlike the route 6 to the west of Siem Reap, which is straight road on a flat land but in worst imaginable condition with so many holes and rocks and dunes, and few road-works are seen done.
This actually has a reason, as i later found out, the road between Poipet and Siem Reap is straight, on a flat land and populated with backpackers. When Thai government and Bangkok Airway (only airline who flies Bangkok to Siem Reap) helped building Siem Reap airport, there was some sort of agreement between them, that Thais pay money to Cambodian government so they will delay the road work on route 6, or practically not do it. On the other hand it is Thai military and their equipment who's cutting through the mountain to build the coastal road in highlands and construct large and sophisticated bridges.

3 in the afternoon I reach the border. Cambodia to the left, Thailand to the right. with gulf of Thailand behind. Leaving Cambodia after these intense and purposeful two months breaks my heart, as entering far more advanced Thailand again gives me strange sensation of culture shock.