Sleeper Bus to Siem Reap: 5 Things to Remember

[Day 8-9] First thing you should know about the Vientiane- Siem Reap sleeper bus is it doesn’t exist. And there’s a big chance your drivers won’t tell you that. There’s a route of course, but there’s no direct trip. Instead, it’s a series of transfers from buses to minivans back to buses back to minivans… well, you get the picture.

In our case, it took four minivans, three buses, a ferry, a tuktuk, screaming drivers, some plastic chairs, and a multi-lingual angry mob to get to Siem Reap.

In a nutshell, here’s how our “bus ride” went:

• Minivan from city center to Vientiane bus station.
•  Sleeper bus from Vientiane to some southern Laos province.
•  Minivan to another southern Laos province.
•  Bus to another southern-er Laos province.
•  Minivan to Laos-Cambodia border.
•  Bus to some Cambodia town.
•  Ferry to another Cambodia town across Mekong River.
•  Minivan to Siem Reap.
•  Tuktuk to Siem Reap city center.

Good morning! Just got off our sleeper bus. Two legs down, seven more to go for this crazy cross-country ride.

Now I wouldn’t go over each leg. It’s basically a twisted version of Amazing Race where our next clue is always some sweaty driver yelling “Siem Reap! Siem Reap!”.  But in case you're planning to take the same trip, here are five things you should probably remember:

1. Stay alert. No one would be telling you what to do or where to go to next, and things can get pretty chaotic. Always be on the lookout for your ride, and the passengers whom you know are going to the same destination. Keep your ears peeled, hold on to your ticket. Take a piss every chance you get (you’ll never know when’s the next “toilet break” and whether there’s actually a toilet there.) Watch over your stuff, and each other.

2. Be friendly, but be smart. We are all for making friends with other tourists for safety (it’s always better to stick together) and sanity purposes (the road can drive you a bit nuts after a while). But when it’s our asses on the line (literally), we don’t think twice about dropping the conversation when the driver calls out, and rushing to get those highly coveted bus/van seats. All is fair in love and Lao buses.

3. Be prepared - it gets messier at the border. When we got to the Laos-Cambodia border, we were asked to transfer to another bus. The bus was almost full, run down, and with no air conditioning. You can imagine the angry passengers cursing in whatever language, yelling there’s no way they’re getting on that bus. But then the driver throws a fit, saying we got our tickets in Laos and this is Cambodia and if we want to complain, go complain back in Laos. In short he doesn’t give a f*ck about any of us, he just wants to get his bus (the only bus at the border) going, and we can either get on or he’ll leave our sorry asses behind.

Driver wins. Crowd boos. And Mau and I ended up sitting on a plastic chair on the aisle, and Bri standing by the front of the bus for the next two and half hours.

Crossing borders. Walking hundreds of meters to our next ride.

4. Get ready to make quick decisions. From the border, we got to some Cambodian town at around 5pm when the driver told us we still have eight hours to get to Siem Reap. If we want to go faster, he says, we can take a minivan instead that would get us there by 9pm tops. There’s a catch; we need pay $10 each - and the minivan is across Mekong. We had about 5 minutes to weight the choices – is it safe? Is $10 worth it? Can we survive eight more hours in this wretched bus? What if they’re just ripping us off and there’s no minivan across the river? With a dozen more tourist-allies saying okay, let’s do this (see item #2, clause 1), we got on that ferry with faith on one hand and our heavy packs on the other. Don’t worry, there was a minivan on the other side. :p

No turning back. Leaving our bus and waiting for our ferry.

Riverbanks scene. That rusty old thing those passengers were alighting? We're riding that. Haha. 

5. And lastly, no matter what happens, enjoy the ride. There’s always something to be happy about – always. Grabbing a banh mi in one of the stopovers for your breakfast-cum-lunch-cum-dinner. Sitting next to a cute French guy and having an a la Before Sunrise moment (albeit in a really cramped and humid bus). Wet tissue. Pit stops. Conversations with other backpackers, about the Philippines, about travels, about tattoos. Eventually seeing the bright lights of Siem Reap.

Almost there! Our final ride to our hostel.

Finally! :)

And most importantly, surviving the trip and making it to the destination in one piece. :)

Now that wasn't so bad was it? Haha. It truly was one for the books. After that, we had the best meal we've had in days, and the best shower we've probably had in our lives.

And of course a good night's rest to get ourselves ready for temple hopping the following day. Exploring the temples of the Khmer Empire on my next post! :)