Another long ride.

It's just after ten in the evening and I have arrived in Siem Reap. This morning I got up at 6:30 had a shower and got on the bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh. The border crossings went smoothly and the ride was quick enough that at two o'clock I found myself in the capital of Cambodia. A quick check on the timetable and another hour later I was back on a bus again this time bound for Siem Reap where I arrived at 9:30 in the evening. This is when familiarity helped out, I have been here a few times before and knew where I wanted to stay, and found myself in Front of the Red Lodge ten minutes later.
Time for a good nights sleep and off to the ruins tomorrow!

Saigon

It took eleven and a half hours but the bus made it to Saigon where we arrived in a tropical downpour. Luckily I was prepared for that and had my umbrella handy. My backpack has a waterproof bag inside it so everything was dry as a bone.
Tomorrow we'll see what the city has to offer.

Arrived in Nha Trang

As I expected the bus ride was a sleepless one. On the one hand the bus was nice and new, on the other so was the sound system, so the whole night Vietnamese pop songs blared out at full volume. Anyway I am in Nha Trang and expect to spend the next few days on the beach out here before heading of towards either Dalat or Saigon.

Here are two fuzzy pics of the bus interior. Basically in a sleeper bus there are three rows of bunk beds/sleeping chairs that fit the average westerner badly. I am relatively short so I just fit the Ducth guys that were on the bus were all over 1.9 meters tall and didn't fit at all.

Night bus to Nha Thrang

In a few hours time I am supposed to take the overnight bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang and I am not looking forward to it. So far I have avoided taking night buses as in my opinion they are one of the most uncomfortable ways of getting fro A to B. First you don't sleep all night the when you arrive you sleep all day to make up for it. Never the less its the only feasible way to cover the distance, so a night bus it is. I'll update you tomorrow on how it went.

The bus to Lopburi

I got up early had coffee and some breakfast and then got on the bus to my next destination, Lopburi.
The bus was the typical ramshackle affair that plies most of the back-roads of Asia, basically a truck frame with the springs removed and a bus body bolted on top. Not that they don't have nice buses in Thailand its just that they don't use them for what are essential local runs. Utility is more important then comfort with normally a large area in the back with the seats removed so that people can stow whatever produce they take to and from the market with relative ease.
Anyway the trip went smooth and I am now enjoying the comforts of an air-conditioned room at Noom's Guesthouse.