Going deeper into the heart of darkness

I saw this image on my new favorite blog, The Improvised Life and it was my mantra for another strenuous travel day, and for the trip in general. 

And it is even more powerful when accompanied by these words from Rumi:

"Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.

Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings.

Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move."

Sometimes it is easy to fear the unknowns that lie ahead, with travel and with life, and this is a good reminder to not look too far ahead.

There are no pretty pictures to accompany this post, unless you count this one of me holding my orchids, which I was determined to bring with us on the bus. 

That's me, with my new short Bangkok haircut, and it was the happiest I was all day. Things just went downhill from here, beginning with the fact that my travel partner ( not mentioning any names) suddenly got too timid to have our taxi driver stop on the way to the bus station so we could pick up some delicious breakfast pastries that we discovered the day before. I thought we might have a lemon curd muffin( yummy) , instead we had dunkin doughnuts from the bus station( believe me, one of the few choices) and yogurt. Ah well...

Then we lined up for our bus to Siem Reap, with all the other 20& 30 something European backpackers. We could have flown, but I think this might have been my idea to take another bus trip. I guess I was remembering the bus trips we had taken in Malaysia, that were actually a relaxing way to travel. This was not relaxing, and we were packed in like sardines with less space than tight airline seats.

I forgot to take a photo of breakfast, but it was handed to us in paper bags, and contained a hard peanutbutter cookie, a tasteless puff pastry pretzel and orange drink. I passed on that.

At noon there was a lunch stop in the middle of nowhere, with few food options, other than what we could find at the quick mart. 

It was this, and a small bag of potato chips , plus a bag of cut up watermelon. Onward! 

Then before we crossed the border into Cambodia we were given this lunch. Yum? 

We then filled out forms for a Cambodian visa and provided 40$ each and they whisked our passports away. We drove to the border, and most of us got our visas. Then we were told to get off the bus and walk across the border. This was the most unfortunate border town I have ever seen , and we crossed over a bridge that looked like it might be a garbage dump. More walking in the heat of the day, really unsure of where we were going. Finally we crossed from Thailand into Cambodia, more confused than ever about our next step. Eventually we realized that we were supposed to line up and proceed through customs, with the hundreds of other travelers. This whole process took nearly three hours before we were able to return to our bus. Very bad experience. Maybe if I was 40 years younger I could  roll with it, but I'm too old for this! 

Our bus was parked in front of a casino, in fact the whole town was filled with casinos! So I decided to use the loo, and it was tempting to try these slot machines. So colorful! Doesn't this look fun? 

Finally, we gathered all of our passengers and headed off. 

The trip was supposed to take 9 hours, but 9 hours stretched into 11, as we rode through the deepening darkness, hoping to see some glimmer of lights that would lead us to imagine that we were getting close to Siem Reap. There was nothing but a few roadside stands, and the occasional field burning in the darkness. 

Then all of a sudden, bam! We saw huge, fancy hotels and restaurants teeming with life, as was the busy main street of Siem Reap. It felt kind of like an oasis, and we weary travelers were all relieved to have finally arrived at our destination.