Cambodia-Heart of Darkness

Cambodia was all about rawness...in every respect. Let me begin by sharing the journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap, wherein lies the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. We woke at 6 AM to get to the bus station where we caught our first of many buses that would take us to the border of Thailand and Cambodia. Packed with Thais, Cambodians and a speckling of Westerners, the bus ride was rather hot and cramped for the 4 hour trip to the border...but considering the means by which we would soon be traveling this was the lap of luxury. Arriving at Arranya Prathet, the border city, we hopped on a rickety tuk tuk, which speed off to take us to the actual border crossing where we spent 2 hours, sweating balls in the heat, getting through immigration. Once we got through the first tier, we then spent another hour passing through 2 more levels of immigration till we were finally packed like sardines into a little bus that took us to yet another bus station. Here we boarded what would become the most hellish 7 hour bus ride from Poi Pet to Siem Reap. This stretch of road is well known for being a completely miserable experience for most anyone who has made the journey. Twenty two people were crammed into a little mini bus the size of a VW Westfalia in addition to everyone’s luggage. It was boiling hot, the AC barely worked, and the road….the road was FUCKED! It was basically a dirt path with huge potholes, trenches, mud, pools of water, dust and few large boulder sized rocks thrown in for good measure. Now imagine this…you know the feeling of what it’s like driving on some old dirt road going up a mountainside, or that gravel driveway that twists and turns with huge ditches running through it…yeah…take that feeling and multiply it by 10 and then stretch it out for 7 hours. All of this in addition to the mental anguish of knowing that the distance being traveled could be done in 2 hours but because the bus never breaks 20 mph it takes 7. Oh yeah and because my seat was in the back in between all of the bags, It was like being in a small mosh pit where heavy-ass bags would fall on me every time we hit a bump or pothole. FUN…pure knee-slappin, guffaw havin’ good times all the way! Once we finally arrived at some absurd hour early the next morning, our worked-asses dropped like bricks on our beds. When we woke to check out and find another place we had our second miserable experience in Cambodia. Somehow between leaving Bangkok and arriving in Cambodia my guitar was stolen. In the haste and disorientation of getting from one country to another some lucky Cambodian is now rockin’ out with my cheesy 80’s hair metal travel guitar. Though it wasn’t the most attractive guitar, it still got the job done. Now having nothing, it’s going to be much more difficult to continue with the writing process like we had been able to before. So, from here on out we may have to forgo the uploading of new song tidbits for you to sample while we’re away, besides some acoustic pieces, if we can pick up an acoutsic guitar. They say you have to travel through the valley of darkness to see the light...