Our journey to Siem Reap was certainly eventful. We took a 6 hour bus ride, supposedly the "best bus company" in the area, called the Mekong Express. We're calling bullshit! Lets just say the only good hting about the bus ride is they gave us a super yummy peach pastry! About 2 hours into our trip, all of a sudden a weird smell immediately engulfed the entire bus. Confused, we looked up to see that not only was there a smell, but the bus was filling up with smoke! Uh oh. Our "best company" bus had a malfunctioning air conditioning unit that decided to catch on fire! After a few concerned screams our bus immediately pulled over to the side of the road, and we all very quickly disembarked, grabbing all our belongings we could get. Please note, this is Cambodia. We are in the middle of no where, and there are still over 3 million active landmines scattered throughout the countryside. Kaitie and Caroline are not impressed. Luckily our bus driver was also a handiman. And while he was fixing it, we stood at the side of the road, watching the cows, while reminiscing about how we never seem to win at life. Its not a Kaitie and Caroline adventure until you're stranded in the middle nowhere! The next four hours of our bus ride were extremely uncomfortable and sticky hot due to the lack of air conditioning and the super hot sun burning through the window. Luckily, we had Harry Potter to entertain us through the remaining few hours.
On our way into Siem Reap we were shocked to see the nice hotels and how built up it was. We joked about how we would never be able to afford a place like that! Our not so creepy tuktuk driver from the day before arranged for another tuktuk driver to pick us up at the bus station. Random tuktuk driver #2 was holding a sign with "Miss Kaitie" and "Miss Caroline" on it! Unsure of who he was referring to, we went over anyways! Once again, without a place to stay, he took us to a hotel we passed earlier. Luckily, in Cambodia, we apparently can afford these kinds of places!! We got ourselves a nice hotel, with a pool (which we never actually made it into...you'll soon find out why) and a super comfy room! That night, we decided to go down to the Old Market area to eat at the Khmer Kitchen, which is well known as Mick Jagger ate there! We had traditional Khmer food that included a pumpkin and coconut soup that was soooo yummy! With our eyes being bigger than our stomachs, like always, we required a wheelbarrel to get us back home! However, at least we would be fully fueled for our Angkor excursion the next day!
