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National Hwy 1 near Vietnam border, Cambodia

Piled into a small van, nine of us representing a handful of countries twisted and turned through the deep mud of Cambodia en route to the capital city. The heavens had opened, pouring buckets upon buckets of rain onto the stunning countryside and swamplike
highway. When we weren’t stuck on the side of a rice field cooling the engine down, our driver pushed on through the terrain with
full abandon. The children of this local village weren’t lucky enough to have us break down nearby and were thus forced to chase us,
hoping for a bit of candy.

SBR

 

National Hwy 1 near Vietnam border, Cambodia

At the Cambodian border, we disembarked the full-size, air-con bus we had taken from Saigon, passed through customs and, hours later, boarded a bumpy purple minibus for the remainder of our journey to Phnom Penh. Through the pouring rain, our driver expertly navigated the muddy, pot-holed highway, taking care to avoid the usual obstacles of playing children and mud-stuck cars. I was sitting in the front seat when we passed this unlucky scene; to us foreigners on the bus, it begged the question, "How many Cambodians does it take to push a truck out of the mud?" Little did we know that our own bus was destined to break down nearly ten times that afternoon, delaying our trip by hours.

LS