Headed to heaven, on the road from hell

When it comes to Angkor Wat, they say getting there is half the battle. They don’t know the half of it

By Marc Ethier
Gather Correspondent

I was planning to write extensively about the notorious stretch of “road” from the Thailand-Cambodia border to Siem Reap, site of the mother of all Wats, Angkor Wat. But all my notes look like they were written by a first grader. More so than usual.

So I’ll have to go from memory, despite the severe jarring my brain received in the event.

It’s a three-hour trip from the sweaty, smelly, filthy border at Poipet to Siem Reap – assuming you’re in a solid, well-maintained conveyance and not one of the rustbucket rattletrap buses that commonly break down along the way – and it’s three hours you’ll never forget. An army of travel writers has added a chorus of distressed voices to this subject; Lonely Planet famously – and justifiably – dubbed the 150 kilometers of National Route 6 between the border and Siem Reap the “Boulevard of Broken Backsides.”

But let me make clear, I was not permanently scarred by the experience. In fact my wife Lisa and I may have had one of the easiest passages possible on such a treacherous, neglected thoroughfare: we took a cab. It could have been much worse: we could have been on one of those buses.

Still, leaving Poipet it was immediately clear that Route 6 as a byway is not ideal for any kind of motorized traffic. There is no tarmac, and only sporadic short stretches of ancient asphalt to break up the continual moon-like terrain. In most places the “road” is just jagged rocks poking out of cracked earth, dividing a flat landscape of fallow fields and dust devils. Over much of the distance there are alternate tracks running parallel on each side of the main artery, on which bicyclists and motorbikers avoid the stinging chalky dust and bulletlike pebbles coughed up by passing tractors, trucks, tuk-tuks and taxis.

Not to exhaust my store of superlatives: I’ve seen worse roads in my life. But I’ve never seen a worse road that was so heavily used.

The best way to get anywhere on this road, if you have the means and the time, is to get a horse. Or a mule. Or avoid it by flying to Phnom Penh and driving north on the tarmac freeway out of the capital city.

Short of that, do what Lisa and I did in coming from Bangkok. We did not take one of the buses from Khao San Road. Even as I write this comfortably from my Siem Reap guesthouse several hours after arrival, stomach full and mind rested, the poor fools who took the Khao San buses are probably still out there, stranded beside a steaming bus or jouncing along painfully at 10 miles per hour. Every travel website, and everyone who’s ever been here, knows not to take the Khao San buses: Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it or you deserve what you get.

Instead of masochism, try going to Bangkok’s northern bus station, Morchit 2 as it’s known, and get on one of the many nice air-conditioned new buses that leave at all times of the day. The first-class bus costs about 200 baht, or somewhat less than $6. Get started early so you can get to the border and the rigmarole of customs at a decent hour.

After enduring the border, the best plan is to take a cab. This is costly but worth it – worth every penny. To get to Siem Reap will run you between US$40-45; to get back is US$30-35. That’s still cheaper than the US$300 round-trip airfare. We rode in a Toyota Camry that, frankly, didn’t look like it had the stuff to make it: but it did. A minor miracle, and we are grateful. We’re hoping for a Honda Civic for the return journey.

For exquisitely detailed information on what to do, what not to do, where to go, where not to go, check out www.talesofasia.com, run by an expat guesthouse owner in Siem Reap. Information on how to avoid scams is especially helpful.

Not incidentally, the reason airfare from Bangkok to Siem Reap is so expensive is a matter of some conjecture. But the rumor – entirely believable in my view – is that a certain air carrier is financing corrupt officials to slow road construction – thus forcing the less hardly among us to shell out to see one of the region’s, and the world’s, top attractions. And certainly there were plenty of detours but very little actual construction on Route 6 when we traversed it.

Insidious, if true – and ingenious. But it won’t work! We’re not afraid to brave the Boulevard of Broken Backsides if it means basking in the glory of what is possibly one of the world’s Seven Wonders (www.new7wonders.com): what is, indisputably, one of the great architectural and spiritual achievements of mankind: what, indeed, is Southeast Asia’s premier religious site and the object of adoration and pilgrimage for millions. If you go to Asia, you must go to Angkor Wat.

It’s archaeological heaven. It’s a traveler's Mecca. It’s that simple.

Now that I’m here, though, the cost of one-way return airfare doesn’t look so bad …

Then again, it might pay to look into the cost of a mule. I just hope the airlines don’t get wind of my plan ….