Blogging Pubbitch

Going from Phnom Penh to Kampot, our next stop, would necessarily involve transport of some description. Asking around town, the choices seemed to boil down to:

• A very slow train that only runs every other day, because Cambodia has two train lines and only two passenger trains to run on them
• A minibus
• A shared taxi

Of these, the last two sounded like a pretty good bet, so on the morning we wished to travel we found our way to the market from where both types of vehicles leave. It was here that we learnt the true meaning of "packed like sardines" and "quirky pricing" Let me explain....

A minubus in Cambodia normally has three rows of seats, each of which can hold 3 or 4 people. This puts the theoretical maximum number of people in the thing at around 13 or so (two rows of four, one of three by the door and two in the passenger seats at the front) In Cambodia, an astonishing 25 passengers can be placed into this one poor machine, a feat of human packing seldom rivaled since the World Record for "most idiots in a mini" was set on prime-time childrens' telly. If that seems like a madness, then also consider the shared taxi. This is generally a Toyota Camry (though not as modern as that link, coming as they seem to, from the early 90s) and tends to be white --- the ideal colour for Cambodia's barely paved roads and mud tracks. Into this hapless sedan a total of up to 8 or 9 people can be shoe-horned, with one person sharing the driving seat, the driver sticking his head either out of the window or very much to one side, and some other poor schmuck clinging for dear life to the lid of the boot in which he's sitting in.

Now it should be bourne in mind that although these numbers are set using the slight and short people of Cambodia as victims, the drivers see no reason to change strategy when confronted by our taller, bulkier western frames. But there's hope at hand! All we need to do is rent a taxi by ourselves. Considering that there's less weight to thrash around on the suspension and over the distance covered a small amount of petrol might be saved this should surely have the advantage of lower cost as well?

And here the madness deepens. In order for Holly and I to rent a taxi by ourselves, the cost of the vehicle is 5 US dollars more than if there were 8 of us. Quite how this works has never been successfully explained to either Holly or myself, but that particular pricing structure seems to be rife throughout the region (we've seen it in action elsewhere too!)

In the end, we managed to find two other westerners going in the same direction, and we ended up paying a miserly fee to travel in relative comfort. On arriving in Kampot though, things got worse....