Aren't chickens and karaoke part of everyone's bus ride?

This morning Colby and I woke up bright and early to catch our bus from Phenom Penh to Siem Reap (we were only in Phenom Penh overnight, which I was originally a bit bummed about but after spending 5 hours there I was totally fine with it...eeeek!).

By this point in our trip we are totally used to long bus rides. You know, the kind where you constantly say to yourself "Are we there yet?" and you are always curious when the next bathroom break is going to be. This bus ride was nothing of the sort, it was wayyyyy too entertaining...

So the bus pulls out of Phenom Penh and we hit the road. I, as per usual, glue my eyes out the window to take in my surroundings. And what surroundings they were! Everyone in this country owns at least 1 ox and they roam the streets like they own the place. There are no public buses, so local people get around by cramming into vans. When I say cram I definitely mean cram - 30 people in a van meant for 11 plus the 20 extra people who sit on the roof as the van speeds on down the barely paved road. I found this whole scene to be completely fascinating and was totally confused as to why Colby wasnt paying attenting to our outside surroundings as well. Well, there was a good reason for that....

The TV in our bus was playing Khmer (Khmer=Cambodian) karaokie music videos. Picture the most hilariously bizarre music videos ever then multiply that by 12 million AND put it in a different language. It was HILARIOUS. Everyone on the bus had their eyes glued to the screen watching every word and every action. Colby and I watched as well, but while the Cambodians were watching it with sincere enjoyement and excitement, we were watching it and trying not to laugh out load inappropriately.

Equally hilarious is what we discovered when our bus stopped for a break about 2 hours into the trip. Colby and I get off the bus to take in our surroundings, and are ATTACKED by small children wanting to touch us and sell us stuff. We befriended 2 of them and what did they lead us to to show us....a booth that was selling spiders and turantulas and other gross insects to eat. Yup, thats right, to eat. Although they tried to convince us that they were tasty and we should give it a go we politely declined and got back on the bus...

As we were walking to our seats on the bus, we heard what we thought were chickens. Both looking at eachother totally confused and bewildered, we took a few steps back to take a look around. Lo and behold, we found a chicken coup with like 2 or 3 chickens underneath one of the seats. Yup, thats right, chickens were on our bus. The real question however is, do they have to pay for a ticket as well or do chickens ride for free?????