Is this a nightmare?

I've dealt with bad roads and bad drivers in my life. Vietnam's drivers are nothing to write home about besides to tell the family that you're alive. Nothing at all could have prepared me for our short but unbelievably scary ride from Battambang to the Thai border.

The manager of our hotel sorted us out nicely and organized a car to take us to a recently opened border post that very few tourists ever pass through. It was expensive but, we thought, worth it as it cut down on our travel time by 3/4 hours. The manager instructed us not to pay until we were safely at the border as the driver in question had been known to plop people down at the side of the road and do a 360 turn back to Battambang. He told us that there were to be no more than 3 people in the backseat and we had to make sure we could see the border post before we paid. We happily agreed to these strict yet rare circumstances and jumped in the backseat.

No less than 10 minutes after we left the hotel, we stopped the car at the side of the road where 2 people stood waiting for their ride. We watched increduously as the driver obeyed his instructions and instead squashed 5 adults and one child into the front seats where our driver sat on another mans lap. This is not a point to be politely brushed over... Our driver pushed his chair back, waited for another passenger to sit down and then sat on this mans lap where he stationed himself before driving the car. At first I thought it was hysterically funny but it soon dawned on me how seriously dangerous it was to have 6 people in the front, 3 in the back and our driver sitting on someones lap!

The road was fine at first but soon we headed off the paved road and headed onto a dirt stretch which sent so much dust into the air that the leaves and surrounding trees beside the road were completely caked in dirt and looked no different to the color of the soil. This was fine for a while but soon we began passing trucks and cars that sprayed so much in their tracks that our visibility could not have been more than 3/4 meters if we were lucky. We bit our tongues, held hands and watched as our driver sped through the murky air at a ridiculously fast pace. The climax of the trip came as we sped past another car in an attempt to overtake them into a haze of red dust and suddenly encountered a truck coming full speed towards us on a road not wide enough to accomodate all three vehicles. I shut my eyes, prayed to someone or something to spare us and somehow we got through it. I've never cried because of a driving incident before but after we passed the car and I realized we were alive, I wept.

An hour later things had calmed down a bit although I was still nervous about the roads ahead. I asked how long we had until we reached the border. When the driver replied that it was "right in front of us" I yelled with glee and began to pound Mike's leg next to me. I do think all the passengers in the car were somewhat confused although they laughed along with me. At the end of the ride our driver cheerfully collected his money and said "See you again" to which I jokingly yet emphatically said "No, you never will!"