The Long Road to Cambodia

Yesterday I left Bangkok in the morning to come to Cambodia, partly because it was where I'd planned to head, but also because my Thailand visa expired that day so I had to leave the country. If it hadn't I might have been lazy and stayed longer because I'd heard some bad stories about getting to Cambodia. One way to get here is to buy a bus ticket all the way here for about $7 from one of the hundreds of travel agencies on Khao San Road, the backpacker ghetto in Bangkok, but these buses are very slow and take as long as possible so that you arrive late at night and they can just drop you off at a guesthouse where they get commission and you're too tired to go anywhere else. Otherwise you can get here on your own by taking a public bus to the border for $7, then taking a cab once in Cambodia for $40. I was leaning towards the tourist bus just because it was cheap and at least I'd be with a bunch of other people in the same situation, but I only got to Bangkok late at night and had to leave the next morning so I had no chance to buy a ticket.

In Bangkok there are 4 bus terminals that send out buses in different directions, so you have to know where you're going to go to the right station. Also, there are tons of different bus companies, all with different standards, so you have a bunch of choices but don't really know what you're going to get. I went to the right bus terminal where I just bought the first ticket I saw to the border. It was just after 8, and the bus was leaving at 9:30. Right after I got my ticket, I looked at another ticket booth and saw they had a bus leaving at 8:30 and it was cheaper, so I was waiting around for no reason. I got on the bus which was supposed to take about 3.5 - 4 hours, but because of the rain and the fact we stopped every 20 minutes it took about 5 hours. It drops you off at the bus station in the town at the border, so you have to take a tuk tuk to the actual border. There were 2 other travelers on my bus, so we shared a tuk tuk and planned to find our way to Siem Reap, Cambodia together.

The border here isn't like anywhere I've been before - there's one where you exit Thailand, then you walk a little ways to get to the next one which is to enter Cambodia. We got to the Thai border with no problem, but then had to wait for a while because the girl I was with was Armenian and had to wait for some Thai visa stuff to be done. To get a Cambodian visa you have to pay $20 and bring a passport-sized picture, which neither I nor the guy I was with had. We asked the Thai border people if there was somewhere to get a picture taken, and they said it was past the Thai border, so we went through. We walked along the part between Thailand and Cambodia which is filled with casinos and kids asking for money, looking for a place to get a picture done but didn't find anything before we got to the Cambodian border. We asked the officials there, and they said it was okay if we just paid them $37. I'd heard about the officials asking for more money than was necessary, so I said no. We walked back towards Thailand, asking people around where to go. Not many people understood, and there were hardly any other foreigners crossing the border, so we really didn't know what to do. We ended up walking back and forth (with my heavy backpack on) for probably 2 hours until we realized there just was no place for a picture and the Thai officials must have meant we could just pay the border people more. In the end I was somehow able to get my visa for the $20 it was supposed to be plus $3 for not having a photo, like the Thai people had said it would cost. When I paid and gave in my passport for the visa, the official said it would take 3 hours, but if I gave him $5 more it would only be 3 minutes. Again I said no because I'd heard this is what they tell people, but it doesn't take 3 hours ever. I only waited about 10 minutes, so I was glad I didn't give him extra. In the end, my visa doesn't even have my picture on it, I think the Cambodians just have a collection of photos of people that have crossed the border.

After getting your visa you have to walk to the Cambodian border and fill out another paper and get your passport stamped. Here we met 2 other travellers, some German guys that were really upset about getting ripped off by the border officials. We decided to try to get a cab with them. They were very cheap though and refused to listen to any of the people offering us rides because they didn't trust any of them, and they wanted to take a bus to another town away from the border where you can get a taxi without getting ripped off. There was a free shuttle bus to the bus station, but they thought that was a scam too so we didn't take it and instead walked along the muddy road for 20 minutes. It was almost 6:00 by this point, and the other 3 of us weren't so upset about just getting a cab all the way to Siem Reap even if it cost a little more. There was a guy offering us a taxi for $40, which was cheaper than the reliable taxi that the guesthouse I was going to could have arranged to pick me up. There was one other guy waiting at the bus station we were at, so the 4 of us took the cab.

The ride can take 3 hours in good conditions, but since it's now the rainy season the road is deteriorating and it took us 4 hours. When I say road, I mean that in the loosest way possible - it varied between mud that felt like we were driving on ice because we kept fishtailing, and dirt with such huge potholes that we often scraped the bottom of the car. It was even more fun because I got the middle seat in the back. I was really tired after traveling all day, but there was no possible way to sleep on that ride. Once it got dark out there was almost nothing to see since there are no lights along the road and there were very few houses or anything around. That all changed as we got into Siem Reap; one minute we were driving through the middle of nowhere along a terrible dirt road, and the next we were on pavement driving by the most expensive, beautiful hotels I've seen in a while. I was the only one in the car with reservations, so we were all just going to go where I was staying. Our driver however decided to take us to the guesthouse that would pay him commission. The owner came out and told us to stay there, but we said no, and tried to explain that we had reservations elsewhere. He asked where and I told him, and asked if he knew where it was. He did, but wouldn't tell us. I asked if he would tell the driver how to get there. He kept walking away, but finally he said to take 2 lefts. We did that, but it wasn't there. I told the driver to pull over while I called to find out the location, but as he pulled onto another street we saw it!

I finally arrived at 10:30, after 15 hours of traveling, just to get a couple hundred kilometres away. I had my own room and bathroom though so I was happy. I was also able to get something to eat for the first time since breakfast that morning at 6:30, and have a shower to clean off the mud all over me from walking on the muddy road at the border. Today I was going to get started seeing Angkor Wat, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat, the major tourist attraction around here, but really just needed to sleep in. I've been walking around town here and it is really crazy, there are kids following me all around for blocks at a time trying to sell things, and there are really run down places. Cambodia didn't even have any ATMs 2 years ago. This is contrasted with the fancy hotels with rooms for $2000 per night, and the beautiful coffee shop with an art exhibit where I stopped for some water.