Bangkok to Aranyaprathet to Poipet to Siem Reap... all in one day.

Apparently, you can't come all the way to SE Asia and NOT go see the famous Khmer temples of Angkor Wat, so I decided to make a sidetrip to Cambodia to see them before I head to the Philippines.

Having heard horror stories of the Khao San Road scam buses that take their time getting to Siem Reap so you will be too exhausted to resist them installing you in the guesthouse of their choice and armed with information from Claudia and Tales of Asia I decided to go it alone. Bangkok to the border town of Aranyaprathet was a breaze, but I was worried when I was the only farang on the bus, since part of my ingenious plan hinged on having other farang to share a taxi with.. and so was relieved when two Canadians got on towards the end of the trip.

We got to Aran after about 4 hours and all three of us crammed into a tuk-tuk which took us to the border. Is there some law that says borders must be sketchy places? Or maybe its only if you are bordering a sketchy place? As in Ranong w/ Myanmar... and now Aran w/ Cambodia. Anyway, a bit hungry we decided to have something to eat on the Thai side since we'd be facing another 4 hours of travel on the Cambodian side... so we settled for "pork burgers". Not the best thing I've ever eaten, but not the worst. For a hamburger joint they were lacking... but they compensated by having good strawberry icecream.

Avoiding the crazy vehicle traffic, which included people pulling humungous carts (think Worlds Strongest Man proportions) and the swarming beggar kids... we stamped out of Thailand w/ no problems. We crossed no-mans land and got to the super-official looking Cambodia visa services. You fill out a form, give them a picture, and a visa fee plus a bribe (the offical cost is $20, but they will only accept B1000 which works out to $23-25.... wonder where the rest of the money goes?). They conned one of the Canadians into paying B1100. Then we got our passports back w/ our handwritten visas. Then we went to the next super-official looking checkpoint... first they handed us a warning pamphlet about the dangers of SARS and then they asked for our Immunization records... I've never heard of this thing, but the Canadians actually had theirs, so the border official said I had to pay a B20 fine. Well this is only 50 cents, but its an out and out SCAM! So I refused citing it was a scam... they pointed to some useless paper (which appeared to be a copy of someone else's record)... but I repeated a few more times that I new it was a scam and my passport was returned to me and I was allowed to move on to the next stop and get "stamped in"... which was the easiest and least corrupt part.

With fresh visas and stamps it was time to face the infamous Poipet taxi mafia. It wasn't as terrible as I thought. I mean you can't ignored everyone, b/c eventually you do have to say you need a taxi to Siem Reap. I was able to convince the Canadians to take a Camry (it was either that or the back of a pickup truck) and after a little bargaining we were able to commandeer the whole car for B1000... which is the fairly standard price even though they will always try to charge you more. We checked the car to make sure the AC was working and we were off.

Roadtripping it to Siem Reap is legendary b/c of the gods-awful roads!! The first stretch actually had some pavement, but it was enough to make the CivE in me weep! as the potholes looked more like craters. You know the "road" is bad when you have to drive off the road and on the shoulder to get around. The middle section was not even paved at all, but it was atleast mostly flat... and w/ seatbelts and a driver who wasnt a maniac it wasnt bad. We did get lucky though... as a car that sped by us.. was shortly thereafter seen w/ its front wheels stuck in a hole in the bridge. The driver and one of the Canucks got out to try to help, but the driver had the car in gear so they couldn't roll it back. Our driver gave up, ushered us back into the car and did the only sensible thing he could. Take a detour through the rice fields.

After that the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. The final stretch into Siem Reap was actually paved w/ decent tarmac, and so after 9-10 hours (a good 5-6 hours better than the Khao San Road scam busses! HA! I was finally installed at Earthwalkers guesthouse where I could shower and get some clean clothes and figure out how to attack the temples.