Shanghai VS.

If guidebooks and internet message forums are your travel bible, you’ve certainly read the commandment: Thou shalt not travel overland between Bangkok and Siem Reap. I’ve never been a religious man however and such decided to take the mythical journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap.

The first rule of thumb from what I was able to gather by talking with people and reading various reviews of the journey is to not take a minibus originating from Khaosan Road. Apparently the scam works like this. You get picked up bright and early in Bangkok and then have to travel around picking up others for the next hour or so. After that there is a 4-5 hour journey to the border at Aryanprathet where the minibus will stop at certain restuarants, visa agencies, in order to get you to purchase certain items, usually at a mark-up. From there cross through the border where another minibus is waiting. Apparently when set up beforehand, these minibusses will take as much time as possibe arriving to Siem Reap and drop you off at a specific guest house. The idea is the driver has an arrangement with the guest house and gets a commission on guests he brings. Therefore, the driver will make the journey as unpleasant as possible for the travelers so when they arrive in Siem Reap they are ready to take whatever bed is closest to them.

So, heading the warnings of several other travelers, I decided to not book anything in advance. The morning I wished to depart I rose early, ate breakfast and was out the door of my hostel by 7:00am. From there I took a public bus (#3, close to KhaoSan Rd.) until Mo Chit bus station, or the north bus station in Bangkok. Your hotel staff should be able to point you where to pick up the bus. From Mo Chit, I went and bought a ticket to Aryanprathet for about 170Baht. The bus ride was quite comfortable and we arrived at the Aryanprathet station around 1230. From here I grabbed a tuk tuk (80baht) to take me to the border crossing.

Here is where things got interesting. The tuk tuk dropped me off on some road leading to a large set of buildings claiming he couldnt go any further. He dropped me off with a gang of men trying to convince me I had to get my visa from them. To prove their credentials they pulled out a phot album with pictures of the Cambodian Embassy. Real legit. Anyways, leaving these people behind I started walking down the road to the buildings, fending off many others along the way. Once I arrived at the building I realized there were no real signs directing me to where I had to go, so just continued around the building. Finally I arrived at what was Thailand departure station. Still with no Cambodian visa I got a little worried I should have listened to the people before. Anyways I kept going in line and finally got through Thailand, still with no Cambodian visa. Anyways I kept walking on the road outdoors until I ran into a man in a military outfit calling somehting about a visa. I figured eventually I had to trust someone, so went over, to the very unnoficial looking table, handed the man my passport and 1000B, and waited a couple minutes before I had my visa and was ready to go.
So this area is pretty much no mans land. Its characterized by sights of absolute poverty and large casinos. After another couple minutes walking I arrived at another checkpoint which turned out to be the Cambodian entry. The visa was fine and I was now in Poipet Cambodia. The whole border process took about an hour and a half.

Here I advise on hiring a taxi, 1000Baht for the trip to Siem Reap was good for me. There are loads of other travelers here so don’t be shy to ask someone to split a cab.

The journey to Siem Reap from here can be described as extremely bumpy. The roads are not paved to say the least and in rather poor condition. Additionally, this is probably not a good area to wander around in. It is strikingly underdeveloped and filled with shady looking characters.
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The trip took about 3.5 hours. When we arrived in Siem Reap, where of course we were dropped off at a tuktuk station. The guys there offered us a free ride to a hosel. Skeptical we took it. The hostel turned out to be to expensive so we left and walked around the area which is on the east bank of the river. There are loads of hostels here. Alternatively head down to the old market/pub street area to find a guest house.

Thats about it, it really wasn’t such a bad journey.

Tags: Backpacking, Bangkok, Siem Reap, Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 3:47 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.