We’re leaving on a jet plane…….

19th February 2007

The Lonely Planet is the travelers guide of choice. We have found it to be be a great tool for our travels, although we have been wary of relying on it as we don’t want to miss out on dicovering places for ourselves. That said, the LP is great at warning us about little scams in each of the places we have visited. So when we found a huge box dedicated to ‘The Scam Bus’ which takes tourists from Bangkok to Cambodia very slowly so they arrive late at night and get dropped off at some guesthouse where the prices are high and the bus gets commision, we decided to do some research.

Chris found an abvsolutely cracking internet site:

http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-overland-bkksr-self.htm

where Gordon Sharpless gives a step by step guide to crossing the difficult border.

In order to beat the tourist rush hour we had a 4.30 am start to get to the bus station for the 5.30 am local bus. The first task (other than opening our eyes at that time in the morning!) was to persuade the taxi driver that he needed to put his meter on, as they can be reluctant to do so. Once we arrived at the bus station went straight to stall number 23 (thanks Gordon) and got our ticket before heading to the 7-11 store which Gordon had mentioned (the detail eh!) to get some snacks for the journey.

We boarded the bus and settled down for the 4-5 hour journey with both of us catching up on much needed sleep. Just before we arrived at the border town of Aranyaprathet we were stopped by military which came on the bus to check our passports in a bid to catch any illegal crossings. Four people were carted off the bus – fortunately it was not us!.

We were then dropped off by the bus and caught a tuk-tuk to take us to the crossing for 80Bahts (all as Gordon had predicted). When at the border we had read that we would be stopped by numerous people offering to get us our Visas along with very cute children which would try and rob us. We were approached by one very cute child but before he had chance to complete his opening sentence a guard shouted making Chris, myself and the child jump out of our skins.

We proceeded through passport control to get our exit stamps, which went very smoothly considering the longs queues for Thai and Cambodian nationals.

Next stop – Visa office. To get to the Visa office we had to walk across the border and under an impressive archway bearing the sign “Kingdom of Cambodia”. The only other bording crossing we have done on foot was the Peru-Bolivia crossing in South America.

After an unsuccessful visit to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok we were left with the task of applying for our visa at the border crossing. We had heard that ths could be a lengthy process unless you complied with the immigration officials demands of a bribe. We approached the desk and were asked to fill out a form and provide a passport photo (not trying to gloat now but we came prepared with said photo!). Despite a very large sign above the visa desk stating the price of US$20 for the Visa we were informed that the price was Baht1,000 (which works out more than US$20!). We had plenty orf baht to pay this but we had both agreed we were going to pay the US$20 even if it meant a couple of hours wait …..it’s the principle of the matter you see! Anyway after much ‘discussion’ where we informed them that we only had dollars and the big fat sign said the cost was $20 the tout gave in and let us approach the counter. After passing our forms and passports to the chief of immigration (or so his offical stamp stated!) he leant in to Chris and said

“How about extra Baht100 per person”

To which Chris replied “How about No, No No!” – The extra No’s were merely to get the point across.

So we waited and ten minutes later we were through accompanied by our Cambodian Visa’s and feeling we had won the moral high ground.

The journey did not finish there. Next we had to negotiate a taxi to take us to Siem Reap, our destination. However negotiations were not the order of the day and we had no choice but pay the US$20 per person for the shared taxi (we shared with Jayesh – a guy from London)….we had read that the taxi should have been $40 in total but a ‘taxi Mafia’ opperates which means that you have no choice to pay the price on offer and apparently as it was Chinese New Year the price was higher!

It is difficult at times to know who exactly you should be paying and who you have absolutely no obligation to……we have both commented that we would hate not to pay someone who we should strictly be paying…all we have to rely on (other than Gordon) is our instinct.

So there we were in our taxi and everything had gone smoothly so far. After stopping at the taxi mafia rank out of town where our driver passed on the ticket for the taxi which his mafia boss had issue when we paid we were through and onto the open road.

The road we travelled was reminiscent of the road we travelled to get to the Amazon pampas…..bumpy, dusty and full of potholes. The Lonely Planet notes reports that an airline company is paying a political party a bribe not to sort the road out which is logical if not a bit corrupt! So here were were with three hours of bliostering heat, plastic seats which meant that we were soaked with sweat before we could spell ‘deodorant’ and to top all that there was about a hundred mosquitos in the taxi.

We had bought malaria tablets for the remainder of our journey whilst in Bangkok (for a very cheap price I would like to add!) as Cambodia is an area where Malaria is prevalent. The tablets did not alleviate our unease however having lots of the little blighters hovering in our faces and landing on the flesh we had uncovered (and in this heat it was alot of flesh!). So once again the buddhist principles went out the window and we set about killing the pesky critters – by the end of it I was the mosquito terminator!

The journey was uncomfortable but we passed the whole three hours mesmerised by the scenery. The poverty in Cambodia is apparent immediately (very similar to Bolivia) on crossing the border. There are children with little clothing, dirt tracks for roads, people bathing and washing in dirty pond water and shacks for housing. Yet there are people smiling, waving and greeting us wherever we go….it is truly humbling. We have both commented that we feel more at ease in Cambodia in comparison to Thailand as the people seem genuinely friendly and welcoming. That said we have only travelled the heavily treaded tourist route in Thailand therefore the comparison is not entirely fair.

On our journey to Siem Reap we also saw a number of motorbikes with a couple of pigs strapped on the back ….unfortunately the driver was going to fast for us to take a photo….that would have been a ‘keeper’ and not a ‘delete-er’!

Tomorrow we are heading to the largest religious structure in the world – Angkor Wat- for another interesting and educational day!

Tags: Border, Cambodia, Scams

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 6:36 am and is filed under Cambodia. 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.