Crossover
I have to tell you something. I’m seeing shiny otters that hang around in corners eating bamboo. I’ll blame my anti-Malaria medication, Mefloquine. My friend Kathryn told me that the pills are poison and I should stop taking them immediately. I trust her but I also trust Western medicine enough to keep popping my dose of one once a week. I financed this trip but my mom bought the Mefloquine and I can’t let her down just to avoid creepy water mammal dillusions.
Yesterday the otters and I landed in Phnom Penh at Okay Guest House which seems, well, Great! I jumped in a tuk-tuk with a man from England named Alex to escape the crowd of moto/taxi drivers surrounding our tourist bus (2000 riel each for the tuk-tuk ride, $4 for the bus from Siem Reap) – thankfully Alex has good taste in guesthouses and he soon scored a single room with bath and fan ($4) while I cheaped out and grabbed a bed in the dorm ($1).
I arrived here from Bangkok with a two day stop at Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. The Aranyapathet/Poipet border crossing from Thailand to Cambodia is known for pickpockets, beggers, visa scams, bus scams, scamscams, rotten characters, bad apples, jewel thieves, gamblers, unsavory oddballs, and hustlers, lots of hustlers.
I got plenty of advice before leaving Bangkok for the border. You need a man. You should find a man to travel with. Whatever you do wait until you have someone to travel with before you go to Cambodia. Don’t do it alone. The hype about the Aranyapathet/Poipet border crossing is actually understated but I was able to navigate it minus the man. Three things to keep in mind if you do this alone:
1) take the earliest public bus from Bangkok (5am and 5:30am, 207 baht) – you will be traveling with locals, it is fast with good air con, and you get a snack that looks like wonderbread with mayonnaise but is actually yummy cake with sugar!
2) get your visa in Bangkok at the embassy (1100 baht same day service). You don’t have to have a visa before you go to the border but it helps you to confidently resist some scams. The Cambodian embassy is open 9-12 and the entrance is around the back alley.
3) don’t pay more than 50 baht for a tuktuk ride to the boarder from the bus, it’s not that far (I was ripped off and paid 70 baht to a fat little kid who said the boarder was 7 kilometers away). Once you get through Thai and Cambodian immigration it will be about 10:30am and, being the only Westerner around, you will have lots of attention and therefore lots of bargaining power. I was surrounded by about 12 screaming, pushy men and ended up with a $10 ride in an air con car all the way to Siem Reap, arriving at 2:30pm – 8 hours ahead of the tourist buses.
On the way there we stopped for lunch and the family that ran the convenience stand invited me to share their food – rice with fish soup, eggs and pork, cucumbers and green beans. It was my first meal in Cambodia and the first time I’ve really enjoyed eating meat. Book your Siem Reap guest house in advance because once you arrive there will be another surge of moto drivers, all working on commision for different guest houses. I liked my room but not the atmosphere at Garden Village ($2.50 to live in a nice-smelling basket), Alex enjoyed Rosie’s Guesthouse.
The future includes another border crossing, an island, and bed – you can guess the order.
Tags: España, France, Poipet, Prâteh Kampuchea
Greta
Your travels continue to amaze!!
I imagine the otters could be a bit bothersome- please let me know if we need to figure out a way to get some Malarone to you…….
mamad
Don’t worry mom, they are cute! Actually I only saw one but I hope I see more soon.