Thailand to Cambodia, overland

It's been quite a while since I last posted, but it's not because I haven't wanted to or that nothing exciting has been going on! Today is my last day in Thailand - flying out bright and early tomorrow morning, back to the cold and snow. I think culture and temperature shock will occurr!

Since I last posted, I've traveled back and forth to Cambodia. It's going to take a couple of posts to get all the information down, so bear with me! Photos will be coming soon.

As a summary, in the last 6 weeks or so, I have traveled by the following methods, across borders, through towns, and in the Andaman Sea:

Tuk tuk - both Thai and Khmer
Speed boat (river and ocean)
Motorcycle (both driving and passenger)
Mini-van, mini-bus
Bus
Pick-up truck (in the cab and in the box)
Walking
Long tail boat - both Thai and Khmer
Dive boat (big and small)
Taxi
Plane

It's been quite the experience - for anyone who wants to travel around SE Asia, my advice is to forgo the normal methods of transportation (ie. planes) and go overland or oversea! It's the best way to go!

January 22nd. After flying back to BKK from Phuket, I met up with Nat and John at the Ambassador Hotel. We spent the afternoon on Khao San Road, eating street meat and indulging in Thai buckets. The evening was spent at the Suan Lam night market, only to be woken up abruptly at 4am the next morning by our wake-up call, in plenty of time to make it down to Hua Lamphong train station to catch our commuter train to the Thai-Khmer border. We had stocked up on train-friendly food items the evening before (not needed since train meat and random drinks were plentiful for the entire ride). Once at the train station, we purchased our tickets for the border: 48 baht each!! For a 5 hour train ride! Sweet! Okay, so the entire train was 3rd class, but still, it was great!

The ride to the border was relatively quiet and very scenic - lots of rice paddies, farming villages, small train stations. I managed to catch a few winks of sleep to make up for the horrid night of 'sleep' the evening before.

Once at the border town of Arayan Prathet, we walked through immigration and into a no-man's land somewhere between Thailand and Cambodia where we had a bit of lunch before standing in line to be let into Cambodia. Crossing borders on foot is always an interesting experience - it can take anywhere from 1-2 hours, depending on the paperwork and the number of tour groups who are lined up with you.

On the other side of the Cambodia line, we had the somewhat frustrating experience of negotiating a ride from Poipet to Siem Reap. Let the games begin!!! The drive was expected to be 4 hours (dependent entirely on the insanity of the driver). We wound up stuck in a bidding war between 2 private car drivers. Our ultimate choice was, in hindsight, the wrong one! But at the time we just wanted to get the hell out of dodge. The trunk was packed with bags, the car with people, and off we went.

I'm not entirely sure how to explain or describe the ride from Poipet to Siem Reap. Nat's cartoon of the trip is probably the best in terms of a summary. "Hellish" might be a good word. Exciting? An adventure? Death-defying? All good words! The "road" was worse than anything I have ever been on, logging and quarry roads included. HUGE potholes and culvert bumps, road construction the entire length of the highway, cows, chickens, toll trolls, bicycles, other drivers. There are no rules driving on that road - it's a free for all. Either side of the road is fair game (Thais drive on the left, Khmer on the right, this road either side worked), and playing chicken with every vehicle you came across seemed the norm. It was quite the ride. I was sitting in the front, and I swear I lost 10 years of my life just staring out the front window at the conditions in front of us. To top it all off, our driver seemed to have Turret's syndrome as well! He kept taking his hands off the steering wheel and cracking his knuckles, making weird, spastic head motions, and mumbling violently to himself.

4.5 hours later, in the dark, we were very relieved to find ourselves in Siem Reap itself. But the journey wasn't over! Our car driver decided he'd try and drop us off at a tuk-tuk stand because apparently "dirty cars weren't allowed in Siem Reap". We loaded into 2 tuk-tuks and asked to go to the Jasmine Lodge. Ha! We were being taken for a ride. Luckily, having been here long enough, we were smart to this scam and wound up jumping out of the tuk-tuk near to where we thought our guesthouse was. Close enough. A bit of a walk landed us at the guesthouse, very dirty, exhausted and ready for sleep. We had made it to Cambodia, although there were times during the ride that I didn't think surviving that road was a possibility!!