Bangkok to Siem Reap

I went to Cambodia last weekend and am just now able to get around to posting about it. I still cannot post pictures because I'm not back to Thailand yet, but those will come soon.

Traveling to Cambodia was much more difficult and frustrating than expected. However, it was worth it. The weekend trip involved about as much time traveling as we spent in the country. We were scammed trying to cross into Cambodia which resulted in us paying more money than we should have had to, and leaving a bad taste in our mouths from some of the locals, but it's all part of the experience. Traveling rarely goes without a hitch or two.

12 of us left the dorms at 5am to catch a 5:55 train to take us to the border of Cambodia. What would have taken 50 baht ($1.66) ended up not running because of recent flooding the tracks were too wet. A tourist company at the train station said we could pay for a van to the border, cross the border and then catch a second van to Siem Reap. It would take most of the day which was longer than we expected and 4 people decided not to go. With no other opportunity to go in the remainder of my trip here I accepted the fact that lots of traveling was part of being in Southeast Asia and the travel time was worth seeing one of the 7 wonders of the world. 8 of us paid the 750 baht per person and finally left at 7:30am. Three stops later at noon we stopped at a restaurant/tourist shop that gave us two options:

1. To pay them 1000 baht each and they would get us through to Cambodia in 15 minutes thus meaning we would be able to catch the 1pm bus that we paid for to Siem Reap.

Or

2. Go through by ourselves, wait in line, and pay 800 baht each to get our visas (it was only supposed to be $20 which is 600 baht) and miss the 1pm bus and have to wait until 4:30pm to leave.

It seems that those two rather long stops were timed so well that we could not go through the border without paying the company more money and still make the 1pm bus. We opted for the choice of going through alone. We already knew Cambodia's border to be especially corrupt, but I didn't think the "tourist" company we paid with in Bangkok would scam us. Not trusting them with our passports or wanting to pay them more money and play into their scam and potentially end up not making the bus and/or having fake visas anyways, we went on our own through the border. We were still hopeful about catching the 4pm bus that we had already paid for though. However, we made the mistake of not getting any tickets. We paid 100 baht ($3.33) more for our visas than we should have, because the Cambodian employees insisted and we didn't know any better. However, the process went rather smoothly and the men were really nice. They shook our hands as they passed us our passports back and the guy even hugged me! A surprising welcome to Cambodia since Thai people don't hug. 

For a short walk we were in "no man's land" which was full of casinos. In both Thailand and Cambodia gambling is illegal so these casinos were the only ones around. We stopped in for a bit and received free food and drinks while 3 people in our group played blackjack. At some point while we crossed no man's land the side of the road that cars drive on changed. In Thailand cars drive on the left side of the road and in Cambodia they drive on the right. I am confident that driving when I get back home may be a bit difficult at first. I'm not sure I'll even know which side is the driver's side at first.

While walking to the official Cambodian border a girl of about 5 or 6 walked up to me and tapped me on the arm pointing to something on my backpack. I didn't understand but just shook my head no assuming she was asking for money or selling me something. She tried again though clearly pointing to my water bottle on my bag. I passed it over and she walked away, chugging the whole thing. I have a weakness for children and in Cambodia education is free, however many children don't attend school because their parents pull them out so that they can make money selling things. As much as I want to support children, buying from them only pays right into the hands of their parents that keep them out of school. It's a really difficult situation and one that Thailand deals with as well. 

After making it across the border we were taken to a tourist bus station which was probably not the right one to go to. Cambodia uses American money and we were expecting to see ATMs at the border or at least at the bus station. We came with some American money for our visas but most of us had none and Cambodia, unlike Thailand, does not have 3 different ATMs at every corner. We were told we would have to pay to ride the bus that we supposedly paid for since we didn't have tickets and so we just paid $12 each for a private van that would be quicker and leave right away even though it was $3 more.

We tried to bring along two other ladies that had been scammed as well but even though we had "paid" for the van and had extra room refused to let the ladies on without them paying as well. Annoyed, we were finally on our way in Cambodia with promises of stopping at an ATM at some time in our 2 hour journey. The country is rural, poor, and beautiful. It's covered in rice fields which are like swamps with the greenest plants you've ever seen for acres and acres. I enjoyed looking out the window as the countryside whizzed by. It really gave me the opportunity to see a good bit of Cambodia in a short period of time.

An hour into the trip we stopped at a shop for 10 minutes that are stops that the driver is paid to stop at so the shop gets business. We didn't buy anything since we knew what they were up to and also since we still had no money. Around the shop were about 10 children. They came up to us asking for money, which we honestly didn't have. Two girls gave them some snacks and we watched from the van as they played, laughed, and smiled. These children have beautiful smiles and laughs. I watched they cartwheeled and posed for one of the girl's cameras showing their muscles and holding up peace signs. They took selfies and looked at pictures on someone's iPad and as we left waved and smiled those beautiful smiles.

The sun set during our journey to Siem Reap, and our day that had started at 4:30am passed by in and out of vans being ushered from place to place. We drove on the worst roads I've ever been on. However, the view outside the window was worth it. Our arrival into Siem Reap was very sudden and unexpected because huge, palace-like hotels popped up out of nowhere it seemed. For hours before all we had seen were rice fields and shanties.

Although we had all slept about 3 hours the night before, we planned to get up in time to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. We took a Cambodian tuk-tuk, which differs from Thai tuk-tuks because it's just a motorbike that pulls a carriage that typically seats 4 to Angkor Wat from our hostel at 5am. For $5 each the tuk-tuk was ours from 5am-1pm. It was $20 to get into the temple, which is a significant amount of money for Southeast Asia. However, Angkor Wat is one of Cambodia's sole tourist destinations and a country in desperate need of money. We made it to Angkor Wat just as the sun was rising. There were many tourists there and many restaurant and shop owners "helping" visitors by greeting them, giving them tips about the best places to see the sunrise and then telling them to stop by their shop (insert number) for breakfast after watching the sunrise. There was lots of hustling going on. People sold scarves, children sold magnets and postcards, men approached us in the complex to remind us that they had "helped us first" and we need to go to their shop now. During breakfast I received a smoothie with the glass covered in ants. My drink had a little extra protein. Three of my friends ordered scrambled eggs and toast. They received unpeeled, hard boiled eggs, cheese, and a baguette.  Breakfast was spent banging eggs on the table to crack them and then picking the uncooked yolks out so they could eat whatever was left. It was one of the funniest meals I've had in Asia. 

We visited a few other temples after Angkor Wat which I found much more beautiful and spectacular than Angkor Wat. One temple, Bayon, was covered in the head of the king at the time it was built. Ta Prohm is the temple that Tomb Raider was filmed at. It too was stunningly beautiful.

We booked a similar deal as the one we had coming for the way home, except this time we booked it through our hostel. In the mini-van from Siem Reap to Poipet (Thailand-Cambodia border) a man in our van emphatically told us that people were after him trying to kill him and asked if he could cross the border with us holding our hands. He seemed fearful of his life, but wary of getting mixed up in a really bad situation we repeatedly told him and that we were sorry but couldn't help him. I don't know what happened to him but after we got off the van we didn't see him again. We crossed the border and took transportation to where we were picking up our mini-van to Bangkok, coincidentally at the same place that tried to scam us when we crossed into Cambodian days before. Luckily, there were no shenanigans this time.

Coming home I was the lucky person with a seat in the very front which allows me to see all of the crazy driving of Thailand. Picture your average two lane rural road. Add a lot of potholes, some tuk-tuks, trucks with 10 people in the bed, 18 wheelers, motorbikes, and mini-vans. Now picture four cars side by side going on the same direction stretched across the whole road. When cars come by in the other direction they'd get over just enough to allow them to pass. Lots of swerving to miss potholes and dodge cars in the other direction. There are no road laws or cops to enforce them, it seems.