Crossing the Cambodian Border

From Bangkok’s main station take the 5.50am train to Aranyaprathet, third class only. The seats are hard and it can get pretty crowded but the windows open and you can watch rural areas of Thailand go by with the wind in your hair. The rice paddies are a beautiful distraction over the 6hr trip.
The trip costs 47 baht.

From the train station at Aranyaprathet take a tuk-tuk to the border for 80 baht. Without fail the tuk-tuk driver will take you to a tout to get your Cambodian visa (THIS IS NOT THE BORDER, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FILL OUT ANY FORMS OR PAY ANY MONEY). This is the first scam along the way! Get back in your tuk-tuk and go to the border. At the border walk through Thai immigration, once through keep walking for about 150 meters to the Cambodian immigration. The route is a little confusing past big casino’s with people approaching you wanting to guide you, offering you taxi services and visa services. IGNORE THEM AND KEEP WALKING. (more scams)

You can get a Cambodian visa at the border it costs $20 US, do not pay any more. If you have a chance get your visa in Bangkok before heading to Cambodia, it will make the crossing a little easier for you.

Once through immigration you enter the town of Poipet. A typical border town, here you will be approached by people wanting to take you to a taxi. A shared taxi to Siem Riep cost $60 US (4 people can share this).

On the way to Siem Riep (about 3 hours) the taxi will make a toilet stop. Everybody is on commission and yes water does cost $1 US.

Holiday in Cambodia

The trip from the Thai/Cambodia boarder to Siem Riep was an adventure to say the least. We shared a taxi with an older South Korean couple with limited English, our taxi driver had just as few words, mostly his name and where we were going (we paid $15 US each to make the 3hr journey).

First impression of a country when you come thru a border town will rarely be good, the town Poipet was no exception, dusty, dirty busy with cars, buses, minivans and pickups full of people coming and going. Up the road a little were horse drawn carts and cattle roaming free across the so called highway, (the horse drawn cart was a new one for us, we'd never seen on the streets of south east asia before).

Driving through small communities on our way to Siem Riep it became apparent to us that Cambodia was another poor country where people survived on their own self sufficiency.
On arrival to the out skirts of Siem Riep we were swooped on by tuk-tuk drivers (later we were to learn this was a common occurrence once you got on the streets) offering to take us to our guest house. Sure, great hastle free, out of the taxi, into the tuk-tuk and onto the guest house of our choice. IF ONLY! We were taken to the wrong guest house, when asked to be taken to the one we asked for we were told it was a long way away so the charge was $2 US (which may not sound like much but most Cambodian's live off less than this a day). Ok, ok just take us where we want to go!

We get 10 metres down the road and there is the sign to our guest house. We yell to the drive to stop, STOP, we'll get out; he wants to circle round, NO NO WE'LL GET OUT. After stuffing us about he decides he still wants his $2, (which he isn't getting), we grab our backpacks and start walking to the sound of the swearing tuk-tuk driver. THAT'S RIGHT HE WAS SWEARING AT US BECAUSE WE DIDN'T PAY HIM $2 FOR A 10 METRE JOURNEY!

By now I was hoping our trip to Cambodia was going to get better than our first impressions of the place.