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Monday
Nov262007

Phuket to Siem Reap in 39hrs - November 21 & 22 2007

Day 1

07:00 Waiting at pickup point for minibus

07:45 Minibus shows up

12:00 After several hrs of stops every damn hour to graciously let us buy drinks and food from his mates (who I’m sure pay him to give us breaks there) we finally get to the mini bus depot in Surat Thani.  But me being the only person NOT going to one of the islands for full moon festival I have to wait until all the others have been taken to their respective boats.

13:30 Mini bus guy drops me off in Surat Thani town with instructions on how to get to train station

14:00 Local bus picks me up. I am feeling a bit like a fish out of water when Thais point to me and exclaim ‘farang?!’, they don’t seem to get too many tourists in this town riding the local bus.  Trip is made much more fun by the two Thai girls I sit next to in the back who invite me to play their “shuffle away from the sun when the bus turns corners game”.  After a lot of giggling between the two of them and shy looks they have a game of scissors/paper/rock.  Seems it was to see who had to talk to the farang as the loser then (with much more giggling) asks me in halting English where I am from and what my name is.  A difficult but fun basic conversation keeps us all amused for the remaining 15mins or so to the train station.

16:30 After a couple hrs of reading, eating ice cream and wandering around and nearby the train station the train turns up - ON TIME! Wow, last couple Thai trains I’ve caught have been 3 & 1 hrs late respectively.

Day 2

05:00 After a cold night in the (over) air conditioned carriage (from now on I’m going fan) I awake to find myself in Bangkok.  I’m guessing we are more or less on time…either way it’s bloody early.

07:00 After a couple coffees and some time reading the lonely planet I decide on the spur of the moment not to stay in Bangkok for the couple days I had planned, so I head out to a tourism place to find out how to get to Cambodia.

07:30 Ticket to Cambodia is booked for 8:30am

09:00 Bus turns up, oh shit, it’s a VIP bus *sigh*

12:00 Arrive at border.

16:00 After the slowest, most boring and flat out shittiest border crossing ever I am in Cambodia.  Now I really know I am in a developing country, there is a distinct lack of road rules, clean clothes and paved roads to be seen.  To those who may ask whether the Cambodians drive on the left or the right side of the road the answer is “Yes”.  There are half finished buildings everywhere and an inconceivable amount of piles of bricks and rubble.  Every road is a bumpy dirt track, even the main ‘highway’.  Front doors are curtains, cows are wandering the streets eating out of rubbish bins and mostly naked children are playing in the street.  First thing that springs to mind is that this must be what a war zone is like.  My bus (and almost everyone that was on it) are nowhere to be seen, it’s just me and one other bloke, we aren’t even sure we came on the same bus but we think we did.  We get herded onto a new bus headed for Seam Reap.  This one has no air conditioning and no suspension but I’m not sorry at all to see the arse end of the VIP bus, too many bad memories there.  Surprisingly enough here they actually ARE worried about our comfort.  After the bus is less than half full they don’t allow anyone else on, even the girl that wants to get on to travel with her friends.  They tell her the bus is full when everyone has two seats to themselves with some other seats even set aside for all our packs.  This bit really surprised me, normally in Thailand they pack the busses as full as they can and then they pack on some more.

19:00 We have a food and toilet break and voila - there are the Dutch dudes from the vanished VIP bus on the Thai side of the trip.  Seems they got past the border a bit quicker than me and caught an earlier bus.

22:00 After the bumpiest ride of my life I am finally in Siem Reap.  The road all the way here lacks pavement and is just a wide dirt path, it is rumored that the only reason it has yet to see tarmac is that one of the airlines is paying off the government to delay work on it.  After all the harder it is to get into Cambodia by land the more people will fly.  I don’t mind, trip from Bangkok cost me less than $25, next to a $100 or more flight I am ok with a slightly bruised behind.  Bus pulls into the guesthouse they want us to stay at, I am not planning to but figure I may as well check out the rooms.  3$ here buys a big room with private bathroom, I am sold, my Cambodian adventure begins…

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Reader Comments (1)

Lol! That's good. I saw VIP and just started shuddering!
bad memories indeed

November 29, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterCeline

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