Travel Adventures in Cambodia

Our travel to Cambodia was full of adventures. First, we took a big, comfortable, air-conditioned bus from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet and stayed the night in a guest house. It wasn't a great place, but okay for the price. Then the next morning, we crossed the border into Poipet, Cambodia only to find out that the only buses to Phnom Penh left by 7:30 a.m. even though the border doesn't open until 8:00 am.

There was a guy who followed us all the way from the Thai side of the border into Cambodia and kept wanting to reserve a taxi for us going to Phnom Pehn or a bus to Siem Reap, which would have been out of our way. All the while, he kept saying demeaning things to us and demeaning things about us to the Cambodian people we passed by, speaking in English so that we would understand. He directed us to a free bus ride to "the transportation," and got on the bus with us. We had hesitated for a while before getting onto the free bus, and were wondering where all the other foreigners who had been crossing the border were. There was only one other person. When we arrived at a small bus/taxi/tour station, and the guy followed us in and tried to get us to reserve a taxi. They said we could get a taxi for 1000Bhat ($30) each, but would need 4 or 5 people. My husband went out to call our friends in Phnom Penh. I was waiting in that bus station with that guy hanging around for at least half an hour, wondering why there weren't other foreigners, and putting mosquito repellent all over to get rid of a swarm of vicious mosquitoes and wishing that I had some way of sending away the guy who kept pestering us. The guy had insisted that this is the only bus/taxi station.

We decided to stay the night in Poipet. We found a decent little guest house for about $4.50 for both of us. I was only surprised when I tried to wash my hands in the sink, and the water drained out onto my toes:-(. The helper in the guesthouse drove my husband on a moto to the real bus station, which was about a kilometer farther down the road then the supposedly only bus station in Poipet. Then we rode two motos the next morning and got on the bus at 6:30 bus to Phnom Penh, which was a fairly nice, air conditioned bus. The road was paved after about the first hour.

When we got to Phnom Penh, we took a "tuk tuk" ride to where our friends were in language school, and the driver insisted that we pay about 6 dollars more than we should have for the ride, which was a short distance. My husband and I were really frustrated by the time we got there. But we had a great time with our friends, and ended up finding Cambodia to be a really interesting place.

The bus ride back to Thailand was fine except that we reserved the 6:30a.m. bus so that we could make it to Bangkok on the same day, but the 6:30a.m. bus didn't leave until about 9:50. Then when we were about an hour from Poipet, they transferred us to another bus, which was supposedly air conditioned, but was hot and stank and immediately got a flat tire. We waited at the tire repair place for a long time. Then my husband saw someone he had discovered on the bus who spoke English getting into a taxi. They let us ride with them, and it was only $5 for both of us. The taxi took us all the way to the border crossing. There were 4 men in the front seat, and 2 men, 2 women, and 1 child in the back seat. After crossing through the border, someone showed us where there were big, first-class, air conditioned buses waiting for passengers to Bangkok, and we were on our way in half an hour. It was the kind of bus that I would think even tall, over sized foreigners could be comfortable in.