Well, we made it and we are alive!
The train journey took so long, we slept A LOT, and woke up every time with wide open mouths and Thai people staring at us.
As soon as we got off the train we hopped in a tuk tuk straight away (there were loads waiting). The driver said 100 baht (£2) to the border, so we got in and drove down to... Almost the border.
So we read a lot online about places you get taken to if you're a tourist and all they do is overcharge you for a visa and sometimes they're fake, so when the tuk tuk dropped us outside 'the visa office' we were extremely sceptical, despite the convincing signs and men in uniform. We declined entry, using the excuse that we wanted to go to the market first (there's one at the border), and hurried away.
We followed signs and friendly Thais pointing the way to the real border, and men in official uniforms confirmed. We followed the path around, then got into the 'foreign passports' queue. Here we had to show our passports and departure card, and then carried on through to the road between Cambodia and Thailand. Despite reading that there's a lot of petty crime here and hassling from con artists, we weren't hassled really. It was a bit difficult to find the visa office but if you keep left when you walk out of the Thai passport control you can spot the signs telling you to turn right to the visa office or carry on to Cambodian passport control if you've already got your visas. This road was pretty difficult to cross, there seemed to be lots of lorries and such passing through, but we made it.
In the visa office, men in official uniforms handed us forms to fill out, stating basic details, passport number etc and which visa we wanted. A tourist visa is $30 (USD). We read online about scams trying to charge baht as well as dollars, for example many people paid $30 + 100 baht, so we prepared ourselves for this but we were fine. We had already exchanged some money into dollars.
Unfortunately we forgot to take passport photos with us, so we were charged an extra $5 each but the visas were still issued with no problems so that was fine. After this, we left the visa office, turned right, and kept walking straight up to passport control. Here we were given the Cambodia arrival and departure forms to fill out. We then queued, had our fingerprints scanned, and were allowed entry into Cambodia straight away- pretty simple!
We had heard from friends that the free shuttle bus takes you to a bus station which overcharged tourists for buses to Siem Reap, so we avoided this and walked up the road to look for a bus. Apparently they had all left for the day so we ended up with a group of Hungarians and a Cambodian who helped us get the free shuttle bus to a different station to get a bus to Siem Reap from there for $9 each. (Luke used his impressive German skills to talk to the Hungarians who didn't speak English- organising to get the bus with them and explaining costs and seats etc!)
The shuttle bus took us to the bus station as promised and we changed to a big coach to get to Siem Reap. The journey took two and a half hours, with one toilet break. For some reason the driver kept stopping to pick up Cambodians and drop them further along the route.
The bus finally stopped, and a Cambodian man got on and said 'everyone off, last stop!'- we weren't expecting this, as it looked as though we were in the middle of nowhere. We got off and stood, confused as we found our bags. After approximately thirty seconds, we were flooded by tuk tuk drivers offering to take us to our hostel. It turned out we weren't that far, and the tuk tuk only cost $2 to drop us right outside the hostel so it turned out okay.
We are staying at OneStop, in a ten bed dormitory. The hostel is really crowded, but everyone seems nice, the staff are super friendly, and they offer a laundry service which we were in desperate need of! They also have lockers in the dorms, hot showers, and toilets that aren't squatters, which actually have a flush so that's amazing.
We dropped our bags off in the room and went straight out to get dinner, starving after a day of only eating crisps and Oreos. We sat down at the first place we saw that looked good, a barbecue place with a rooftop bar. We sat outside on the street and looked at the menu.
We ended up ordering chicken skewers, beef skewers, noodles and fries, along with our first Cambodian beer, Angkor, and completely demolished the lot.
After dinner, we went for a walk around the various night markets, and down the famous Pub Street.
We have also left behind the ladies in funny hats selling wooden frogs and bracelets hassling you all the time, and exchanged them for beggars. Tonight we came across a lady with a small child wrapped around her waist, carrying an empty milk bottle, asking for money to buy milk for the child. She walked past multiple times whilst we were eating dinner, and approached us twice on Pub Street. We didn't give her any money as we are very sceptical about situations like this, we don't want to be naive.
Anyway, we've had a good evening and I've scoped out where I can get a gin and tonic for $1.50 so we came back, showered, and now we're all tucked up in bed.
I'm sure there will be more posts to come on our Cambodian adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment