Traveling with the siblings: Dodgy border crossing

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"We told the taxi driver we would pay once we arrived at our destination. He did ask for 10USD in advance though. That was the money he had to pay the police to be able to drive away from Poi Pet" (Cambodian border crossing).

After we (my brother José, my sister Valentina and I) did a quick visit to Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, it was time for our short visit to Cambodia. Everywhere you read about SE Asia, whenever Cambodia is mentioned, Angkor Wat is a must.

It's the same thing I heard from every single person who's been there. It doesn't matter if you don't visit the rest of Cambodia, but if you're in SE Asia, you can't miss this place. I'm not saying with this that there's nothing else to see in that country - I'm sure there are a lot of wonderful destinations. But if you're on a timeframe and you have to choose, this is THE place to visit.



When you read about Cambodia, you also come across a lot of information on how many scams and dodgy schemes to rob tourists off their money there are. The border crossing between Thai and Cambodian Kingdoms is one of the worst and most corrupt land border crossings in South East Asia. But I was confident and anyway everything pointed out that the effort was well worth the trouble.



We did one of our marathonic travel days: we were picked up at the hotel in Chiang Mai at 5am and driven to the airport to get a flight to Bangkok. At the airport we all took the time to get US Dollars (pretty much the only currency being used in Cambodia). The local currency (Riel) is worth less than Monopoly money. They even prefer to use Baht, the Thai currency, rather that their own.



Straight after arriving in Bangkok, we grabbed the express train to Phaya Thai and from there, the connection in the BTS station to get to Mo Chit. From there we had to walk to the North Bus Station (but I misscalculated the distance). We ended up walking a good 30 minutes with our bags in a hot and humid day. When we finally got there, we were exhausted and covered in sweat. It would've been a better idea to take a taxi.



There are several buses leaving the station during the day, so getting a ticket was no problem. I wanted to reach the Thai border town (Aranyaphrayet) before they closed the customs offices in both countries. Otherwise it would mean to find accommodation in that small dodgy town (or worse, in Poi Pet, the Cambodian border town) and have to wait until the next day.



I tried to prepare myself for the crossing as best I could, gathering all the information I could, writing it down and memorizing it.

The bus ride was a good 5 hours, but we still had enough time when we arrived at the border to do the crossing.

The bus left us at walking distance from the border instead of the bus station, which was good. Now the fun part began, though I was fully prepared for it and briefed my brother and sister before getting off the bus. As soon as we got off the bus, Thais approached us saying we had to step inside an office that was right in front of us to do paperwork.

I knew this was already a scam and we just ignored them. Best way to handle people who approach to sell or "help you out" anywhere in South East Asia: just keep on walking. Biggest mistake is to engage in any type of conversation. I even try to avoid eye contact as much as possible.

Luckily there was an American guy who, right before we got off the bus, told us that he lived in Siem Reap, but had a son in Thailand, so he was constantly doing that border crossing. He told us what to watch out for and gave us a few tips; exactly the stuff I had read about. He proved to be a very helpful person.

Here, two links that I read that give an accurate idea of what to expect:

- http://www.travelfish.org/feature/71

- http://wikitravel.org/en/Poipet



I had a map written down with the location of the official customs and immigration offices on both sides of the border. Some of the scams involve people telling you where you can get cheaper visas, offices with "official signs" claiming to be the real thing, people telling you that you need this and that, etc. all scams to try to suck your money out.

But if one keeps a rational and practical approach, 1000's of people do this cross every week and is not rocket science. It's just like any other land border crossing. It's just that it has a few more obstacles. But the legal processes on both borders are quite straight forward, even though the Cambodian side is corrupt as hell.



Luckily, I didn't have to think much the first steps of the border crossing process because our new American friend was guiding us the whole way. Everyone on both sides of the border seemed to know him. He still told us that people on the borders usually told him they didn't like him helping out tourists (it affected "their business"), so he tried to conceal the fact that he was helping us. Pretty decent fellow.



We ignored every single idiot telling us we had to grab this paper here and go to this and that office, etc. and headed straight for the Thai immigration office. This was no problem at all and a very smooth process. With us there was also an Italian guy that we had met on the bus. He was traveling by himself and stuck with us until we got to Siem Reap.



And then we crossed into Poi Pet. I read an excellent description of the place a few days ago. Something along the line: "Poi Pet is best viewed from the rear window of a car as you're driving away from it. I guess it can be a bit compared to Tijuana, Mexico.

Poi Pet is a popular weekend destination for Thais, because of its gambling casinos.



The first thing was to get our visas. We filled the paperwork while being watched by the police. The fee is 20USD, which is clearly written in an official plastic sign.

But the policemen apparently aren't getting paid enough, the poor guys. They have a hand-written "20USD + 100 Baht" sign, next to the counter. They make you pay this if you don't have a passport photo to glue to the form you've just filled out.

The photo is not at all needed, but it gives them an excuse. When they asked for the 100 Baht, I just gave them the photo. Both José and I had photos. They weren't happy. They kept pointing at the fake hand-written sign on the counter, and I kept pointing at the official sign. When they saw we weren't going to pay "the fee", they started processing our visas. They try to make you feel uneasy and use the fact that they're wearing a uniform to pressure you. I had also read about this, but also that they gave up quite easily. It's just a waiting game.

Vale on the other hand didn't have a passport photo and it was either give them the 100 Baht (3 USD) or go and take a photo. She gave them the money. It was the "logic" and faster option.

After it was all done about 10 minutes later, they tossed our passports back (with an attitude of a 5 year old for not having received their extra money) and we were on our way.

Then, a short queue to get our visas stamped in the "Arrivals" section and then off to find transportation to get to Siem Reap.



Transportation is the other big issue here. It's a 2 - 3 hour ride to get to Siem Reap.

Transport is mostly all run by a local mafia that keeps all policemen on their payroll. So of course policemen use their uniforms to pressure tourists into taking the mafia-run business option. Right after the crossing, you get overwhelmed by a swarm of Cambodians.

Here, you're faced with two options: a) get on one of the "official buses" (worn down pieces of crap) that take you to the "international tourist bus station" (very pompous name for the mafia-controlled bus station) and from there either get a bus for 9 USD or a taxi for 12 USD (I think those were the prices). For Cambodian standards the tickets are way overpriced.

b) The other option is to bargain a price with a taxi driver, which usually should cost anywhere between 25 and 40 USD. The policemen usually try to chase the taxi drivers away if they're in sight and then try to get you to board the "official buses". Fortunately this didn't happen to us.

Problem with the second option was that the American guy had told us to watch out, because he had heard a few stories of people being drugged with some kind of plant that has similar effects as "roofies" and that it gets people willing to do anything others ask.

Of this I hadn't read about before, but it was good to get a "heads up". When we were still wondering about what to do to get to Siem Reap, we ended up bargaining a trip on a taxi for 40 USD between the 4 of us (us 3 and the Italian). We figured that as we were 4, we should be safe. I did get a bit paranoid with the story and offered to sit up front, ready to pull the hand break and beat the driver senseless if I saw anything suspicious. We told the driver we would pay once we arrived at our destination. He did ask for 10USD in advance though. That was the money he had to pay the police to be able to drive away from Poi Pet. Nice one.



But nothing strange happened until we got to Siem Reap. Once we got there we had to look for accomodation and as is usual, if people think that you don't have a place to stay, they will offer to take you to places where they get commisions. So I had the name of a hostel memorized beforehand. It was located close to the center of town.

The taxi driver stopped in a poorly lit street and told us to get off. This was as far as he was going. As he said so, 3 or 4 young Cambodians approached the car and the driver said they would take us in tuk tuks to wherever we were staying at. He told us that they belonged to the "same company" he worked for. You didn't have to be a genius to figure there was no company.

We spent a good 10 minutes discussing that this wasn't what we had agreed on at first. Finally we gave in, but we told the taxi driver that we would pay the money to these kids (from his same "company") only when dropped at our destinations. I have no idea how they worked it out afterwards between themselves, but he didn't have any problems with that.



So we got in the tuk tuk and in the meantime one of the Cambodians asked us where we were going to stay. I told him the place I had memorized (I think it was something like "Red Lounge"). It was central and they knew where it was. He then offered to take us to the temples the next day and gave as his number. The Italian asked him about the "company's" name and he didn't know what to answer.

When they dropped us off at the hostel, we payed the rest of the money and sent them on their way. And then went to look for a place to stay. The place we chose was cheap, good and well located (Bunseda Angkor or something like that). We decided to take a "day off" the next day and figure out a plan for the following days.

We got in touch with a tuk tuk driver that was contacted by the hotel staff and told him we would meet him the next day at around 4pm to go to Angkor and buy tickets to visit the complex the following days and to see the sunset there.

Needless to say, the main reason to go to Siem Reap is to visit Angkor. I'll post a wikipedia article that can give insight on the place and its history. There are so many temples in the complex that by now I can't remeber most of the names of the places we visited (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor).



That evening we went to "Pub Street" (self explainatory). This is the tourist epicenter of Siem Reap. There are also (surprisingly) more night markets nearby.

We had dinner at a place called "Red Piano". We tried a few other places over the next days, but we kept coming back to this one and then decided to just stick with this place, which was very good.

The next morning we had a late sleep in and then woke up to have lunch. At 4pm we met the tuk tuk driver, whose name was Pen.

Pen took us to the Angkor ticket office. There was a daily pass (20USD), a 3 day pass for 40USD and a weekly pass. In some brochures I had read it said that there's enough stuff to visit for a whole week. Angkor is massive. And you need some kind of transportation to move around. We opted for the 3 day pass. It was a good choice.

Then we went to Angkor to see the sunset, walk around and take photos.

Back in Siem Reap we went to our usual spot, Red Piano and afterwards for some night shopping ("lucky" me again).



There are a lot of things to do around Siem Reap, such as an evening circus, a shooting range where you can shoot AK47's and other weapons and also throw granades. There are several museums, etc. In Siem Reap, the weather is crazy hot and another good thing to do if your hotel doesn't have a swimming pool, is pay to go to one and spend the day there.



Early the next morning we woke up and were picked by our fat, friendly tuk tuk driver. We drove to Ankor Wat to see the sunrise, which was magnificent. Angkor Wat is just the name of one of the many temples in the region called "Angkor". Angkor was the seat of the powerful Khmer empire.



After walking around Angkor Wat we went to find Pen and he took us the one of the other popular temples: Angkor Thom. This is also a massive complex and was used to shoot some scenes of Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider" movie. Here, it's also possible to go on elephant rides. That day we did the "small circuit" around Angkor, visiting a few more temples, until about 1pm. All of them impressive.



The next day we would do the long circuit. Here's a link that explains the park in further depth and gives an idea of the two circuits: (http://wikitravel.org/en/Angkor_Archaeological_Park).



Somehow, Pen managed to only remember my name, so whenever we came back from the temples and he saw that we were looking for him around the parking lots, he would start shouting my name. I thought it would've been funny to tell him my name was something else and hear him shout it at the top of his lungs a 100 meters away.



The Cambodian king was in Angkor that day, but we didn't see him. We also came across some kind of ceremony (that Pen had no idea what it was) and we saw a local animal market with adults and kids taking chickens, birds and squealing pigs.



The most bizarre thing we saw that day was a group of policemen surrounding a skinny guy. They cuffed him and then, suddenly a policeman grabbed him lifting him off the floor and sat the guy down with a thump on the back of a scooter being driven by another policeman. A third policeman sat in the back of the scooter behind the handcuffed guy.

It was an odd sight seeing how they transported the "prisoner". Maybe all the extra money they're making on the border is to buy proper vehicles to transport detainees. Lol.



Then, we told Pen to take us to a hotel with a swimming pool. He said he knew a good one and we put oursleves in his hands. It was a long drive and when we finally got there, the place didn't look that good from the outside.

But when we checked out the swimming pool and the rest of the place, it was more than alright. We spent the afternoon there and we had lunch by the pool (no need to go to the restaurant). Plus, we had the pool to ourselves. It was an excellent choice and best way to spend the rest of the day.

Later that evening, dinner in Pub Street, more night markets and then the three of us ended the night with a Cambodian massage before going to bed.



The following day we still had more temples to see. Before going to the temples though, Pen offered to take us to a waterfall. The waterfall was a good 1 hour ride and then 2 km of walking uphill (of course our fat friend didn't go with us, but he stayed in one of the eateries there, sleeping in a hammock.

When we got there we wanted to kill Pen. It was the smallest waterfall I've seen, with very little water and overcrowded. Back to the parking lot we stopped to have fruit shakes and then got on with the tour.

During the rest of the day Pen grew increasingly annoyed. We never knew what was up with him.



The rest of the day we visited more temples. The ones I liked the most were "Banteay Srei" (Citadel of Women) which was well preserved and had some awesome stone carvings and statues and another one called "Pre Rup".



In one of the temples, José and I were walking ahead and as we passed an exit, we hid behind a wide tree. Vale was just behind and when he crossed the exit she saw no one. We immediately heard her concerned voice calling for us. When we finally got out she said a few things to us I won't replicate here.

In the afernoon we went to see the sunset from a temple that's on top of a hill (Phnom Bakheng).



Here's another link that has photos and descriptions of the most visited temples (there are more than a 1000 ruins in the complex in total) http://www.canbypublications.com/siemreap/sritinerary.htm.



And that was the end of our Angkor tour. It was also our last day in Cambodia.

Our last evening there couldn't have ended any other way: night market and dinner at the Red Piano.



The next day we were picked up close to 6am tobe driven by tuk tuk to a place where we got on a van that drove us to "wonderful" Poi Pet. But the way back was all really smooth. No funny business passing through the "Departure" section in Cambodia or the Thai immigration office.



This was going to be another marathonic travel day to finally arrive the next day at the Thai south islands.

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