The everlasting bus journey

---

It was at this point that I had obviously taken leave of my senses attempting to travel from Chiang Mai to Cambodia by bus without a break......

Departing from Chiang Mai Arcade bus station I boarded a rather nice bus with 21 seats in total. No sooner were we out of the bus tsation and sitting in a traffic jam the hostess brought round water, carton of carrot juice and an unidentifiable snack



As soon aS we got on the highway the interior lights were dimmed and all he Thai people seemed to be soundo within 2 mins, despite it not even being 9pmThis is a trait Ive observed frequently on any Thai public transport and one I am very envious of, being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat



So I reclined my seat, put my ipod on and after 2 Pink Floyd albums mAnaged to doze off. Woke at 1am took ages to fall asleep again only for all the bus lights to come on and a loud announcement being made

We were stopping for a dinner break at 2am!!!! Turns out the meal was included in the price of the bus ticket However even this did not tempt me so I used the loo (had western ones yay) and grabbed another bottle of water.



Off we go again , doze off to be woken at 5am announcing the buses arrival somewhere on the outskirts of Bangkok. Half a dozen people disembarked then the hostess started serving coffee and the lights stayed on.



At 6am we finally pulled into Mo Chit bus terminal, only half hour late....



I then found the ticket windows ( this bus station was enormous( and proceeded to buy a ticket to Rongkleau Market which is on the border. Along with 2 Dutch people we then had to hurry to get to the bus stand in time to catch it.



This bus duly departed at half 6. Was nowhere near as luxurious as the overnight one so not much chance of getting sleep. Sfter many stops we arrived at the markey. But this tie I was starving was got some grilled chicken from a street vendor then 3 of us were charged a whacking 45 baht each to go to the actual border by tuktuk, And the driver attempted to take us into the scam visa office instead. It was at this point Im glad I had done my research and told the 2 youngsters travelling in tuktuk with me not to get out and told the driver to go to the actual border of which he duly complied, we paid our fare and everyone happy



I had filled in my Thai departure card on the bus so was able to walk immediately to be stamped out, Barely any queue and was out and walking past the casinos in no mans land towards Cambodia visa office. This was remarkably simple to obtain although I paid a 100baht "bribe" as I had no photo for my visa. Within 10 mins I was out of there to walk to be stamped into Cambodia. Now despite not being that busy this queue seemed to move at snails pace. No idea why. Finally got to the front and after pic taken and fingerprinted had my entry stamp.



Now the fun begins. On the Cambodian side we were taken to the out of town bus station, The place looked deserted, I asked at the ticket window about getting bus to Battambang only to be told that no more until 5pm and only if enough people to run it. That was 4 hours away and I didn't fancy staying in that place until them so asked about bus to Siem Reap instead Told that one was leaving in half hour so bought a ticket for that. An hour later we were still waiting for more people to come. Finally we get put on a minibus only to be taken off again and put on a bigger bus. A large group of girls were doing their nut as they had paid extra for a faster minibus service ony to be put on the regular bus with no refund of their extra paid



This bus took another 4 hours to do the trip to Siem Reap mainly due to unnecessary refreshment stops at overpriced shops $1 for a tiny bottle of water !!!! and the fact the road had deteriorated somewhat due to flooding



Finally pulled into a backstreet makeshift bus terminal 5kms outside the town so had to the pay a tuktuk driver to go to the centre



This is very annoying and infuriating for people to be treated like this . Hardly a great welcome to a country

---

Comments

[jane]

cambodia
interesting story , quite eventful it seems