Attack-Cambodia

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Cambodia began on a bad note, which is not fair on Cambodia.....but was due to our tortuous transit via Poipet.....to be avoided folks!!
Got a cheap bus deal from Bangkok to Siem Reap for 250B (6 euro). Expected a wheezing banger for that price so were pleasantly surprised when a delux a/c coach turned up. Then the swindles unfolded.

The guide, if you'd call him that, announced that everyone should give him their passport and he would get our cambodian visas for us for 1200B (they cost 700) while we waited near his office at Aranyaprathet having lunch at probably his cousin's place. About 7 of us said that we wanted to go straight to the border and get our visas there, as the guy in Bangkok had said was perfectly fine, ...but this didn't go down so well, the sweet smiles and sugary assurances disappeared and we were told that there was no guarantee if we went to get the visas ourselves that the bus on the Cambodian side would wait for us!

So we arranged a tuktuk ourselves to the border, while the others had lunch. Breezed thru, albeit having to hand over $5 extra to a corrupt guard (he claimed we had got express service and it would be less if we wanted to wait 5 hrs... so we couldn't really argue with that.) We holed up on the cambodian side awaiting our group, having taken careful note of a few punters so we could reassemble with them. We were fine waiting, til the dudes from the bus company turned up and suddenly it was impossible to sit where we were, taking up valuable seats and would have to move along to the bus station. Refused to move, they continued to hassle us and upped the ante when it was falling on deaf ears, saying that in fact there were no seats oin the bus to Siem Reap and we would have to get another bus. This of course would cost us another $10. They said that it was not their fault; but on the Bangkok side, they had not arranged this part of the journey for us, the defectors, so there were no seats left on the bus.....we could take it up with them when back in Bangkok! You have to laugh at the escalation of excuses. We said we were staying put and Eoghan went around taking down some names so that shut them up. After about 4 hrs our group filtered thru, we followed them and there was abolutely no palaver with us getting on the bus. We felt victorious....semi ....as the bus was a complete heap of junk, missing windows...but with spare seats!

The road to SR is awful....rough, bumpy and dusty, not good when a few panes of glass are missing! They dawdle coming into the town which has the best stretch of road so we arrived after 11pm. We had left Bangkok at 8.30am. The reason for this is so we rock up so late that we cannot book ourselves in anywhere else. It's also of course well out of the town centre.

So very tired, dusty and irate we arrive in Siem Reap....

My advice.....fly

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