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Published: December 23rd 2008
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Everything we have read tells us that the bus ride to the boarder with Thailand is a hugely bumpy ride, so Joshua and I take a gravol pill each at breakfast just in case.
The bus company has said said that they will pick us up at the hotel, but at the appointed time there is no sign of them. About 20 minute later, a delapitated mini bus arrives and we load our stuff in. The bus then take a tour of the towns back alleys, hung by laundry and with chicken running about, while we pick up the remaining passengers. As we finally stop at a bus depot for people bound to Phonm Penh to exit, one of our bags nearly gets taken off and left.
As the bus was now mostly empty, I thought we would have a spacious ride to the boarder. This was to be the case as we stopped again, after nearly 30 min aboard, in front of the tour operator's office where an old bus with no luggage compartment underneath waited.
This second bus was already packed with backpackers and their stuff, but apparently not full enough. We loaded our stuff on and
took our seats. Finally the bus stopped yet again in front of a crowd of incredulous looking backpackers. It was clear there were not seats for all these people, and the tour people negotiated some to take taxis. Several others were tempted to take the bus, but after taking a closer look aboard, changed their minds. A couple of English backpackers were quite funny with comments like “Oh, this is lovely” and “A bit cozy isn't it ?” as they boarded. It reminded me of our days of tree planning and the lines from a Jimmy Buffet song “If we didn't laugh we would all go insane” ran through my head. As they used a red plastic chair to keep the door closed before heading off, one rider quipped “so what exactly does the VIP on our tickets stand for ?”.
The road quickly went from tarmac to dirt as we entered what seemed to be about 100 km of construction. Culverts had been run under the road, but a the road was not yet built up, there were huge 2 m bumps at every creek. The road was shared with the usual collection of cows, bikes, motorcycles and
large trucks with red dust clouding everything. Every now and then two rocks were piled on top of each other in the road to indicate a particularly bad pot hole.
We stopped at an open air restaurant for lunch with the usual collection of dogs and small children wandering around as the scenes from the road paraded past.
When we finally reached the boarder it was incredibly hot, even hotter than the non airconditioned bus, and confusing as to where to go. People with large wooden carts were hassling us to hire them to help, but we didn't want to loose sight of our bags so we wheeled our stuff to the first check point, the Cambodian exit visa area.
On the Thai side, their building was air conditioned which was wonderful after the heat, but when we finally got stamped, we realized that this was only a 14 day stamp (we had been told that it would be a 30 day stamp) and we plan on being in Thailand until the end of January. I thought at the time that this would only require a visa extension, but more about this later !
Once across
the border, we headed to an cafe near a large outdoor market area to wait for our bus. Series of Thai pulling large wooden carts laden with goods or people passed as we waited. We were then informed that our bus to Bangkok would not be coming to pick us up until 4:00 - this despite the fact we were told we would be in to Bangkok, an 4.5 hr drive, but 5:30 pm. Clearly this was not going to happen.
The Thai bus, when it did arrive was a blessing to see. It was a typical Greyhound style bus with luggage compartments, air conditioning, and a TV screen. The driver also seemed to have some concerns for road safety (though the windshield did have several big cracks). Clearly a different standard from Cambodia.
As we drove off across our first stretch of Thai highway, things started to look distinctly more prosperous. We were on a four lane divided highway, there were traffic lights, stores selling things like tents and inflatable boats, and a distinct lack of honking. There was also far less garbage at the side of the road and landscaping down the island that separated the
four lanes. In many places there were large portraits of the king and Queen of Thailand.
When we passed a checkpoint manned by machine gun toting soldiers, we were quickly reminded that it was less than two weeks ago that the international airport here was closed and protesters killed.
The terrain here is more grass lands and we passed stretches of forest, the first I had seen in some time. In short, this place feels familiar and you can, for some stretches, imagine that this is a highway in Ontario which would never have been the case in Vietnam or Cambodia.
As we approached Bangkok, we started to see more overpasses and industrial areas, none of which would have seemed remarkable had we just landed here , but are a sharp contrast to where we have been. There are many bridges to cross here as there are many canals leading around the city. Somethings, like the Thai Alphabet, are totally foreign, while on the other hand we were passing “7-11” and “blockbuster video” stores like in North America.
We took a taxi to Hotel De'Moc, which is a sort of faded old lady, clearly quite fashionable at one point, but now a bit tired looking. It is a good value though and has Benjamin and Joshua's two requirements: TV and Internet. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant before finally getting to sleep after our 13 hour journey.
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