All aboard the scam bus!

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Today was to be a long and interesting day. Another 7am start to get the mini bus to Poipet and the border of Thailand and Cambodia. We had read a lot about the infamous scam bus trip to Cambodia, so we were prepared for most eventualities. The first thing we thought may happen was the drive to the border would be a lot longer than necessary. We didn't get out of Bangkok until 9am, as we drove around in circles picking people up and dropping them off. One of the organisers (or friends of the driver) would squeeze in for 2 minutes and then drop something off at one place and another would get on and do the same. We drove past the Rambutri hotel where we had been staying at least 7 times before we headed out of the city.

Eventually we got on our way though and a few hours later we were in Poipet. Just as we had read, they took us to a roadside restaurant about 15 minutes drive from the border and said this was where we were having lunch, we sat next to two Canadian guys called Todd and John, ordered some food and started chatting. Then the Cambodian guide who was to take us from Poipet to Siem Reap asked all of us from the mini bus if we had our Cambodian visas, we had already sorted our with a travel agent in Bangkok (which we paid far too much for), so he wasn't bothered about us. But the Canadian guys didn't have theirs yet. He very convincingly told them that he would need to get their visas for them at a cost of 1,300 Baht (about $43) in truth the visa only costs $20 and you can purchase it yourself at the border. The lads were about to begrudging stump up the cash thinking it seemed expensive, then Jo stepped in and said, they can get the visas from the border themselves for $20. The guide played dumb and made out this was not possible and that for foreigners to get a visa themselves it would take 3 days. We knew this was all lies to con tourists and Jo told the guide he was lying – lets just say he wasn't too pleased!! Todd and John were aware that it should only cost them $20 but didn't know about this scam so we filled them in and they took their passports back from the guide and said they'd do it themselves.

The guide was so pissed off, he then told us we wouldn't have the taxi waiting for us over the border that we had already paid for and we basically told him he was full of sh*t! After eating we all got back on the minibus and you could feel the tension in the air! We soon forgot about it and arrived at the border. We had to queue for 10 minutes on the Thai side and then passed through with ease but had to carry our backpacks and bags from there to passport control on the Cambodia side in the sweltering heat. We passed the casino which sits in no mans land between the borders of each country and then queued to enter Cambodia for half an hour – again we got through with no issues and sat down by a little refreshment kiosk to wait for the rest of our group. Once we all were through we met up with Todd and John again and they told us that the guide had taken them into a little interrogation room before the Cambodia border with his mate dressed up as a police man and they threatened them saying refusal to pay their extra fees would make the police very angry. After 10 minutes of verbal abuse and intimidation they just walked out of the room and sorted out their visas at the correct desk and paid $20.

We then soon got the taxi we had paid for to take us to Siem Reap and were paired with Todd and John, which was cool. We still don't know how they got all four of our massive backpacks in the boot though.

It was about an hour and 45 minutes to SR on one long straight road and we were taken to one hotel and told the taxi could only take us that far and we needed to get a tuk tuk for the last 10 minutes, not sure why! But the tuk tuk was also free so it wasn't a big deal. The tuk tuks in Cambodia aren't as sturdy as the ones in Thailand – just a motorbike pulling a cart really but some how this little man managed to balance as he drove us two and a Russian couple who were staying at the same hotel and all of ours bags to the hotel.

First he took us to the wrong place and then we found it 50 metres down the road. When we finally arrived at the right place we were giving a welcome drink before being told that the toilets were broken in the remaining rooms (not sure we believed them) so we had to stay at their sister hotel and get another tuk tuk (for free) to the other Palm Garden Resort. Which was probably nicer and closer to 'Pub Street', so when we got their we were happy. The whole journey from start to finish was around 11 hours as we finally checked into our room about 6pm. We relaxed for a bit and then headed to Pub Street for dinner.

Pub Street was filled with new bars and restaurants in the middle of a load of waste land and we had our pick of different cuisines from around the world. We should have tried the BBQ Crocodile or snake but we wanted something we knew we'd enjoy so opted for a really nice rest with lots of menu choices and a second floor so we could sit on the balcony. We ordered Quesidillas to start and they were beautiful, that was until Jo found a fly cooked into one of the slices, just before she was about to take a bite of it!! That put us off a bit but we complained to the lovely little waitresses and got it taken off the bill. We closely checked our main courses (chicken tikka bites with dips and salad and a meat feast pizza) and they were both insect free and tasted pretty good, so we even had the confidence to order a dessert. We finished up our pancakes and headed for bed.

The next day was our visit to Angkor Wat, a spectacular set of ancient temples built in a 500 hectacre of marsh land, with the main temple in the centre surrounded by a huge moat. The only bad thing about the day was that we didn't have time to see it all. The tuk tuk driver who dropped us at the hotel yesterday had told us we only needed 3 hours for the tour around the temples, which was complete crap. We ended up going with a different guy who worked for our hotel rather than the tour company after they told us that 3 hours was too short. By then it was already 12:30pm, so we still only had half a day which meant we were really rushed. We were taken to the main temple first which is also known as Angkor Wat by itself. It was absolutely huge and filled with detailed carvings and statues, most of which had been beheaded by the French when they invaded Cambodia .

Then we went to three of the other main temples within the grounds (there are hundreds altogether), the next one had lots of big stone Buddha heads carved in the walls, the 3rd one was built within the forest with lots of creepy trees growing out of it and the final one we got to just before sunset, which was really high with LOADS of steep steps so we were virtually crawling up them, and it was still absolutely boiling. We got to the top in time but by then it had gone really cloudy, so it wasn't as amazing a view as it might have been but still very cool. Once the sun had gone down, and we'd stopped sweating, we the went on the mission back down the steep steps to our tuk tuk driver who took us straight to pub street. We hadn't eaten anything all day because we were in such a rush to get round the temples and see the sunset, so we were absolutely starving by now. We sat on the other side of the street this time and for some reason there were loads more insects out that night, we had crickets jumping on us and load of midges and flies buzzing around us, the food wasn't great either. We finished our food super quick so we could get away from the insects (although not for long!) We decided to look in the night bizarre and ended up having a fish food massage, where you put your feet in these big fish tanks and hundreds of tiny fish eat the dead skin and dirt off them. We obviously had mingin feet because they were munching on them for ages. It tickles loads to start with but you get used to it after a while.

Then we spent ages searching for two specific paintings that we really wanted. There are so many stalls selling the same thing and we've got quite into the haggling now – but we probably went a bit over the top as we played the different painting stall owners off against each other and must have gone to each of the 10 different ones about 5 times each before deciding which ones we wanted and how much we were prepared to pay. In the end we got a red sunset large canvass picture of Angkor Wat and then a small long picture of a tradition stilt hut and fisherman. A bargain at $5 and $3 respectively!

Once we'd got our pics we decided we couldn't handle all the insects flying around us any more and headed back to the hotel to wait for our 'sleeper bus' to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam! It wasn't actually a sleeper bus at all, just seats that reclined and more cramped than a normal bus – rubbish! A word of caution, when they point to the picture of the bus on their poster, it never actually looks like that in real life.

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