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Published: August 7th 2007
Cheers!
To Cambodia!!Sunday 25th March
Well, what a day it was!
We all got off the ferry from Koh Chang yesterday and straight onto a song theaw to take us back to the bus station in Trat. We were dropped off at a sort of travel agent (again???) not the bus station, where we were told was where we caught the ongoing mini bus to the border at Hak Let from. 110 baht each which sounded right & coming in 20 minutes - apparently. We were a little dubious so Gav checked around and we double checked the Lonely Planet but were still unsure. In the end (45 mins later) the minibus did pick us up, but proceeded to the Trat bus station where it dropped us off to hop on the 'real' mini bus (!@$#$%) No rip off in price - but WHY???? This sort of thing happens a lot in Thailand.
Anyway, the first said 'baby (mia) no pay - you pay total 220 baht'. So, I asked if we still got 3 seats (the bus holds 9) and was told 'no, no, she little - she sit on your lap.'' Um, sorry, computer says no! They
On the ferry retuning to Trat
These kids befriended Mia on the ferry. may have just being try to save us money - as they rarely ever charge for Mia with entry to places, but there was no way we were going to share a seat for 1 1/2 hours, so we paid for an extra one.
The trip was fantastic, probably only took around an hour, lovely scenery and surprisingly comfortable for a mini bus. I actually started to get excited as we neared the Cambodian border as I have been wanting to come here for over 10 years.
Dropped at the border, we found ourselves surrounded by Nepali style taxi touts. "'No thanks" Got through the Thai passport side fine then all the fun and games began as we went to get our Cambodian visas. I has read many previous blogs/info of scams at the Thai/Cambodian land borders where they insist on charging you 1000 thai baht each ($40 aud) instead of the correct $20USD. So I was prepared for this , but surely it wouldn't happen to us, would it? We filled in the forms, gave them to the two immigration officials in the small room along with our passports, photos and $60 USD and waited. They did
their thing for a few minutes and then pushed the money back to me and said
'Visas - 1100 baht each!''
What? Inflation even seems to affect scams!
I said "No. $20 USD each and passed the money back politely."
him "No! We only accept thai baht, not USD!''
shell "No. The embassy confirmed with us that visas are $20 usd each, this is all we have'."
him "No! Only if you fly in from Bangkok. Here you pay 1100 baht each"
shell "No. $20usd - same at all borders."
him "No!"
Anyway, this went on and on between the two of us. There were two officials, one of which refused to look at us as he mumbled on to the other one. The one talking to me kept sighing and putting on a bit of a show.
I stayed extremely calm (as I had read that aggression etc will get you nowhere) kept smiling as I talked and stayed very friendly. I even took time out to sit and plait Mia's hair.
Then, he said "USD25 each!" (thought they didn't accept usd???)
I could see Gav was about to lose it so I just mumbled to him to
stay
Waiting for bus to take us to bus station
??????calm and keep smiling, and let me continue to handle it.
shell "$20 usd each is the official cost of visa. It is all we have. $25 is not the correct amount'...smile
him "No! it is $20 for visa and rest to me for my service." (At least he finally admits the scam!)
shell "No."
At this point he looked away and just sat there, so I said "It's ok, there is no hurry, we have all day"and smiled sweetly.
He took the money and said ''ýou wait outside' As we for some reason (?) did not fully trust leaving the money with him, we said 'too hot for Mia outside, one of us wait here with her' to which he smiled (sort of) and said ''ok!" - they all love kids!
5 minutes later, we had our 3 visas for the correct price of $20 usd each. Finally, a win for Shell!!
We also had the taxi drivers try and scam us to take us the 7km into town - they wanted us to pay 400 baht, but Gav managed to work them down
to a more accurate 100 baht plus the toll bridge fee. Wins everywhere!
We told them to drop us at Otto's Guesthouse as we were meeting friends there. We weren't of course but they tried to talk us into going to their guesthouse of choice to make commission and also sell us a bus or boat ticket to Sihaoukville but we held our ground and went to Otto's. Great place, very small, quiet town with lovely cheap guesthouse.
We dropped our bags, were welcomed by one of the house dogs relieving himself on one of them, and grabbed a well earned beer, before Gav went to have a look around at the other guesthouses/hotels in the area. We could have stayed in a hotel with a nice modern room with TV, airco, etc for USD10-15 but decided to stay put at Ottós for 120 baht a night ($5) in a basic but clean room with fan and shared bathroom with cold water down the hall. We were the only guests staying there (actually I think the only tourists in town) so was no problem sharing!
We had a good dinner (tofu with ginger and onion and rice,
ginger chicken and rice, and Mia had the yummiest chicken schnitzel I've ever tasted and salad) The staff here are wonderful and friendly.
We couldn't decide what to do in the morning (ie. 4 hours boat trip to Sihanoukville or 7-8 hours minibus to Phnom Penh...arghh...) and finally decided on booking a private taxi (toyota camry) to drive us the 5-6 hours to Phnom Penh for $85usd. The boat to Sihanouk. would have cost us about $60 usd, but we were a bit beached out so decided on Phnom Penh for now. It should be picking us up at 10.30am tomorrow.
Mia also made a lovely friend last night - a little Khmer girl called 'Dar-wiin' who lives and works here. She is 8 years old but looks about 5. Last night they played, tickled etc and had a blast together. (even though they could not speak the same language)
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Scott Fynmore
non-member comment
Cambodias favourite Car
Aaahhhh, the Toyota Camry, cambodia's favourite car. I bet you had a bit of a bumpy ride, the roads are fantastic over there!!!!!