I packed my bag and left for the BTS Station to catch the train to MoChit Station (where Bangkok's Northern Bus Terminal is).
From the BTS Station to the Bus terminal is a good walk, so I hailed a cab that drove me all around the park and Market area to the large terminal building.
There was just about enough time left to pick up my previously reserved ticket and give in to my craving for some Dunkin' Douhgnuts and a nice hot coffee.
Soon after that we boarded the bus and left Bangkok due east towards the Thai - Cambodian boarder.
It was nice to be on the road again, looking out the window and seeing the tall buildings pass by my window from the elevated Motorway that runs through this enormous City. The weather was great and the A/C provided comfort.
From the motorway I could see an entire street that was built (just recently by the looks of it) in a European (maybe Parisian) style. All the buildings look different but were all in the same style, this totally did not fit in the rest of the image of this city.
We passed through plenty of landscapes and rice paddies, had one short break and even got some packed lunch on our way to the Thai border town of Aranyaprathet.
Getting out of Thailand was not a problem, we queued up and got our stamp and could walk across (the freedom bridge) to Cambodia. As people in Thailand drive on the left hand side of the road and Cambodians on the right hand side, we had to cross the street to buy our Visa. The price has now increased from 20 USD to 30 USD (+100 Baht "service charge"). Who knows if this is what it actually cost but that is what we had to give the immigration officers.
Then get into another queue to get our visas stamped. All done and immigrated we went back to the bus (which magically switched the side of the road too).
Poi Pet (the Cambodian border town) is a crazy hiving place with a lot of activity, cars, trucks, buses and scooters all whirl around the place, not sure which side of the road to be or crossing diagonal across intersections. I am anyway surprised who this town and the border is controlled. All over the place, even between the border posts are beggars, dodgy characters and other strange looking people trying to sell, watches, cigarettes and booze.
Now, on the road to Siem Reap, the base for most people to visit the famous Angkor temples I thought, Cambodia definitely looks more rural than Thailand but less poor than I would have pictured it.
Certainly the infrastructure, most of which was destroyed after Pol Pot's regime, is being re-established and there are plenty of cars on the road that are less than 10 years old. Most houses have electricity and the kids playing in front of them are happily riding around on the bikes or playing catch-me-if-you-can.
When it got dark around 6pm it started raining pretty hard and about 30 km before Siem Reap we were forced to slow our cruising speed due to many pot holes and tree branches on the street.
Approaching Siem Reap I was surprised how vast the city is and even more surprised to see that it caters for certainly all kinds of tourists, with massive, golden, 5-star resorts rising on each side of the street. I also noticed that a good few of the tourists visiting must be Korean, since every second restaurant or hotel was advertising in Korean.
Arriving in the middle of town I already had an idea of which Hostel I wanted to go to (found on Wikitravel), but before leaving the bus a Tuktuk driver offered everyone his suspiciously free service to drive us to our hostel.
It looked like a scam and after asking him to drive us (I had meanwhile teamed up with Alistair from the UK) to Siem Reap Hostel he suggested to go somewhere else which is much better. We refused his generous offer and walked.
Luckily they still had two beds and we settled in, had a beer at the bar and decided to go and look for some food.
US dollar is the preferred currency in Cambodia (with Cambodian Riel only used for very small amounts of usually less than 1 USD) and I quickly found a bank (Canadia Bank) that would not charge an extra fee on my card.
Siem Reap as it is a tourist destination is certainly not as cheap a you would expect from Cambodia but eventually we found a nice place to have some nice Khmer dish.
Back at the hostel we kept talking to a few people at the common area/bar who have been around and I signed myself up for a TukTuk tour in the morning.
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