Bangkok to Siem Rep

The trip from bangkok to siem reap was one I was very thankful I had notes for. We got up at 3.45 in order to get a taxi at 4.30. Bidding our comfortable, but expensive, residence goodbye we got into the taxi to go to the bus station - wondering if he really understood where we wanted to go literally until the moment we arrived. Thanks to the advice i had we easily found the first class ticket booth for aranya prathet (known as aree (phonetic local abbreviation). The bus was comfortable with a toilet on board and a slice of coffee cake (how did they know?!) and a drink too. We arrived in 4.30 roughly. We then jumped into a tuk tuk to get to the actual border crossing. Although he tried to drop us at some place we didn't want to be ("We stop here, you get visa. Visa here 1000 baht, 1200 at border") we were insistent that we wanted to continue to the border. So he dropped us right at the end of the road to the border where some bloke with an official pass got us to fill in some visa documents, and asked for 1000 baht (which incidently is about $33). I refused (again) and we walked down the road with our forms. Got stamped out of Thailand (and were mildly scared by the sign reading "We no longer issue visas at the border") and then continued through to the Cambodian side. The Thai side had a TV and fairly official if formal guards. The Cambodian side was outside at portable tables. At the visa point the man was firm that he wanted 1000 baht. A Canadian who was with our group of people insisted it was $20 (which it is) and refused to pay. We were directed to the actual visa point where for $25 we got a visa each,. I had to pay an extra 100 baht (about 1.40 pounds) because I didn't have a passport picture. I think he just wnated to get rid of us in case other people twigged that they didn't have to pay 1000 baht despite the lies that the rules had changed and this was now required. Oh incidently, none of the forms the bloke with the official badge had given us up the road were of any use during any of this process.

Anyway, we left there and jumped on the free bus to the 'transport depot'. Others did not, believing this to be a scam - a suspicion i can well understand. After a bit of haggling we got the $80 first offer down to $60 - much closer to the government pre-assigned $40 that the poipet to bangkok trip should take, but still outrageous for the trip. We were somewhat concerned by the fact the taxi driver stopped at what I think was a shop - but when we realised he was opening his boot to put a bag in rather than to take ours out we were a bit happier. Similarly, we were pretty miffed when he stopped at his house to drop said bag off, although we were less annoyed when we saw how miffed he looked at his wife (we assume) getting him to put some boxes in the boot too). The rest of the journey is indescribable for two reasons - 1) I cannot convey how crap the road was. I believe mounds of money have been allocated to this road improvement, but much has been lost, allegedly linked to thai airs monopoly over the basngkok to siem reap air route, and thus their obvious intertest in keeping that as the most sensible route to travel. Secondly just because it was fairly uneventful. It was interesting to see very poor places and some clearly more wealthy places. It is evident that the average income would be round $400 (which it certainly was), and its interesting to see - but less to describe really.

So now I'm sat in our new guesthouse place in siem reap, abouty 30 min walk to town centre, or a tuk tuk ride. The place has a pool and our room is ensuite. And I have a beer... Tomorrow we go to angkor wat, and the day fter to the lake. Then we move on to phnom penh, cutting Kompong Cham and Kratie from our trip as a result of the awful transport links.