The Long Road To Siem Reap!

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We had an early start today as our bus was leaving at 6.30am from Bangkok bound for Siem Reap.  We had heard horror stories about the cheap buses from Khao San Road to Siem Reap which cost 300 baht.  Apparently they take you all day to get to Siem Reap with stories of buses supposedly breaking down resulting in you arriving into Siem Reap in the early hours of the morning.  The driver then 'sells' you to a guest house for a kick back which could end up costing you USD200 per night - not so cheap now!  This in mind we decided to book our bus through TAT (Tourist Authority of Thailand which is a government organisation).  Mmm, we should have known that there was no avoiding the inevitable!

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We were picked up at 7.00am (30 mins late) and we then proceeded to drive 1 1/2 hours around the city collecting our fellow bus passengers.  Finally around 9am we were finally on our way out of the city bound for Poipet, the Cambodian border town.  Our kindly driver... was going to organise our Cambodian visas too so we could relax.  We stopped around 11.50am at a small outdoor restaurant for lunch and all of our passports were collected by our driver together with our Cambodian visa forms etc.  After 1 hour lunch we got back on the bus for the 10 min drive to the Thai/Cambodian border where we were reunited with our passports complete with Cambodian visa - what a service.  Took around 1 hour to go through both Thai and Cambodian borders and we then waited around 30 mins for our next bus from Poipet to Siem Reap.  I have attached a photo of the bus for your amuzement!  We then had a very interesting (well I say interesting, very bumpy) ride with two stops which enabled us to rejiggle our insides!  we eventually arrived into Siem Reap at 9pm (some 4 hours later than we were supposed to and, guess what, we were taken to a guest house which for our 'piece of mind' had been rebooked for us by the driver.... mmm, we told the driver that we would take a look, but if we weren't happy we would leave and find our own accomodation. The guest house was only USD8 for A/c or USD4 for fan per room so price was OK and in fairness the rooms were too.  Our decision to stay had nothing whatsoever to do with the England Portugal game starting at 10pm!!

Our decision to stay had nothing whatsoever to do with the England Portugal game starting at 10pm!!