The Temples Of Angkor

Arrival into Cmabodia was not the greatest experience I've ever had.  We wanted to be the crowds at Poipet border and wanted to get to Siem Reap as early as possible.  Well to be more exact, wanted to leave us enough time to get there while it was still light.

The border crossing itself, while a pain in the arse was not as bad as it could have been.  I think that was mainly due to us beiong really prepared and doing our homework.  The first problem we encountered was the officials at the visa office.  They told us it would cost us 1000 baht to buy the visa.  We knew this was a scam so insisted on paying only $20.  After about 5 minutes of them saying it wouldn't be possible and we had to waitm they offered it to us for $20 plus 100 baht "processing fee".  I really didn't want to pay this but Heather was adamant we should just payand get on with it.  We did and 2 minutes later we had our visa with the pricein the right hand corner.  It said $20.

At the cab office (which was a short bus ride away from the border) we were offered the choice of a cab for $60 or the government bus for $10 a person.  When I was reading up on it I'd heard that they were charging $45-50 for a car only a few days before.  Myself and Ben went out onto the street to find a car ourselves.  Howeverwe were unable to do this because a guy from the cab office was following us around and anytime we approached a cab, he showed a face and away it went.  Eventually we gave in and paid the $60.  We found out that the next week they were charging $70 for a car.

Once we'd got to Siem Reap we discovered the Poipet really is one of the worst places you can go.  I would reccomend anyone to fly into Cambodia.  Much simple and quicker with not so much difference in price anymore