|
|
Day
5
(November 29, 2010) Poipet border crossing and trip to Siem
Reap
Before
We should start early this day to Cambodia border.
I’ve
read we should reach it before 12 PM because it is the time the buses
from Khao San Road arrive with big groups of people which can add a big
delay on the procedures. It should be a 3 or 4 hours’ drive, so we
really should be there before that time. In Aranyaprathet we would use
a secure parking to leave the car, as it cannot cross the border with
us. We would then follow the steps by foot: Thailand exit stamp,
Cambodian visa and entry stamp and getting a taxi to Siem Reap. These
are simple steps, but there are some added difficulties here as there
are touts anywhere trying to fool you to make you think you need their
services. As far as I read it is impossible crossing this border
without some attempts to scam. From Poipet, once in Cambodia, to Siem
Reap is a two hours’ drive on a new road so we think it is feasible to
reach our destination by lunch time and spending the afternoon on
getting our three days pass to Ang Kor and visiting the isolated area
of Roulous.
Route on map is marked by:
A.- Khao Yai
B.- Cambodia border in Aranyaprathet
C.- Siem Reap
|
After
We take our breakfast in Greenleaf’s guesthouse,
after checking out from the hotel, with the people we spent yesterday.
We pay the dinners, breakfasts and beers, which is less than 20€ in
total. We say good bye to everybody, who is following different paths.
The French boys are being taken to Pak Chong train station. We get
Puma’s advice of not going through the park but taking the way passing
by Saraburi instead because, although the first seems a shorter way, it
is a quite slower path and we must pay the park fees. There is a
farewell with him as we’ve enjoyed so much out time together and expect
to come back sometime in the future with the excuse of watching the
bats.
The drive to Cambodia border takes 4 hours with just a quick
stop and we’ve already failed on our first goal: to arrive before 12 PM
when it is expected to meet the big groups from Bangkok. But it is 1:15
PM now. As we’re approaching to the border we can see people around
offering things or trying to address us to different places by
gestures. This is the street ending in Cambodia, but it gets cut before
reaching the border and, as I don’t want to stop, I turn left getting
into the market. I stop there and try to take a look on the map, but I
can see a bunch of men coming to us on bicycle, so I just keep going on
for taking the street we just left again. This time I’m paying
attention to the big parking in the left side where the street gets
cut. Immediately two touts come to me and I just ask “Secure parking?”
and they obviously agree and one keeps following me during the process
of taking the ticket from the box and looking for a space for leaving
the car. I still don’t know if he wants to sell me something or a tip
for his “service”. I’m going to the end of the parking (0) trying to
leave
him behind but when the car is parked we’ve got the man with us again
saying things through the windows.
When we get out from the car I can see two more
men. I get nervous as I need to take the laptop from the trunk and I
don’t want they can see we leave our baggage in the car. Last night we
separate the things needed for the next three days in hand bags, which
is the only we’re going to bring with us to Cambodia. I don’t know what
to do with the parking ticket: if I leave it in the car I have the risk
of not having a justification document in case of something happens to
the car and if I bring it with me to Cambodia it could get lost. In the
meantime, the tout keep talking to us.
We leave the car and walk to the border and tell clearly to
the tout we’ve already got visas because he haven’t stopped of offering
them. But he keeps following, offering taxi on Cambodian side this
time. I answer him we already booked one (this is a lie but I bring the
phone number of www.angkorcars.com
just in case). He asks me how much I’m going to pay for it and I answer
40$, then he tells me they can make it by the same price. I decline
stating it is already waiting for me and I’m not going to break our
commitment by the same price, then he offers me the service by 35$. As
I hesitate for one second he calls a boy and asks him to be with us to
close the deal for the taxi. He is with us while we walk along the
avenue (0 to 1) to the Thailand immigration office. Both sides of this
avenue
are full of small offices of business dedicated to the same thing:
offering Cambodian visa. The word “Visa” is written everywhere and, in
case someone doesn’t get it, men are shouting from the office’s doors
offering visas.
During this walk the boy keeps talking about the
excellences of their taxi service. I hope he is not going to be able of
being with us once in the procedures for leaving the country. This
point is set in a way that the people leaving Thailand takes the path
at left, while the path at right is for the people entering the
country. The boy points me where to get the exit stamp in our passport
but he is not coming in with us (1). Once inside, we join one of the
rows
with around five persons on each. The big groups must be out already.
When we go out to the street again, the boy is there waiting
for us. He asks us again if we’ve got Cambodian visa as this is going
to be our next step and seems to be the bigger business here. We pass
under an arch with towers as the ones in Ang Kor and that’s the line
for the change of country. At the other side the street is full of live
with business and trucks and there is even a casino! I’ve read this
pass is a bridge, but we don’t have the feeling of being on a bridge.
Keeping our left side we reach our next stage and it is here where the
boy cannot follow us. Then he opens a notebook and says with practiced
naturally behavior “It is 40$, are you going to pay me now?”. I’m
shocked. We agreed 35$ but it doesn’t matter now as I explain clearly
we’re not going to pay anything in advance. He tells us his friend is
waiting at the other side and I repeat I have a taxi waiting for us too
at the other side which we’re going to pay at arrival. He acts
surprised and takes his cell phone, then I say “good bye” and go on
knowing he cannot follow us further.
We’ve got the feeling of being successful from the first
attempt of scam and reach what is signed as Cambodian sanitary control.
We’re attended by two persons there, one wearing military uniform and
another wearing black trousers and soft blue shirt. There is a row of
tables and there are a couple of persons on each of them wearing as
mentioned on each. We must fill a formulary about vaccinates and
diseases and they don’t check any of our answers but, when leaving, the
man wearing blue shirt comes with us. He seems to work there ready to
help us on anything we could need but, why are we the only tourist with
local company? I’ve previously read a lot of stories from people
crossing this border and in some of them some worker help them on
everything and even gets a taxi for a better price than expected in
exchange of a small tip so, if this is the case he is more than
welcome. But I was still on alert mode. He gets in talks with
us and when asking if this is the first time in Cambodia I answer
another lie: this is the first time for my wife, but I came some years
ago. I’m trying to avoid any scam attempt because of newbie. He points
us where we must get the entry stamp (3) and wait for us outside. We
take a formulary, as everybody else is doing, and fill it with our data
– the same that is in our eVisas – while waiting in a row as short as
the previous one. Then we get the stamp and the eVisas are taken from
our passports.
Once out, our new friend wants to put us
in a minibus which is going to take us to the transport center with the
rest of the tourists inside. As I’m still in alert I tell him we have a
taxi waiting for us, but he answers there is a bus there to Siem Reap
by 10$ and he is going to assure we don’t have any problem. So we get
in and he too! “He was working in the border, wasn’t he?” I wonder. I’m
not comfortable with the fact that we’re the only tourists in the bus
with an assistant. After a short ride of 5 or 10 minutes he points me
the ticket windows for the bus. Are we really going to be able of going
to Siem Reap by only 20$? I haven’t read anything similar to this so I
still want to be sure and comment him the last time I visited Cambodia
the bus was waiting for leaving for hours as it doesn’t unless it gets
full, but he answers me it is already full.
He comes to us to the bus once we’ve got the
tickets and I’m expecting the moment he suggests us a tip, but it is
not happening. We’re seated in the bus, which is really almost full, he
gets in with his other colleagues wearing the same uniform and count
the empty chairs, around 7-8, and decide it is full and seat each of
them on an empty seat, one of them at my right. So it seems these
people working in the border are coming to Siem Reap with us. I’m
trying to explain this to myself: as it is 2 PM, this could be the end
of shift time and these officers working in the border assure the bus
gets full to use it themselves to go home. If that’s how it is we’ve
been very lucky, but that’s not how it is.
The truth is the three hours we’re told this trip
takes are a long and constant commercial event. Each of these “border
workers” are seat spread all around the bus and talk with the people
trying to get information of what all of us are going to do there,
focusing on hotels and tours to Ang Kor and then they confess that,
apart from working at border they’re tuk tuk drivers and keep trying to
make people get the hotels they’re offering or changing the ones
already booked and, obviously, getting all the pressure to be hired as
driver or guide to the temples visit. I explain another lie: we’ve
already contacted a guide with a tuk tuk which speaks Spanish,
something we need because my wife doesn’t speak English at all and my
hotel is not only booked but already paid – this last one is truth -.
He asks me to quit our driver and he does the same by the same price:
50$ (as I said was our deal). But I explain to him we already know tuk
tuks are cheaper but we’re paying more because: first, he speaks
Spanish, and second, he is going to take us to Banteay Srei, a further
temple. But he doesn’t give up and keep getting pressure over
me during the 6 hours of this trip. Twice what taxis take and the time
we were told!
The bus makes one single stop in a bar full of
children asking for money. They use that stop to contact with the rest
of the passengers couldn’t be contacted in the bus.
We arrive some minutes after 6:30 PM and is
already dark. The visit to Roulous is gone. In the last hour of travel
our friend has tried harder to get a deal from us but I don’t want to
close any deal yet and keep stating we’ve already got a driver and we
need he to speak Spanish. He doesn’t give up and, when the bus stops in
a dark place in an unknown point of Siem Reap, he offers me to taking
us to our hotel for free. He then takes his tuk tuk parked just beside
the bus and leaves us in the door of Hotel Prum Bayon in a short ride.
There he does his last move: 40$ and he asks me when and where are we
going to meet our driver tomorrow. I answer 8 AM in the morning at this
same hotel hall where we are now. He says is going to be there tomorrow
and I say he can do whatever he wants but I have something to offer: I
ask for his phone number to call him in case tomorrow morning we have
any problem with our driver. I get his number and I pay him a couple of
dollars for the ride in case we no longer see each other.
When he leaves I’ve got the feeling I manage to
have what I wished. It is not I don’t want him as he has worked hard
for it and he really has helped us at border and later on asking in
exchange just to give us a service we really need anyway with the rate
I was thinking to pay, but I wanted to have this afternoon – evening
now – to compare. And we still can hire him tomorrow.
Hotel Prum Bayon (0) is beautiful and we will use
soon the swimming pool we can see from our balcony, from which is taken
the picture below at left. We love our colonial style room. We go out
for a dinner following the map and indications we’ve got at hotel’s
desk. We walk to the area with bars with a clear name: Pub Stret (3)
and it is the one in the picture at right. Obviously these pictures are
not from today as we are not going to have daylight until tomorrow.
 
It is hot at night here and we notice it while walking
through the street full of hotels. It is a big contrast with the big
buildings and gardens from the luxury hotels on broken pavement,
whether in the sidewalk or road, and between businesses in shacks. The
street is full of people and when we pass through a group of locals
with beers in their hand one of them stands from the floor and says “We
meet! This is destiny!”. It is our friend from the border we just leave
30 minutes ago from being almost the whole day together. “This means
tomorrow we will go with me”. “Will see” I answer and as we’re going he
shouts “Tomorrow I’ll be at hotel at 8 AM”.
When we reach what in the map at right is labeled as Sivatha
Road (yellow street from yellow street) we can see the change. There is
even more life on this street, full of tuk tuks going on both
directions, neon lights and people walking around. We ‘re offered
services from every business door: massage, food, tuk tuk… Those tuk
tuks are stopped at sidewalk with its driver laid or seated on it and
we’re offered their service for tonight or for our Ang Kor visit from
every one of them. At least I can compare rates. The lower I can get is
the same 40$ I already have with something I “know”.
It is obvious that Cambodia is a poorer country
than Thailand. Siem Reap is a city completely built to allocating the
tourists coming to see Ang Kor: it is composed basically by hotels and
has a city center with bars, restaurants and markets.
We don’t walk more. It must be just a bit
less than one kilometer from our hotel and the market and Pub Street is
just starting a little further, but we’re in front of a restaurant
shaped as a wooden hut with a barbeque in the street. We agree with the
prices in the menu they have in display and get in for a romantic
dinner full of candles around. We order a big plate which is a
degustation of several local meals. The portions of each of them are
very small, though. The food is good but we don’t get full with it. We
pay around 10$ for the both of us. It is not expensive for us, but it
is for the local standard. Restaurant’s name is Raja Angkor and it is
the one in the picture:
 
We walk back to the hotel and look how funny the pedestrian traffic
lights are here: There is the typical little green man animated as
walking and a countdown over it, as the time is reaching the end the
little man runs faster and faster until ending in a desperate sprint
for the last 10 seconds. Yep, we’ve got the message.
|
|
|
|
