Pakse to Siem Reap

Super long day of travel today! Our hotel pickup arrived at 7:30am for the first section of our many-legged journey to Siem Reap in north-west Cambodia. Spent about 3 hours on a cramped but okay minivan heading south through Laos. Eventually the minivan pulled over and Shandos and I were ordered out, along with a Dutch guy who'd also been staying at our hotel.

We were ushered into a songthaew (essentially a covered ute) for the 30 minute drive to the actual Cambodian border - everyone else in the minivan was heading for a different part of southern Laos. Managed to change our last few Laos kip into Cambodian money from the Laos border guy as he stamped us out, but the Dutch guy for some reason had 800,000 kip (about USD 140) which of course they weren't going to change. Oh well, bad luck for you dude!

While we were waiting a dude on a motorbike rode up and started handing out Cambodia visa-on-arrival forms, asking for our passports, photos and the $40 USD for the visa. Smelling a rat and realising that the visa fee is $35 plus $2 for a stamp, we took our passports back. The guy got a bit angry but we just walked away and walked directly into Cambodia. Sure enough, it was $35 for the visa and $2 for the stamp, so although the guy was legit, he was going to pocket the change without saying anything. A couple of girls followed our lead in ignoring him, but a half-dozen others let him organise things for them. I guess we've crossed enough land borders to know that anyone not in uniform asking for money is pulling a scam of some sort.

Waited in a crappy cafe on the Cambodian side for about 10 minutes before getting into a new minivan and heading south for a couple of hours to a town on the Mekong. This driver had clearly seen Fast & Furious too many times and was way too reckless - at least we had seatbelts.

At the town, they split everyone up again by destination as some went to Phnom Penh while others headed for Siem Reap. Unlucky us, we got the same driver again! After a long five hour stint, we finally got to Siem Reap at around 6pm. Despite misgivings and crazy driving, everything actually worked out and I guess the constant changing of vehicles really broke up the trip. It didn't feel like 11 hours of travel.

We had a free tuk-tuk ride to our hotel; the local drivers accept the free service because you're basically a captive audience while they pitch their services for taking you around Angkor Wat the next day or two. Bad luck for this guy - we weren't going to Angkor, and already had a driver for our day trip the next morning! But I did what I'd learned in India: take the guy's number (rather than the opposite), and promise to call if we needed anything.

Our guesthouse was nice, with a good pool I couldn't use because I didn't bring swimmers. We headed out for dinner about 10 minutes away at Pub Street, the main tourist area of Siem Reap (though really, it's a large sprawling town entirely devoted to tourists). Ended up having Mexican food for something different, as neither of us had particularly fond memories of Cambodian food.Read more