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Trip Start May 03, 2008 Previous
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  Bangkok, Thailand
Saturday, June 14, 2008

Set off from Siem Reap the next morning on literally a dirt track road to the border. The little bus we were on was packed to the rafters. The aisle of the bus was full of everyone's bags high enough that it made a nice armrest. Getting on and off the bus was an expedition. This was nothing compared compared to the road though if you could call it that. Obviously we had seen all shapes and sizes of things resembling roads on this trip but this one was rather special. The "main" road to the Thai border from Siem Reap is a well worn dirt track. Rumours circulate everywhere that the reason that they haven't upgraded it with tarmacadam is that the government is being bribed by the airlines as most logical people would fly rather than enjoy 6 hour journey to the border which should really take just over two.

However the road would become the least of the problems... when we reached the border town of Poipet famous for it's Casinos which sit by the border buildings as gambling is banned in Thailand and the fact that it is populated by one or two ex Khmer Rouge soldiers supposedly. Suffice to say it isn't really a place with white picket fences and where the neighbours all greet each other happily in the street. At the border we were due to go through customs and get on another bus on the other side. As we got off the first bus we were asked for our ticket from Siem Reap. It turns out that the ticket collector in Siem Reap should give you your ticket back when checking it and then you show your ticket at the border to prove that you getting on the bus. The only problem no one told us and we never got our ticket back. Cue long discussions with telling me a Cambodian bus agent we had a ticket just not in person. After border control and them trying to leave us behind which meant I had to sprint after them, we discussed the matter for another half an hour before I managed to convince him to ring the office in Siem Reap to confirm what we had booked and paid to Bangkok. Of course the guy who answered the phone was our ticket kleptomaniac who insisted to me in broken English that had given it back to me. However I did get him to verbally confirm that we had bought the right ticket and after another 10 minutes or so, we finally came to an agreement to get put on the next bus as we had now missed our one having stood there chatting about the "weather".

We got the next bus with no further hiccups thankfully and arrived in Bangkok late that night having been delayed by three hours or so in the end. Found what could be described as a prison cell without the bars on Soi Rambutri near Khao San but didn't mind too much as it was cheap can't complain with 10 Euro for two people. The next day we decided to go to Patpong market. The usual fair of goods, jewellery and Cd's nothing very exciting and then had dinner in an Irish bar round the corner, after we finished a bunch of sixty olds guys called The Better started to play a Beatles tribute with one of them looking scarily like a Thai version of Cliff Richard. That said they were actually really good and very a pleasant surprise nearly note perfect as well. After that we to see a "local show" and then got a taxi back to the place we were staying. The taxi driver must have miss heard us as he tried to drop us off somewhere else completely and after we explained to him he contacted someone on his radio. He then pulled up behind another taxi, flung open the door and told us to get into the other taxi. He wasn't best pleased though not our fault.

The next day we took it easy as we decided to get an overnight bus to the island of Koh Tao. 

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