T&A

Crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia was a very interesting and long journey. We started out early in the morning, and jumped on a bus to Aranya Prathet, a town just a few km’s from the border itself. The bus ride itself was acutally very beautiful – through the Thai countryside. In addition, we also got snacks and water given to us by a steward, which was a new experience; much different from the cramped and dirty local busses we were used to. We were then taken by tuk tuk to Thai immigration, where a local Thai man greeted us and tried to convince us that we had to buy a Cambodian visa in advance from him, as it was no longer possible to obtain one at the border. This was a scam we were ready for, so we just smiled, and walked through immigration with no problem. Even the Cambodian visa took only minutes to complete. As we walked through to Cambodian immigration, we were greeted by a man who set up a taxi to take us to our end destination, Battambang. He and his friend tried to get us to pay a bit more money to skip the long line at immigration so they could get going. We decided that saving a bit of time isn’t worth the possibility of not getting into the country legitimately, so we waited an hour in the line before officially entering Cambodia.

Poipet, Cambodia was nothing like we had ever seen before. On either side of the main dirt road were huge casinos. Gambling is illegal in Thailand, so Thais jump the borders to gamble. Just beyond these huge buildings was what looked like a war torn town. The buildings were in terrible shape, the roads were the worst we had ever seen (if you could even call them roads), and dirt/dust was everywhere. We were then greeted by our new Cambodian friend and taken to the taxi, a Toyota Camry, that would drive us to Battambang. As we ventured out of the town, the roads were even worse, and we couldn’t drive more than 20 km/hr. We had heard rumours that an airline had paid off government officials to postpone paving this road in order to deter tourists from overland border crossing. Even more corrupt is the reason why we had to take a taxi from the border to battambang: the local taxi mafia. These men threaten other modes of transport and other taxi drivers, thereby driving the price of transport up significantly. We weren’t sure if we took a mafia Toyota or a private one, but the price wasn’t too horrible.

After a few long hours, we finally arrived in Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city. We decided to come here before Siem Reap in order to get away from the beaten tourist trail, and we’re glad we did. We were greeted on arrival by Ses, a local moto driver, whom we hired to take us around the city the next day.

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We arrived by train in Ban Krut, which while very slow and boring, was a very interesting way to travel. The train stopped at what felt like every little town or intersection to pick/drop people off. After finally arriving, and getting a guest house, we were greeted by a deserted beach, and rain. Everything seemed to be expensive here, and since there’s nothing to do in an expensive beach resort area when it’s raining, we only stayed one night and then jumped on a bus to Petchburi.

Phetchburi turned out to be a gem in the Southern Thailand leg of our trip. We were dropped off on the side of a dusty highway, and had to walk through the city streets to our guesthouse. The first thing we noticed about this place was the atmosphere. Despite being relatively close to Bangkok, Phetburi doesn’t receive as many visitors as other nearby cities. Instead of ignoring the tourists, the children were yelling at us using whatever english they knew, and even the older people would say hello. The children especially liked talking with Adam, asking him where he’s from, etc., and they were really suprised when he would say hello to them in thai.

Phetburi is known for their Batu caves, which is essentially five huge cave-rooms connected together, known to be King Rama IV’s favourite caves. To bring luck to the Thai people, the King put in over 200 Buddha’s in these cave systems. The unique part of these caves is the “skylight” created by a huge hole in the ceiling of the second cave. This hole allows for beams of light to come down and shine on the Buddhas. We were only allowed into three of the five caves, since there was a ‘Bollywood’ movie being filmed when we were there.

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