On the third day, we had to get up very early about 5am in the morning to catch a 6am bus to Aranyaprathet. One of my friends woke us up at sometime around 4am thinking it was 5am and when he realised it he went back to sleep. But I had trouble sleeping after that and so I got ready and waited at the lobby. It was actually quite a funny story at at that time. Now I don't remember what was funny about it but I remember cursing him for waking me up too early.
It was still very dark and quiet. When everyone was ready to go, we went to look for taxis which then brought us to Morchit, one of Bangkok’s bus terminal. Once I was on the bus, I went to sleep right away. The trip to Aranyaprathet took about 5 hours. I don’t have any photos of us in the bus. We were all mostly sleeping throughout the journey. I don’t remember much of the bus trip to be honest. Once we reached Aranyaprathet, we took tuk tuk (this is public transportation known in Thailand and Cambodia) to the border of Thailand and Cambodia, which is not far from the bus stop. The border was quiet. There were not many people around. I wasn’t feeling safe there and wanted to quickly go through the immigration process to enter Cambodia. We had all of our bags tightly with us as we knew the area was not safe. And there were kids, I think 2 or 3 boys of 8 or 9 years old following us around and managed to snatch 2 plastic bags of bottled water and snacks. They snatched them from my friend’s hand so hard until the plastic bags were torn and all the things inside dropped. We just went on and walked towards the immigration office and let the boys took everything.
At the immigration, they charged us 1000 Baht per person (US$25 at the time) for a visa although we had notes telling us to insist on paying US$20. We thought there was no point haggling for $5. Not everyone had to pay for a visa though. One of us, who’s holding a Malaysian passport, didn’t have to pay a penny.
A few steps later, we were in Poipet, Cambodia. Then a shuttle bus brought us to the transport depot, where we had to wait for 2 taxis to bring us to Siem Reap. We waited there for quite sometime and there were a few people before us waiting for taxis as well. I remember feeling a bit daunting. Everything was a bit hazy. I was not sure if we’re doing things right and wondering if the people there could be trusted. I felt better after we got into our taxi...or so I thought...
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