So, here’s my brief summary of how I got to Angkor Wat from Bangkok, Thailand, by land:
- Take a government bus from the Eastern or Northern Bangkok bus stations. Leave by 7:30am. You can probably buy your ticket the same day, just show up at 6:00am. (190 baht) You should be going to Aranyaprathet, which is on the Thailand side of the border from Poipet.
- I don’t think it matters much whether you get your visa in advance in Bangkok. They didn’t hassle us. Perhaps if you’re in a flood of tourists off a tour bus, you might have trouble. If they try to get more than 1,100 Thai baht, demand a receipt, get their name, and report them to the Cambodian tourism board.
- Immediately upon leaving the Cambodian immigration, you are required to get onto a free bus to the bus station. If the police (who are lounging off to the right, in the shade) see you getting on the back of a motorcycle taxi or into a car, they will probably stop the car and fine one or both of you. To my knowledge, nothing is stopping you from walking out of the area.
- The bus station is basically empty. I think you just catch a taxi there.
- Our taxi cost $50 for three of us to Siem Reap. We had no US dollars on us, so we paid in Thai baht, 600 each. I was later told that a taxi should cost $25 for the entire car.
- The taxi will drop you outside Siem Reap and hand you off to motorcycle taxies and tuk-tuks. I think these guys basically try to take you to places where they get a commision. I insisted on Two Dragons, and my driver reluctantly took me there. I then paid him $6 to haul me to Angkor Wat to see the sunset, then bring me back. I was later told that this should cost $2 or $3. Still, he was a nice guy…
Random things about Cambodia that I didn’t know:
- The Riel (local currency) is about 4000 to one US dollar. So they pretty much just use dollars. When they give change, they’ll give partial dollars in Riel notes. I haven’t seen a US coin yet.
- The local language is Khmer. Maybe I’m just ingorant, but it wasn’t obvious to me and I didn’t want to offend anyone by asking how to say things in “Cambodian” if that’s an external name.
- Numbers one through ten seem unique to Khmer, but from 11 on, it sounds almost identical to Thai! I have no idea the linguistic history which causes this.
- There is a no-man’s land between Thailand and Cambodia. There are hotels and casinos here. It’s kind of weird. Big, glitzy casinos and in front of them roll some bare-footed Cambodians pushing a home-made cart loaded with a half-ton of ice. Yep, weird.