So, here’s my brief summary of how I got to Angkor Wat from Bangkok, Thailand, by land:
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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:
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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.