Chris' Travels

Day 86 - GUESS WHERE?!

It wasn't easy. It was tough. It was a bit difficult. But I made my decision. It wasn't something many people were behind me doing but......Yesterday I arrived in Cambodia.......and then left again 30 minutes later. My Visa for Thailand was about to expire and to get another I had to leave the country and return again.

That said you can guess that I have decided to stay in BKK for a little while longer. It's not something everyone was behind me doing, I'm not sure if it will turn out to be the best option but here I am, I have an apartment (which is WAY cheaper than a hotel) and I'm adjusting to not having the threat of moving on in the next fews days hanging over my head. So life will continue in the short term as it has been until now. I have a couple of things I'm going to investigate doing here while I'm in Bangkok, but more on that another time.

The trip to Cambodia itself was an event. 6am - 9pm almost entirely sitting on a bus. On the way there the bus had no seats left so I was left sitting on a small plastic stool by the door. I was not too impressed, as we bumped our way down the motor way to the border.
When we got to the border town, the driver (who had collected all of our passports to get the visa sorted) decided to drop us 10 km from the border at his friend's hotel for lunch. I just wanted to get to the border and back as soon as possible but knew these kind of things happened on this route. I sat there feeling sore (from the bus) and miserable that we were wasting time, just as I approached annoyance, one of the guys who was also on the bus cracked. He had had enough. And his way to deal with the frustrations? He dug out a small guitar and pan pipes from his bag and entertained for the next 30 minutes until the hotel felt we weren't going to buy anything else from them. It was Brilliant. The situation need a pressure release, and this guy did just that. I climbed back on the bus, smiling, probably a little too much that we were finally getting there.

The half hour queue to get of Thailand was fine, met a Greek couple who were cool and we ambled into Cambodia together. Poipet, the cambodian border is like a mini Las Vegas, and strangely the border post is reached only after you have walked past several large casinos. As we did this, A "nice police man" came up to us.......
Now before I continue, I don't support corruption. It stinks, but sometimes, just sometimes maybe it's ok......
The standard "Visa run" procedure is this: Leave Thailand, our queue was 30 minutes. Then Queue into Cambodia on this day was about 1 hr. And like wise the queue to exit again: over 1 hour. Total time 2.5 hours.
Our police friend, for the small fee of 4 pounds, would give us a helping hand..... "Fee" paid, the lovely copper escorted past those waiting in the hot humid queues (past several snarling westerners) stamped our visas, and we were safely back in Thailand after no more than 30 minutes. I was pretty happy with this, After my journey here (Guitar playing aside) I could really do without standing in a line for that long. So then only another 4 hours bus journey back to Bangkok, brief rides in a taxi and the skytrain and I was home safe and sound. SO there we go.
Who knows what the next few weeks will bring. I'm going to actively look at trying to not be a bum for too long. But until the next time. See ya soon.

posted by Chris @ 6:24 am