Our trip to Siem Reap was something to say the least. Yesterday before we went to bed Henkka saw some serious lightning storms above the Koh Chang mountains. We didn't think much of it but in the morning it was raining heavily. Our pickup came on time at 7am and the rain got stronger. Luckily our driver was struck by the spirit of formal F1-legend Ayrton Senna and he went with fast pace through the slopey wet mountainroads. Needless to say it was a pretty scary drive. The rain started to get even heavier as at some point we even stalled at a dangerous uphill, forcing our thai Senna to try the climb numerous times. Fortunately he handled himself well and got us safely through the mountains.
The rest of the ride was smooth sailing (including ferry) right until the border as we had predicted. Just like in a textbook we parked at a restaurant where a seemingly polite man greeted us with warm welcomes. As soon as we sat down the staff handed us visa applications to fill. We got under the radar, since we had our e visas (thank god) but our companions weren't as lucky. The polite man showed his true colours as he started to argue with our companions about the common scam going on. At that point we were rushed to another vehicle and our companions were denied this privlidge as they had to stay in the restaurant fighting to avoid paying more for the visa.
We were relieved that we had decided to make our own arrangements regarding the visas. Ofcourse the force is strong with these jokers and just before the border another "gentleman" tried to hustle us with the money exchange scam, but we calmly told him we got everything covered.
The actual border control was a piece of shake and after 20min of paperwork we went flying through. Welcome to Cambodia. We were then escorted into a local shuttle bus and it took us to a international tourist bus terminal. As we are writing this, we have already been waiting for two hours for the transferbus heading to Siem Reap.
In the terminal we met a lovely french couple who had been travelling from Koh Tao to Siem Reap from 2pm, so at that point they had been travelling for 12 hours straight. After two and a half hour wait we finally continued our journey once again in another bus. In this big bus were only us and the french couple. We never found out what happened to our original companions as they never arrived to the terminal.
The final bus ride went slowly but smoothly and we arrived in Siem Reap around 7pm. The bus didn't leave us in the centre, instead they brought us to their own small buss pitt. It was already dark and we literally had no idea where exactly we were so we had to use the services of the TukTuk drivers conviniently waiting for us in the bus pitt. For relatively high price (1.5 dollars per person) we then continued our journey to find a suitable guesthouse for the night. First the drivers took us to see a guesthouse they suggested (obviously they get some kind of comission for bringing tourists to certain guesthouses) but we weren't fond of the place and as our initial deal with the drivers was to see other guesthouses too they had no choice but to continue the ride. We finally to managed to find a decent place at a good price called Garden Village.
The TukTuk driver turned out to be a pain in the ass as he started to make deals for taking us to see the Angkor Wat using his services. When we kindly refused saying we didn't want to make any plans yet he got pissed off and demanded more money for the Tuk Tuk drive. At this point Henkka & Ben (the french guy) got really annoyed with the driver and started to just walk away. Me and Camille on the other hand felt slightly bad for the driver and tried to make peace with him. Once he realized we weren't going to cut any deals he finally gave up but made us promise to contact him as soon as we wanted to book our Angkor Wat tour.
After having a nice cool shower in our guesthouse we headed for dinner and a few beers with our new french friends. We really enjoyed their company and made plans going to the Angkor Wat and other sights here in Siem Reap together. One of the best things in travelling is definitely meeting new friends all across the globe.
Oh, and one more thing. On our way back to the guesthouse we were greeted with the milk scam. I had just read about the scam before hand so I knew what was about to happen. A dirty and poor looking woman approaches us with a baby on her arms asking for milk for the baby, not money. Apparently if you agree to buy the milk you are escorted to a specific shop where they sell overpriced milk. After making the purchase and sending the tourist away the woman returns the milk to the shop and splits the money with the shop owner. So organized the scams in here, pretty scary...
