I had planned to have a nap before my cab arrived to take me to Mo Chit bus station but I only managed to rest for an hour due to nerves. We called the cab in advance because it's safer for girls using cabs at night to call in advance so that they have it on record if anything happens. I was feeling all confident and told the driver where I was going in Thai and made some minor conversation. This however backfired when the driver thought I was fluent in Thai and started to chatter away to me, when he realized that I wasn't following he laughed and then I laughed and we had a good little drive.
The bus station was interesting. I got to the station and it was around three in the morning and I went to the ticket window for tickets to Aranyaprathet which is the Thai town that is closest to the Cambodian border. The window wasn't open and so I did what all the other Thais did and put a bag (in this case a plastic back containing my shampoo and conditioner as I was told not to put anything valuable) in line to hold my spot and then sat to the side and waited for the window to open. I wrote a letter and then when the window openned claimed my place in line which was reserved by my shampoo and proceeded to buy my ticket. The bus ride was ok, uneventful, the only things that "happened" was we passed some elephants and an army guy checked our passports before we arrived at the border.
When I got into Aranyaprathet I met a nice Korean girl who had been on the bus with me and we shared a tuk-tuk to the border. We soon realized we were both going to Siem Reap and to Angkor Wat and so we went through passport control together. Passport control was surprizingly easy, it was just a series of check points which eventually ended with Taes (my new Korean friend) and I standing in Cambodia 1000 baht poorer, but with Cambodian visas in hand. We shared a cab from Poipet (the town the on the Cambodian side of the border) to Siem Reap and man was that an adventure in and of itself. Taes some how managed to sleep but I spend nearly the entire ride with my eyes peeled ready to brace for a crash. The thing about the drive from Poipet to Siem Reap is that the cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car but they also drive on the right side of the road and so if you have the misfortune of being the passenger that has to sit on the left side of the car (opposed to being behind the driver) you feel a little like you're life may potentially on the line. The roads are very bumpy with huge pot holes and a mixture of poor pavement and gravel and though they technically drive on the right side of the road they really just pass opposing traffic like they drive on the right side but drive any where on the road when there is no one to coming. Yipes. The cab ride was nearly three and a half hours but I did finally make it into Siem Reap.
When we got to Siem Reap we were taken to a guest house called "Long Live guest house". It was ok, only five dollars a night. I was able to have a shower and a nap and then in the evening Taes and I had dinner together and decided to share a Tuk-Tuk to Angkor Wat the next morning with plans on meeting at five am so we could go for the sunrise.
Here is a picture of three sweet Cambodian children who were playing on the side of one of the roads. I think I took this one on Sunday but I thought I'd post it as my first official Cambodia picture because they were really sweet. Unfortunately, the picture is slighly blurry when enlarged.
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