Getting to Siem Reap yesterday was quite an adventure. We left at 7:30 AM and drove 3 hours after taking an extra hour to pick up people. We stopped at a restaurant near the border and ate lunch while they processed our visas for us for an extra $16. The travel agents insist in Bangkok you have to do it there, and then again at the border town..but you should be able to get it at the border yourself..granted usually for more than the $20 it would be at the airport. So they we get to the border and quickly process through the exit from Thailand...but spend almost 2 hours waiting to check into Cambodia with our visas in hand. Then we have to take a shuttle, after waiting another half hour, to a non-airconditioned bus (they told me the whole thing was a mini-bus with A/C) which stopped again after 10 minutes. At 5 pm we finally set off for a six hour drive on unpaved roads sometimes through thick mud. We stopped for dinner and didn't arrive until 11 PM (They said 7) and they took us to a guesthouse of their choice and refused to let us off in the center of town. I just got a tuk tuk back into town for $1 with a Canadian girl and Irish guy I met and we got our own place for $3 each a night. The scam from Thailand to hear is hard to avoid as the 2 sides claim not to know what the others do. At least I only paid about $15 instead of others who paid 30 for the one way. It was quite an adventure and in heavy rain can take up to 24 hours so I guess 15 was lucky:)
Siem Reap is a nice town and the temple area is huge. We decided to just do one day and see the highlights instead of 3. Our tuk tuk driver took us out and we saw the giant heads carved into Bayon and the untouched one with trees growing all over it where they filmed part of Tomb Raider. Angkor Wat itself wasn't that impressive. It was very black from all the rain..but the carvings are amazing. Tonight we are going to eat traditional Cambodian food and maybe see local dancing before we head by boat to Phnom Penh tomorrow to see the killing fields and the S21 museum.
