So, let me first start out by giving you a brief overview on bus ride(s) to get to Cambodia. haha. Leave Chiang Mai at 6:30pm, get into Bangkok at 4:30am. but wait! where can you find a guesthouse that's open at 4:30am!? So we wandered around Kho San Rd for a little bit realizing that most of the rooms at the guesthouses were full and finally decided to pay a bit more than expected for a room..but it had air-conditioning!! Our first one so far and it was so worth it! :) I spent the entire day pretty much sleeping and then had to wake up the next day at 6am to take a bus to the Cambodian border. It was a pretty smooth ride, but being jam-packed in a mini van with 10 other people for 5 hours was enough to make me jump for joy when we finally reached the border. After finishing paperwork and another hour of waiting in line we were excited to be on our way to Siem Reap. We hung out at the new bus station (which was so awesome looking, beautiful contemporary architecture) and thought we might have missed our bus cause we were waiting for so long. When a bus finally arrived we were told we couldn't get on it because that bus was for people who had orange stickers and we had white (dont ask me about the sticker ordeal because i have no idea..it was very confusing) And THEN we found out they wouldn't let Aaron on the bus because he was wearing a Siem Reap t-shirt on what is known as the scam bus. (the scam bus takes people to hotels to rip them off and because Aaron was displaying that he had been to cambodia previously, the bus driver knew he couldn't scam us and was upset). So Aaron changed his shirt, we got on the "orange sticker" bus anyways and continued on a dusty and a bit bumpy road to Siem Reap. Most of the roads have been paved recently so it wasn't as bad as it used to be. No bone rattler rides. :)
We arrived in Siem Reap around 8pm and found rooms at the Angkor Green Guesthouse which include air-con and a t.v.! wow..i haven't watched t.v. in a looong time. what a treat! For the first few days I got travel sick and was stuck in bed with a fever. I've done some wandering around. The tourist area is soo nice. Very expensive looking hotels and restaraunts, which include a lot of popular celebrity hang outs when people come to view Angkor Wat. The town caters to western folk extremely well. Almost everyone speaks English, even the currency they use is U.S. dollars (use reil (cambodian currency) as change because it doesn't go higher than a dollar). I would say Siem Reap looks like a combo of a nice resort area in Mexico and Las Vegas. hahaha. It gets very busy at night and tons of live music and traditional Cambodian dancing. The food choices are plentiful and have amazing Mexican food, as well as a cheap-o food stall market to buy traditional dishes for a dollar. Anyways, I'll be posting another update of Siem Reap after I visit Angkor Wat and the Mine Museum. We'll be here until the 20th and then off to Phnom Penn.
As for Uncle Frank's previous question...I think the best item I've packed with me on my journey is definitly my ear plugs. There has been construction by EVERY guesthouse in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia and I dont think I would have been able to sleep without them. :) And the item that I couldve left home has been my gym shoes because everyone wears flip-flops all the time. well, you'll be hearing from me again shortly!!
