From Indonesia With Love

The dawn has not come yet when I woke up in my small room by Chao Praya riverside. The night before I made an improptu decision to go with a friend whom I just met, Pablo, for a road trip to Siem Reap. We left the guesthouse and walked down the aisles with big backpacks. We had to catch the first train to Aranyaprathet. Bangkok was beautiful in the morning: the temples were full of lights, no traffic, frustrating heat nor drunkard visible on the streets.
The dawn was breaking when we arrived at Hualamphong station. I paid 48 Baht for one train ticket. We sat down at the coffee shop, sipped our coffee as we watched people passed by -backpackers and locals. Our first struggle was looking for empty seats. I sat next to a young girl, Rachel, an energetic Filipina who was as curious as me to see the Angkor and decided to join us to Siem Reap.
The train left at 6 AM and ran slow. The view was chaotic morning in Bangkok, then changed to eyes pampering sceneries with rice fields and hills. The horizon was wide. The sky was blue with the cloud hanging low. The sun shone bright as the day heated up.
Finally Aranyaprathet, the nearest station by the Cambodian border. Rachel, who speaks Thai, tried to deal with a stubborn tuktuk driver until he agreed to take us to the immigration post. Wrong, he took us to the fake immigration post and insisted to obtain our visa there. We left him, walked to the official post.
After crossed a ‘Kingdom of Cambodia’ gate, we were officially in Poipet. Child beggars were roaming on the streets yet this place crammed with casinos and hotels. The Cambodian immigration post was made of thin plywood with a big tree inside. There were incense, flowers and offerings right next to it. Apparently it was a sacred tree. We caught the bus to Siem Reap from the nearest bus station. The bus trip was insanely brutal but fun. The driver might be thinking that he was Vin Diesel. Not to mention that we were so close to death when there was a truck from the other side that almost hit our bus. Despite that, I enjoyed the sceneries along the road with Cambodian pop music blaring in the background.
Siem Reap: dusty roads, loud music, electricity cables hanging and nice Khmer people. Like people said, this city was on steroid, luxurious hotels, bars everywhere and they kept building more. After approximately 12 hours of road trip, we finally ended up tired in our hotel room, ready to see the Angkor Wat at sunrise the next morning.