Cambodia to Thailand

Leaving Otres beach with 48hrs left on our Cambodian (30day) visa, we decided that Thailand would be our next destination. Flights from Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia) would be only $130 per person, so $520 total… Hmm, realizing that we have ample time to spend, and limited financial funds, we decided to investigate alternatives. A bus from Sihanoukville (city near Otres) to Bangkok was $27ea, and we could get away with 3 seats for the four of us (with Isabel being so young/small). The bus would be “18 hrs”. By now we know that the estimated time could be accurate, or could be about half of the actual time in transit. We decided to take a $9/ea mini-van to Koh Kong, a 5 hr trip to the border city on the Cambodian side where we spent the night.

Koh Kong is a very nice little city not too far from the Gulf of Thailand, and along a large river that leads inland. The mini-van driver was apparently apprenticing to be a Formula 1 driver, and the 5 hr trip through the winding roads of a national park we drove through, only took 3 hrs! Although he clearly knew what he was doing, it was an uneasy drive to say the least. A kind of racing that one would only be comfortable as the driver, impossible to relax as a passenger.
We stayed at the “Apex hotel” along the river, it had a nice pool, the 6th pool we’ve enjoyed so far on our trip. The room, although otherwise clean and modern, smelt of mould…we stayed in it as little as possible. We went to the river side market, and ate dinner at Otto’s “Khmer and German Restaurant”. Then went for a trampoline along the river before calling it a night.

The next morning we woke at 7am, hopped on a Tuk-Tuk to the border, and walked across.

Once in Thailand, we got another mini-van to take us to Trat, the closest Thai city with a national bus terminal. We then boarded the 12 noon public big bus to Bangkok ($6 a seat), it was supposed to be a 6hr journey…

8 hrs later, we were on the outskirts of Bangkok, passing a sign that read “Bangkok 50 KMs”. With a population of over 12 million people, you can imagine the traffic… the last 50 kms took quite a while. We finally arrived at a bus terminal in (east) Bangkok at about 9:30pm…now, how do we find the (Airbnb) apartment we’ve booked? The Cambodian SIM card in my phone didn’t work in Thailand (of course), so we had no way of using the internet to guide us, or call our host. We popped into to a restaurant for wifi and managed to “skype call” them…they didn’t speak a word of english, and I couldn’t speak a word of Thai… Thankfully they sent me a text with the name of the of the BTS (sky transit train) to go to, 40 mins away, sigh. All in all, it took us 2 days, but we saved about $300, and had an adventure doing it.

We finally entered our 1 bedroom apartment on the 25th floor of a luxurious condo building to discover that it was actually a small studio apartment…with 1 bed. We were very much looking forward to having a 1 bedroom apartment so we could have a little separation from the girls. Spending 24hrs a day with them, for a month now, is taking it’s toll on all of us… As I write this, the lights are out, 1 girl asleep on the bed, another on the couch, Lisa and I whispering back and forth, lol.
Boo-hoo right? lol, Bangkok is AMAZING! We’ve spent 4 nights here, and leave to go south tomorrow morning, but I already can’t wait for our journey back from south to north because we’ve all fallen in love with this city.