Siem Reap to Bangkok (9.5 hours)

From all the reading I did, the land borders between Cambodia and Thailand are supposed to be the part where I'm supposed to watch out for the most. The road from Siem Reap to the border is supposed to be a very bumpy, move you to your bowels type of ride and at the border, lines are so long, you might as well have lined up at the Siem Reap bus station. Immigration at the corssing have been known to jack up prices for Thai visas as well. I was a bit worried about this day for almost the entire trip.

Apparently, all this was a thing of the past. The roads have been redone recently, so our ride was very smooth in our AC bus, and there were no breakdowns. It took about 30 minutes to get through the border and then another 10 to 15 minutes of waiting for our transport to Bangkok. Also, there was no visa fee for tourists who stay for under 30 days.

We were expecting the bus to pick us up on the Thai side of the border, but a pickup truck came and we piled into the back, but I was lucky enough to get the air-conditioned inside. At this point of the trip, if we piad for a bus and got someone to pull us in a little red wagon, whatever. As long as we got to where we wanted to go, that was a goal met.

We only went about 15 minutes and got dropped off at a nearby restaurant where we wanted and a half for our "minibus" to pick us up. I suspect the bus company is in cahoots with the restaurant because it was just long enough to get bored enough to buy some food, but we had packed sandwiches we bought from the Cambodian street vendor that morning, so Josie and I played our usual 2-hour long "Big 2" card game.

Finally, the minibus came. There were 16 seats and ... 13 people. Not the same minibus as Indonesia. Although not the worst ride I've been in, it certainly wasn't the most comfortable either. I sat in the back right corner next to the metal car frame where the tire is. I had to deal with a radiating 100 degrees (37C) burning my leg plus about 6 inches of leg room. Sometimes it felt like we fell off the road with how bumpy the streets were.

We finally got into Bangkok around 5:30PM and then from there, we bought a bus ticket to Ko Tao for 6:00. That gave us 30 minutes to rest after about 10 hours of travel before we had to take off for a 16-hour trip to Ko Tao.