Siem Reap (off)

I bought my ticket to Siem Reap in a small office on the street side close to Thanon Kaosan. At the time, I was not aware that Siem Reap is the gateway to the ancient Khmer ruins of Angkor Wat and other temples, the most interesting and stunning sights in Cambodia and arguably in the whole of South-East Asia. After spending a couple of days inside these temple ruins, they are high on my list of favourite world heritage sites. I hope the pictures I add to this blog are convincing. But I did not want to write about temples, but about the journey to Siem Reap.

My ticket cost me 300 baht (about 8 euro). I had first tried to buy the ticket closer to my guesthouse. I had always had good contact with the neighbours, a tour company by the name of Chameleon Tours. They had nevertheless assured me the ticket costs 650 baht. When I pointed out the price difference they told me their buses are of much higher quality. So I bought my ticket near Kaosan instead. That posed the problem of having to walk a while to the place of departure with luggage, but after one minute of haggling I was able to procure a pick-up at my guesthouse for an additional 50 baht.

The next morning the minivan parked in front of my guesthouse. However, the other passengers also turned up here. And they seemed to come out of the office of Turtle Tours, carrying tickets of 650 baht. I did not know whether to feel content or embarrassed. Anyway, I soon found myself in a great group of six guys, all about the same age and relaxed mentality. That last characteristic would prove helpful that day.

Around noon we arrived at the border town of Aranya Prathet. We parked at a small roadside restaurant. Judging by the sign it was owned by the same company that runs the buses, but the prices on the menu were rather inflated. The driver handed us application forms for the Cambodian visa. He told us to fill these in, which we did. He then asked us to give him 40 US$, which we did not. We had all heard the Cambodian visa costs 20 US$. He then threatened to leave us there and drive off. I got a bit angry by then, but reminded him calmly that we had all bought tickets to Siem Reap. I told him he had to refund us if he wanted to drive off. That seemed impossible too. However, Thai drivers are not allowed to take passengers into Cambodia – instead a Cambodian bus would wait for us on the other side of the border. So he only had to take us the remaining few kilometres to the border. I explained this to him and told him I only had 20 US$ set aside for the visa. He told me ‘then no holidays, go back to your country’. By that time I could drink his blood. The scam was so obvious that is was intellectually insulting. If you want to rip me off, you have to do it in a more intelligent way.

The driver then disappeared, presumably under a rock or into some hole he had dug. After half an hour, a new driver turned up. This guy was all smiles and politeness. He listened to our complaints and told us to walk with him to a ‘visa office’, which turned out to be the neighbouring tour company. Fortunately, one of us was alert enough to divert him from his chosen course of action and ask him to instead take us to the official office of the Cambodian border police. We boarded a second van and after two minutes we parked in front of a nice villa, where a marble-and-gold sign told us we were the honoured guests of the ‘Royal Cambodian Consulate in Aranya Prathet’. Inside, a guy in uniform handed us an application form, shaking his head when I showed him the first, unused one. When I handed him my 20 dollars, he told me that the visa costs 30 US$ though. So I told him I read the visa costs only 20 US$ and suddenly things became ‘impossible’ and ‘unreasonable’ again. After some persistence from my side he admitted that it is possible to buy the visa at the border for less, but that it would be ‘difficult and time-consuming’. When we arrived outside, our driver seemed not to be in the least surprised to find we still had no visas. Another five minutes further down the road, a road block, some kitschy faux-traditional style office buildings and a bunch of flags told us we had finally arrived at the border. This is where we said goodbye to our second driver.

The Thai border police took about half an hour – although that had nothing to do with the absence of visas for Cambodia. Right behind the Thai customs is a small building without any signposts, where Cambodian officials sell visas – for 20 dollars apiece. It took about 5 minutes because we had to fill in a visa application form - the third one. After that, we still had to pass the Cambodian border guards, which took about 40 minutes.

At the other side of the border, a Cambodian bus was waiting to take us to Siem Reap. I cannot say I am impressed by the skills of the Thai or Cambodian frauds and con artists, however they did manage to waste some of our time.