OK Verdict in, Absolutely hated bangkok-everyone is out to rip you off, thailand just didnt impress us at all with very few exceptions. Got the train on wednesday at four in the morning, very crowded, very hot but amazing scenery as thailand seemed to melt imperceptibly from noisy dirty city to beautiful rural countryside. Got to the border after about sixhours, and on the train met two kiwi guys going the same way so we all decided to share a tuk tuk from the train station at aranypathet to the border with poipet. The tuktuk drivers instead of taking us to the border took us to a tourist information centre where we would get our visas. Luckily, me and the girls were used to smelling a scam by this point so we had a bit of a yelling match with the tuktuk drivers and decided towalk to the border ourselves taking the kiwis and a british couple with us. There are couples everywhere by the way. Apparently nobody travels like me and the girls, its all married backpackers or boyfriend and girlfriend groups. They seem to have sucha n amazing time. Anyway after a long long hot dusty walk to the border i the 40degree midday sun we got to the border and stamped out of thailand into nomans land in the middle. Then more flipping scams as they tried to take us to places to get our visas done and do them for us for a smaller fee than we would pay on the cambodian side. Yeah right. They're so plausible though, some of them wear official uniforms and the actual officials make no attempt to help you determine them from the conmen. We gave them all the middle finger and walked ourselves to the cambodian immigration area, by this stage we were orangeybrown fromhead to foot with ""cambodian red dust"" which is laterite from all their soil and rocks and just does not come off you or your clothing. All our clothes were ringing with sweat when we finally got there and then the officials charged us in thai baht (all the guidebooks say dollars, so we didnt have any baht) cue massive rush to change money to get our visas. Safely stamped in, we were told that the official guards themselves had ripped us off to the tune of 300 baht which they pocketed themselves. Absolute nightmare. Anyway, by this stage we were all past caring and we got out as a group of seven and decided that if we could haggle a good price on a private taxi i.e. get the taxi for the same price as the official busses, then we would. With a lot of arguing, we managed to get a minibus to take the whole lot of us from poipet to siem reap for 100 dollars. The bus was charging ten each anyway so we thought for airconditioning and a bit more comfort we would take the risk that it was a scam (whereby they take you and the bhus mysteriously "breaks down"halfway in the dark and you are forced to stay at their "friends"" guesthouse for a massively inflated price.) and go anyway. Had some serious banter on the way down, playing ipods and i-spy (where everyone spotted an upcoming scam of course). We watched the drivers like hawks and when they stopped at a little cafe on the way we practically threatened their lives, but it turned out ok and we mde it to siem reap and weretaken to exactly the spot we specified, albeit three hours later than advertised, but in daylight so it was all good. The hostel owner was truly lovely, so friendly and smiley and eager to help- a complete polar opposite to every thai we met, it was very hard to shake off our suspicious scam blinkers. We all decided to stay in his hostel for the night even though it wasnt cheap (25 dollars for a triple room) but it had a swimming pool and we all needed a bit of comfort after the day we'd had! Checked in, jumped in the pool to cool off then all decided to meet up and go for dinner, and a wander about. Had a lovely dinner with 50cent jugs of beer, all tried something new and shared so everyone could taste. Then we headed to the angkor night market, lots of lovely trinkets, clothes etc, also full length crocodile skins and wallets made from snake etc. The funniest and weirdest partof the night though was stumbling across a massage place offereing a massage from garra rufa fish. Basically, you stick your feet in the pool and these little fsh swarm up to you and nibble all the dead skin off your feet, 15mins for three dollars. Both the kiwi boys and me and steph had a go and it was the craziest thing iv ever felt. Jury's out on how much good it did, but my feet were certainly smoother and cleaner after! Then we went to a wee bar beside the fish pool and got a bit tipsy on threedollar pitchers of tiger beer and stayed til the poor cambodians looked really tired (there are no closing times here, its an open til the last guy leaves kinda system) A little bit tipsy, murray (kiwi) decided to stick his face into the garra rufa fish pool. Needless to say he didnt keep it there very long! All walked back to the hostel and went to bed in very comfy aircon surroundings!
That was just our first day, loads more to tell given that this is our third day here, but my fingers are getting sore typing, and i was up all night last night throwing up-apparently snake doesnt agree with me.