Early Morning Bus Ride to the Cambodian Border

My alarm goes off at 3:20 in the morning and all I want to do is go back to sleep. Instead, I peel myself out of bed and get ready for the task ahead: a 10-hour escapade on a bus to Cambodia to get my visa stamped. I won’t try to explain why I need to get it stamped or how Thai visas work, but I will tell you that I have to get out of the country in the next 24 hours.

My research on this visa run became quite extensive. Prior to “D-Day” I poured over internet sites and travel forums in an attempt to find the “least sketchy” bus tour. I read stories about cops raiding some buses and throwing people into jail because their visas were only one day overdue. None of this was settling…I don’t think I would do well in a Thai prison. One of my most viable options included slipping a cop 500 Baht ($15 USD) at the border—no joke. After a few recommendations I settled with the visa-run bus company titled Jack’s Golf International. Weird, huh? This guy started the company when looking for golf courses by the Cambodian border…oh the funny places life may take us.

Back to my early morning. Trusty late-night-taxi-driver-extraordinaire Khun Kob (who ended up not being my abductor) picks me up at 4 AM. He was told, once we get to the bus, to write down the license plate number “just in case”…now that’s settling. On the way through downtown Bangkok we pass tons of people on the street. Most of them still out from the night before. The plethora of high heels and short skirts reminds me that Thailand is infamous for its red light district. What a great place to be dropped off in at 4 AM.

The pickup/drop off place is a 7-Eleven on Bangkok’s busiest road—Sukhumvit. We pass by the convenient store and there is no bus. Khun Kob gets nervous and tries to call the number of the bus company. Right as he hangs up after no answer we see the double-decker pull up. It looks like a really old Megabus with about 30 Hello Kitty stuffed animals in the front window.

I hand over my passport to a woman sitting at a card table, sign my name in six places and get on the bus. When I’m handed a fleece blanket upon entering the bus I wonder how many bodies it has touched. I predict the number is more than the number of people that have urinated on the seat (that stench doesn’t come easily) but less than the number of she-men outside my bus window. The seats are actually quite big and it is comfortable for a bus—and I’ve had my fair share of bus rides between Mpls and Chicago. All I can do is blow up my neck pillow, turn on my ipod, guard my backpack with all of my soul and sleep the 3 hours to the border.

After three hours we arrive at the border. I sleepily get off the bus and follow the group of 20 or so people. There are only 3 other women on the whole bus. Two older Korean women and another blonde girl who looks about 30 (turns out she’s from South Africa.) Most of the passengers are older men, mostly Korean and Japanese. I am obviously the youngest and my blonde hair sets me apart from everyone on both sides of the border. We walk to the border crossing and, as advertised on the website, truly have VIP service. Everyone else is waiting in lines that apparently can take an hour or two to get through while we just walk straight through. I am in Cambodia. The lady in charge takes all of our passports so she can deal with the visas and border stamps while we all eat breakfast.

Our group walks to a casino about 3 blocks from the border. Except there aren’t blocks, just one really dusty road filled with garbage and people. At the casino we eat a provided breakfast and wait for an hour for the paperwork to get filled out.

The area in Cambodia where this particular border crossing is, is not too different than some of the more rural parts of Thailand I’ve seen. The biggest difference is the smell. Kind of a vomit and urine meet sewage and fish smell. It smells much worse than Bangkok, which smells much worse than Chicago, which smells worse than anything Minnesota has ever dealt with. I was holding my breath most of the time there. There is garbage everywhere and children running around barefoot and begging for money. I don’t think this short visit represents the country of Cambodia as a whole and I can’t wait to travel around in March, but it is very different than anything we are ever exposed to in the U.S.

We are already across the border, holding our stamped visas and back in the bus by 10 AM—my wake-up time in the U.S. The ride back to Bangkok is surprisingly fast, and with little rotit (traffic). I get dropped off at the 7-Eleven in no time. Now it’s the hardest part of the day for me. I have to hail a taxi and explain how to get back to my house, all by myself. I have not had to do this yet and am always with someone who speaks more Thai than me. After the first cab refuses to brave the traffic and take me out of Bangkok the second—and hot pink—taxi begrudgingly agrees. I strongly believe that one has better luck when in a hot pink taxi. I stumble over my words, try not to pronounce my ‘r’s or ‘l’s and we go back to Pakkret, excuse me Pak-ket.

The whole trip ended up not being so bad. I was very nervous at first, but am so proud that I managed to do it by myself. I definitely had help setting it up and finding a proper company, but I did the bulk work on my own. In a country that I am new to and where I don’t speak the language. I can’t wait to travel around more for real and will of course keep everyone updated!