Our 6-hour bus journey from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia was the closest I have come to experiencing culture shock on this trip. Because the online ticket purchases were all written in Thai, we needed to go to Mo Chit station the day before to secure our tickets. Little did we know, however, that the Mo Chit lightrail and Mo Chit bus stations were in completely different places. So after the long and bustling lightrail journey, we had to wait 45 minutes in the hot humid heat for a hot and sticky bus to take us to the bus station! The ‘bus station’ was just some dusty little piece of land off the side of the road, with a market so packed full of junk that I had to duck my head to fit inside. After a variety of part-Thai, part-English, part-sign language communications with various people along the way, we finally arrived at the bus ticket sales, and the salesman asked us for our passports. I could actually hear all three of our stomachs drop to the floor as we realized that we had just wasted two hours of stress and confusion to get us there, only to need to turn around and do it all over again. Fortunately, money runs this city, so he let it slide. Whew, thank goodness! We officially had our tickets to Cambodia!
With one piece of the stressful journey out of the way, we returned home to read up on all the scams to expect during our bus trip to Cambodia. We had successfully avoided the Lonely Planet Guide’s infamous 10 Baht tuk-tuk scam in Bangkok, so we were already feeling pretty confident in our scam-avoidant skills, but there were plenty more clever schemes waiting for us at the border.
A few miles from the Cambodian border, our bus pulled over, and a friendly approchable man came on. He gaves us all lunch and explained that we needed to fill out a visa application for Cambodia. He felt so trusting, that my gut feeling wanted to believe him. But all of our reading up on scams told us differently, so we took the lunch, declined the application, and got off the bus. We ended up needing to get stamped out of Thailand, walk across the border through ‘No Man’s Land’ and then receive our Cambodian visa on the other side. This was a time when I was most thankful for having travel companions because ‘No Man’s Land’ would be a very scary and uncomfortable place on my own. In fact, we met up with a few other Americans along the way, feeling even safer and more confident in numbers. ‘No Man’s Land’ was a long dusty stretch of land with a casino on one side of the road, and tiny children coming up to me and clinging onto my legs, begging for money as I tried to walk across the border. Eventually, however, we successfully made it to Cambodia and got back on our bus. Whew!
But oh no, the journey is still not over…
We had previously arranged for our hostel to pick us up in a tuk-tuk from where our bus dropped us off. Unfortunately, there was an err in communication, and we were left stranded for about an hour, being harassed and accosted by tuk-tuk driveres promising ‘free rides’ and asking us other uncomfortable questions. Needless to say, our first impression of Cambodia was horrific. I was terrified at the thought of having to spend four full days in a place so drastically out of my comfort zone. Seeing as I have already finished my four days in Cambodia, however, I doubt there are many places in the world that could give me more perspective on life or be quite so full of beauty, both in its nature and in its culture. My four days in Cambodia were truly magical. In fact, my time in Cambodia was so wonderful, that I had no time to sit down and write about it, so I’m already on my way to Vietnam!
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