The travelling itself in Southeast Asia

Like I've said before, arranging travel in Southeast Asia is extremely easy, far easier than anywhere in Europe. Every hotel, hostel, and guesthouse will have a travel desk, and in addition to that there are travel agents on every street, and normally more than one. There are a huge number of trips and tours for very affordable prices and transport wise they can get you anywhere! And what's even better is that you really don't have to plan far ahead, I normally get my bus or train tickets the day before if not on the same day of travel and only once so far have they told me the train was full (and even then I managed to get on the train, just not an official seat as such). Border crossings in my experience have also gone fantastically well, as most times the tour organiser sorts out visas for you so you don't even need to worry. There's usually a lot of "what the hell is going on?" in the air, but the truth is you don't even need to know - just relax, be patient, and eventually you'll get to wherever you're going.

At the border, on the Cambodian side

But that doesn't mean it's by any means stress free, and there will always be exceptions to the rules, like my journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok taught me. I decided to take the bus which I was told took 8 hours including border crossing and cost $10 - perfect! The bus to the border was relatively painless, as buses tend to be very comfortable and have aircon, but unlike the other times I have crossed borders this was anything but smooth and quick. First of all let me rewind a little. About a mile before the border the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road and told everyone to get off the bus. "Ticket change, ticket change" he shouted. Ticket change? Why am I meant to change my ticket? To what? Did he mean bus change? Are we at the border? If not, where the hell are we? So I decided to ask him - except he was nowhere to be seen. For about 15 minutes we all stood there next to the road, no one knowing what was happening and what this ticket change was all about. When he came back without a word he started collecting everyone's tickets and in exchange gave us a sticker, the color depending on our final destination (red for Bangkok, yellow for Pattaya, etc). Ok, so there was my ticket gone. Should be interesting if anyone was to ask for it later as proof of purchase.

We got back on the bus and five minutes later arrived at the border. I knew it was bad news when I saw that the line of people queuing up to immigration was way longer than the waiting area. It gets better. It smelled like someone had left dead fish out in the sun right next to the queue - about a week ago. Oh yes. It didn't help matters that I was kind of experiencing the famous traveller's stomach problems. Many swearwords went through my head during that hour and a half's wait in the sun in the immigration line.

Finally through the Cambodian border I was so happy I almost kissed the old Asian lady in front of me! The joy was short lived as I soon realised I still had the Thai border to cross.... So skipping the part where I swore a lot out loud, another hour and a half later we were in Thailand! At this point my back and shoulders were killing me from carrying my backpacks, and my stomach felt like someone was electrocuting me from the inside but hey, we were about to get on an air conditioned luxbus, right?

Wrong.

From the border we had to walk up the road for a while where a, I'm going to use the word minibus (it was more like a cage on wheels), was waiting on the side of the road. In the hassle of getting our bags into and onto the car and getting ourselves in the car I was left last and due to there not being enough space I was told to wait for the next one whilst my backpack was driven off to the unknown. All I hoped for was that this man got the colour of the stickers right and that I was indeed going to the same place my bag was.

I managed to get on the next cage on wheels and was successfully reunited with my bag at a, I'm going to use the word restaurant (plastic chairs next to the road, dead fish smell, Thai ladies selling questionable looking food). And there we waited. And waited. And then we waited some more. At this point it had been five hours since we had gotten off the previous bus at the Cambodian border, and eight hours in total since we left Siem Reap. Then a man came and spoke to some travellers wearing red stickers, pointed at a bus across the road and sent them off. When I tried to follow them as I too had a red sticker he told me to stay put. I could see the other red-stickered tourists across the street next to the bus, whilst I remained at the 'restaurant.' No idea where I was supposed to be, nor who I could ask? Everyone else in the restaurant looked just as puzzled and some even resorted to asking the random food ladies on the street if they knew where we were meant to be. Green, red, yellow stickered tourists all over the place, no one knowing where to go. I decided to go over to the other side of the road to see what was happening but not surprisingly everyone was just as clueless there. They hadn't been let on the bus, and no one was telling them anything either. Some 15 minutes of cluelessness later we were told to get on the bus - me not knowing still if this was where I should be but anything was better than staying at the rotten fish restaurant. Although the bus did smell very strongly of toilet which we had to endure for the remaining several hours of the journey so now I'm not sure which was better.....

Finally got to my hostel dorm at around 8 pm, in other words 12 hours later. All I had to eat all day was a small bag of salted cashew nuts, I was tired, my shoulders and my back hurt like hell and my stomach was not pleased.

Making travel arrangements and travelling in Southeast Asia really is as easy as everyone says it is. But it's the bad experiences that make the great stories.

At the border on the Thailand side waiting to board the bus.