our first taxi picked us up at passagiero in siem reap at 7:45. our driver didn't say a word the entire trip, he just gunned it, layed on the horn, and blew through all the towns. shanti mentioned that she's probably never used a car horn as much in her entire life as our driver did on the 3 hour trip. every car, truck, motorcycle and bike we passed got honked at to make sure they knew we were flying by. it was awesome.
shanti and pablo had pretty much gotten over whatever sickness they had, i was envisioning several stops at the side of the road for bodily functions that needed attention, but we only stopped once so the driver could smoke a cigarette. they both felt pretty horrible but nothing was leaking.
the rest of cambodia was flat and dry and dirty. people burning garbage and leaves and anorexic looking cows between the small towns filled with markets and shops and absolutely nothing written in english.
we were dropped off near the border and were instantly mobbed by thais that wanted to sell us a bus ride or food or take our luggage. it was pretty crazy. between us we had 3 giant backpacks, 3 smaller backpacks and 3 or 4 small bags of food and random stuff. we hauled it to the departure lines and stood in sweltering heat with dozens of other people to get processed out of cambodia. this first line was close to an hour long. sol was fairly unhappy but pretty amazing through the whole ordeal, shanti and pablo felt like they wanted to die.
after departure there was around a quarter mile walk through no mans land to the thai immigration offices. the difference between the countries was incredible, one poor and one not as much, i guess. they're both kingdoms as well, i didn't know that. cambodia had pictures of the king but thailand had them every 5 feet, on buildings, bridges, everywhere you looked.
we found the line for immigration and again it was huge, we must have arrived at the same time as the buses. again, stand in line in the heat, carrying all of our bags, sol getting his diaper changed, pablo about to fall over from not eating for 2 days. and just when we're getting near the front of the line they open a second line because the one line had gotten too long and was going into the road. we are not at the front now, but in the middle. grrr.
after about an hour in this line outside we are finally let into the building, which is packed with more people standing in more lines. but at least its air conditioned, and shanti, pablo and sol can sit in chairs at the side and recover while i hold our place. this line was about half an hour. right when we got to the front we noticed signs that were mostly in thai and they had dollar amounts on them and we started worrying that we didn't have enough money to get in and would have to start all over again. i had some thai baht from my luxurious nite at the airport but not enough for all 4 of us.
we didn't end up needing any money and made it through. and getting out on the other side we are once again mobbed by people trying to sell us everything in existence. we settled on a tourist agency to get a taxi to bangkok and started to relax. almost 3 hours in the horrible smoggy heat carrying all of our bags and a tired little boy with 2 sick people. this day was truly a test of patience and we made it through.
we had about 10 minutes till our taxi left and i took that opportunity to find a bathroom. way back near customs was a stone building with 'toilet' written on the side. in retrospect it may have been more pleasant to just pee down my legs than enter that building.
the toilets were bowls on the ground, alongside were tubs of water with scoops. the floor was flooded, over my slippers, and the smell was unbelievable. the woman next to me was scooping water and the splash was hitting the floor and bouncing up and dripping down my legs and arms. i was nowhere near as low as the bowls so i can't imagine what she was doing. the first thing i did when i got out was rub antibacterial all over my body.
that experience cost me 3 baht, to add insult.
our second taxi drive started with the driver trying to make us keep our luggage in the car with us. he had packed his trunk so full of other crap there wasn't room for our stuff. hell no. i got kinda angry and told him to get his shit out of there, we're not sitting smashed in a car for another 3 hours with all our luggage at our feet, the taxi was only a regular 5 seat car. they tried and tried to make it all fit and sneak things in the seats but we won in the end and he took a load of stuff to the taxi office.
another 3ish hours of crazy trucks and cars and highways and bridges with giant portraits of the king and we made it to bangkok. to sit in traffic. dead stopped. no one moving for several minutes at a time. so close yet we couldn't go anywhere. the driver wanted to drop us off at a corner saying our hotel was right around the corner but after almost 12 hours we were gonna get to the front door or sit in his car till we ran out of gas.
finally we're in our hotel in crazy bangkok. street vendors and massage parlors and bars. surprisingly the air quality was much better than cambodia, even with nonstop traffic jams and giant high rise hotels.
time to explore.
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| welcome to the kingdom of thailand |
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