Entrance by land, via Aranyaprathet / Poi Pet ( Bangkok ‑ Siem Reap )
The entrance to Cambodia was the first land border we crossed on this journey. It is always a bit more tricky to cross the border by land, than by air. By crossing by land, you must always be alert for border scams, to avoid to get ripped off. Therefore, we tried to get well informed before our departure.
As we found out, in this border there are mainly two big scams: The first one, is that many bus companies (as well as the train) do not drop your off at the border itself, instead of that they drop you on the town just before the border, witch is some Kilometers away. As a tourist, you have no choice but to take a overpriced taxi or tuc‑tuc to the border. Also the buses, leaving from the border to Siem Reap makes you pay double the normal price. The next scam, which is also very common, are those "helpful" people, who "informs" you where you have to go, in order to get the Visa to Cambodia. The place they take you, is an agency, they will make you believe there is no other place to get the visa, or at least, that it will be much faster getting the visa through them. Never believe that. This is totally FALSE. The people who tell this, are simply liars! They will charge you a lot of money for doing the visa for you. Instead of that, you can do the visa on arrival personally at the border, after you get the exit stamp from Thailand, and it is even quicker than with their "express visa".
Another common scam is done by this same agencies, telling you that in Cambodia there are no working ATM's. So they tell you to go to an ATM, take Thai currency and then change it into the Cambodian currency (exchange rate to fully unfavorable course), or to change your US Dollars for local currency, also in a very unfavorable exchange rate. All this is absolutely false, false and just a lie! In Cambodia there are working ATM's, like in any minimally normal country. Cambodian ATS's provides you with US Dollars, as this is the most used currency in Cambodia. Almost everything is paid in US Dollars in Cambodia, only amounts under 1 US$ are paid with local currency. So, if you buy something that costs less than 1 US$, you will get the change in local currency. There is absolutely no need to get Local currency.
Also the honorable Cambodian border officers, charge you a "mandatory tip" of 3 US$ to get the visa. Apparently, if you just tell them, that you are only going to pay the regular price, and stay firm with that, it's enough to not get ripped off.
In general, the vast majority (if not all) of the people you meet on the border, supposedly wanting to "help" you, don't even deserve that you look at them. Simply ignore their lies and do not listen to them.
To avoid the problem of being left somewhere far away from the border, since a couple of years, there is a direct bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap, although, you have to go off at the border, and cross it by foot, so you are exposed to all other border scams. We chose another option, it was a little cheaper and the bus was leaving from the eastern bus station in Ekkamai, which was much more convenient for us, and closer to our hotel, than the central bus station. It consists of a package of two coaches, one from Bangkok to the border, a gentleman who accompanies you to cross the border and takes you to the next bus, witch makes the journey from the border to Siem Reap. This package had also a special price for the agency "express visa" (it is true that the price of the "express visa" was much cheaper than in other agencies, but it still remains a scam). Therefore, before buying the ticket we ask the woman who assured us that we were not forced to take this "express visa".
We were a little afraid of how our coach would be, even more as only we and an other Canadian girl, where the only westerns in that bus, and this is not always a good sign. But we have to admit that apart from being quite old, the coach was quite comfortable and with plenty of legroom, in fact, we have never seen a coach with so much legroom.
After a few hours, we arrived at the border. Where a very nice gentleman waited for us in front of the bus. He would be responsible to take us to our next bus to Siem Reap. He took our tickets, gave as sign to wear around our neck, so that we couldn't get lost and asked us to go with him. We thought: everything seems to be perfect.
But he lead us into an office... We told him immediately, that we wanted to do the visa in person at the border, and that we didn't need the "express visa". But he informed us very kindly that this was the border, and that this was the place to do the visa. He told us that if we had not done the visa yet, they wouldn't allow us to cross the border to Cambodia... but we keep insisting on doing the visa at the border. He tried a few more lies, and told us that at the border, they would take so long to process our visa, that we would lose our bus connection, and that the company would no longer be responsible for us. After a while, and as the conversation was not going anywhere, he let us go to the border, he told us: "you will come back anyway, because they wouldn't make us the visa". Before we left the office, we asked who would accompany us to the next bus, or how to recognize it, and if he could give us back our bus tickets. He replied that once we make the visa, we should returned to the office and he would accompany us to the bus, he also told us that the sign he gave us, was like our bus ticket. Then he left. Something left a bit unclear to us, how would we come back to the office with the visa, if you apply for it after getting the exit stamp from Thailand. But we thought that if he told us that, it would be possible to do.
Indeed, once we did the exit of Thailand, we couldn't go back. As everything he told us, that, was also a lie. (We are not going to tell the opinion we have about this person, as we don't find enough words to express it.)
At the border we got our visa without any complications or waiting. The price of the visa is 30 US$, as indicated in a sign on the wall. However, before getting our passport with the visa, we were shown a sheet of notebook paper where it was handwritten in pen: 30 dollars for the visa plus 3 dollars more for visa fees. Obviously this is a lie, and it is just an other scam (the visa fee is 30 US$, this 3 US$ is just money for them). Apparently staying firm on not paying this "mandatory tip" is enough to avoid the scam. However we had other worries for the moment, like as how would we be able to find our bus witch we already paid to Siem Reap (keeping in mind that you can't trust ANYBODY), so we just payed. (Again, We are not going to tell the opinion we have about this kind of people, as we don't find enough words to describe it.)
Once we obtained the visa, and while we where queuing to get the entrance stamp into Cambodia, we saw the other girl who was in our bus arriving with a "gentleman". She came with the men who was taking she to the bus to Siem Reap. So we just went with them after we got all our entry stamp to Cambodia. First we had to catch a free shuttle bus to the bus terminal (which is a big tourists scam machine), and once there, we were put on a bus to Siem Reap, much more uncomfortable than the first bus we took from Bangkok to the border.
Similar as in Myanmar, the bus dropped us outside the city center in the middle of nowhere. The only think we saw there where the tuk‑tuk driver asking us more than triple the real price, to bring us to our hotel. But thanks Google maps, the location system and offline maps, we could actually see, that our hotel was less than a 15 minutes walk away, so we just ignored those people.
It is a pity that these must be the first impressions you get when entering a new country, you almost loose all interest on visiting it and getting to know its peoples.
Fortunately these people seems to be a "tribe" that is mainly concentrated near the border. The rest of the country was not that bad.
