3 July 2000 Aranyapratet to Poipet
Woke up at 4.15am and get ready to catch the 5.55am train to Aranyapratet. It's still very dark and quite. We took a taxi to the Hua Lam Phong train station. The Taxi driver charged us 20 Thai Baht per person. The train ticket cost 48 Thai Baht and it's a third class coach with no air condition. But it's ok for us, cause we are on a budget trip.

We have our breakfast in the train. There are people selling food in the train. Pretty cool huh, so that the passengers will not get hungry along the journey. I bought four hard boil eggs which cost 10 Thai Baht. We slept along the way. It was a long long journey. Aranyapratet is a small border town between Thailand and Cambodia.

12.30pm Malaysian time, we reach our destination. If you need to convert it to Thai time zone , just take away one hour. Cambodia and Thailand have the same time zone. We are greeted by many people who are very eager to take us to the border in their tuk tuk or taxi. The border is about 6km away from the train station. After a price negotiation with the tuk tuk driver, we are on our way. I am so excited.

As soon as we get down from the tuk tuk, we are greeted by two Cambodian tour agent with their name tag on. Their name tag is to proved that they are authorized tour agent. We make a bargain with them for 20 Thai Baht to take us from Poipet to Siem Reap by pick-up truck. One of the tour agents recognized Kriss because she been to Cambodia before in January. They are very happy to see Kriss again. Boy ..! they have a good time chatting with each other like long lost friends :) The Cambodian tour agent was very helpful, they give us two forms to fill in. They ask all their passengers to walk together to stamp our passport and not to wander around when we cross the border to Poipet. Sounds very scary huh! Lisa need to get her visa first at the border.

After everybody getting their passport stamp at the Thai Immigration, it's time to walk across a bridge to the Cambodian border town called Poipet. All of us walk together. We are now entering Cambodia. I'm so thrill! Finally.. I'm in Combodia! I am surprise to find a big casino in the town. It's a muddy town, due to the heavy rain and there's no tar road. I notice that tourists that came back from Cambodia looks very dirty and their clothes have mud in it.   

We have to queue under the hot sun for our passport to be stamp. The Cambodian Immigration office is very small. The immigration officer check our passport carefully. After this is done, our tour agent lead us to their office to wait for the pick-up truck.

3.00pm, it's very hot. The truck came. We get in the truck, put on our sunscreen lotion and we are ready for the journey. This is the hardest part of our trip. The truck don't have a roof top on us, so we might get sun burn  or soaking wet when it rain. But this is the only way to get to Siem Reap from Poipet.

There are only three Khemers in our truck, which is the driver and two tour guides. The word "Khemer" is refer to the local people. These two tour agents will make sure that we reach our destination safely. If we have any problems, they'll help us. Before we leave, the people at the tour agent office wish us good luck instead of good bye. I begin to feel puzzle about this??? Do we need good luck for this journey?

 

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Inside the third class train to Aranyapratet.
  
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Aranyapratet and Poipet border crossing. This picture is taken from the Thai border side. There's a river separating the two country.
  
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The human lorry! There are approximately more than ten people pushing the big cart to cross the border. What a tough job!
  
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