To Cambodia via Thailand: how to get there and what to see

How to get there

The earlier you start planning your trip, the better. You can search for a long time how to get to Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia), but you are unlikely to find something direct and not for all the money in the world. But a $400 option to Bangkok and back will definitely catch your eye. In 2017-2018, Qatar Airways, UIA, Flydubai, Air Arabia had good options. Then you can fly Bangkok-Phnom Penhor Bangkok-Siem Rip ($60-100 round-trip), catch Air Asia sales.

Visa

Since November 22, Thailand introduced a visa-free regime for Ukrainians visiting the country for tourist purposes for up to 30 days. Now about visa to Cambodia. Visa to Cambodia can be issued upon arrival at the airports of Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, or at the checkpoint at the entrance to the country, the cost - $30/30 days. The visa requires 1 passport size photo or you will be asked to pay a $1-3 fine. You will also be asked to pay 100 baht to the officer at customs. Simple as that. Don't argue - you can't prove anything, it's official corruption.

On the Cambodian government website, you can make an electronic visa, which costs $37 for 30 days. However, there are cases when customs officers cannot find your e-visa in their database when crossing the border and ask you to pay the visa fee again. Even if your visa is rented out - it is very difficult to prove anything.

We spent 3 days in Bangkok itself and it was not enough. We advise you to plan at least 5 days for Bangkok - temples, bazaars, palaces and parks will not see themselves. We won't write about Bangkok - there are already a lot of guides about it.

Way to Siem Reap

You can book a bus ticket in a guesthouse or any tour company (many offers you will meet right on the streets). You can go to the bus station and at the same time find out all the details of the trip, or buy online on such sites:

• www.siemreapbus.com
• 12go.asia - it's worth booking 3-5 days in advance.
• giantibis.com - according to reviews - the best company. We couldn't buy tickets here, as they were sold out three days before departure.

Ticket prices range from $18 at travel agency carriers and hotel-guesthouses to $32 at Ibis.

Transportation in Cambodia

The country is slightly larger than Western Ukraine, but there are no Kyiv-Chop class roads. There are three highways, approximately like Kharkiv-Dnipro with two and sometimes four lanes. They connect the country with Thailand and Vietnam. The quality is good, but these are hardly the only normal roads in the country. Most of the roads are unpaved.

There are no railroads here! Pol Pot believed (Cambodian dictator, leader of the Khmer Rouge movement - ed.) that there was no reason for people to roam inside the country. Now they've opened one line from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. But the trains are still Soviet trains from Pol Pot times, so it's not a sure thing that you won't break down on the way.

There's no public transportation here! Not even shuttle buses. In the cities ordinary Khmer people are taken by privateers and cargo pickups + tuk-tuks. Almost everyone here has a moped, so public transportation is not honored. In Phnom Penh, however, they opened one bus route along the central street of the city. The country is transforming here too :)

People are taken between cities by private companies, the quality of which is often better than in Ukraine. You can buy tickets online. There are very cool carriers - you drive a minivan at 90 km/h. They give you water, wet wipes, and there is also wi-fi in the bus! There are slipper buses - night buses with reclining seats. They go, as a rule, from Phnom Penh to Bangkok and other long distances. Convenient mode of transportation, gives you the opportunity to save money on overnight accommodation, but there are scammers.

Be careful not to leave valuables in the luggage compartment. Even deep in a suitcase or backpack. There have been cases when in the luggage compartments were hidden and scammers, who during the night of the trip had time to thoroughly dig through the belongings of passengers.

How to pass the border of Thailand with Cambodia

And here is where the secret of cheap bus tickets at $18-20 is revealed. Tour operators make a stop before the border to "eat", and at the same time collect passengers' documents for visa making. Such a visa costs $45, although at the Cambodian border you willpay $30 for it. Don't be fooled and demand that they take you to the border or at least show you in which direction to go. We were shown the direction and sent...to the border on foot.

2 km and you already pass the Thai border, where you get a stamp (or, as in our case, a re-entry permit). Everything is quite fast and organized. A few minutes and you are already in front of the gate to Cambodia. To the right of this gate there will be a room where visas to Cambodia are issued. 5-10 minutes, $30 and 100 baht - you have a Cambodian visa in your passport, and tour operators learn to provide normal service and not to cheat tourists.

Then you wait for your bus (do not be afraid, it will not leave you, you can safely leave your things there, but be sure to keep your boarding pass during the whole road) and go to Siem Reap - because all tourists go to Khmeria to see Angkor Wat and we advise you to do it.

Siem Reap

Depart Bangkok at 9:00 and you will be in Siem Reap around 20:00 the same day. You will not be taken to the city center. Your bus will stop on the outskirts, your stuff will be thrown out of the trunk into the dust-dirt, and you will be dropped off in front of a bunch of local tuk-tuks, which "for free" should take you 2-3 km to your hotel or at least to the center. But there will be no freebies, of course - tuk-tuker will try to vtyuhaet you his familiar stores, excursion to Angkor, and at the end will ask for at least $5 tip. Don't fall for it!

Although you can fall for the excursion to Angkor Wat, but only if your driver agrees to bargain. Formally, the transfer to the hotel in Siem Reap is included in the price of the ticket from Bangkok. So get on the tuk-tuk with a stone face (or better yet, smile and refuse) and know that you are entitled to a free ride to the local old market where you can drink beer, eat well and hang out if you are not too tired, or even if you are.

Angkor Wat

We won't dive deep into facts and history, you can read about it in Wikipedia, but we will tell you how best to view this incredible cosmic object. So, Ankor Wat is just one of many temples scattered within a 50 km radius of the modern city of Siem Reap. It was once a whole agglomeration of temples, each with their own lands, monks, acolytes, hospitals, artisans, etc. Just so you can make associations - the pyramids and temples of the Incas and May are on par with Angkor Wat.

Here are 5 points on how to see it all in one day and not die.

1. Before you buy tickets without a guide, watch movies from BBC and NG about this place. You'll at least know what these rocks mean.
2. At your hotel, book a tuk-tuk for the day. The price should be no more than $20. This price includes early departure to meet the sunrise. Subsequently, discuss the route with the driver himself. There are two standard ones - large and small circles of temples. The large one will cost more. Your task is to mix the itinerary so that it contains all the best and costs $20.
3. Buy tickets to Angkor itself. It is better to do it on the eve of your visit, the ticket office is open until 17.00. A one-day ticket is $37, a 3-day ticket is $62, and a 7-day ticket is $72. By the way, $2 from each ticket is transferred to the account of the children's hospital.
4. Itinerary.

05:30 - meet the sun in the main temple of Angkor. Don't even go inside, run back to the tuk-tuk. While everyone is stuck in the most temple of the world, you have a chance to see other temples almost without people :) Next on the list:

• Bayon temple;
• Angkor Thom;
• Elephant Terrace;
• Terrace of the leper king;

2-3 more temples to choose from, and then the obligatory Preh Khan, Ta Keo, Ta Prum (the same temple of Angelina Jolie, where the scenes of the movie "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" were filmed) and return to Angkor Wat in the afternoon. You can see everything here now - the biggest tourist attacks have passed.

5. After all the sightseeing, grab yourself a coconut each ($1) and sit somewhere in the shade to rest. Then ask a tuk-tukker to take you to Pub Street, there you can lie back and relax with a foot massage ($3-5) for a full hour! But be careful, child labor is often used, don't agree, double-check who will do the massage. After everything you can leaf through the pictures and enjoy life.

It turns out to be expensive, but visiting monuments of this scale cheap and does not happen. Emotions, historical and cultural pleasure is just a lot!

Khmer food

It is very inferior to Thai in variety. But here quite vividly savor bugs and insects (we tried). In Thailand it is more entertainment for tourists, not food, but here it is not - they sell it at bus stops like seeds. There is also a lot of rice and noodles, which are cooked with everything you want. Except cheese - Khmer people are not very good with sour milk. There is a lot of fruit - mostly mangoes, coconuts, pineapples, because it is in season. Prices are very different everywhere. For locals - $1/kg. Total disappointment - their seafood! Except for fried fish and shrimps, there is nothing (and those are expensive).

Prices are a $1 country

This hasn't been true for a long time, the country has gotten more expensive, possibly due to inflation, but most likely a credit to tourists. The main points to splurge on:

Food: average check per person + drink - $5-7 If you want something with shrimp + $ 1-2.

European cuisine starts at $ 3-4 per dish.

Pizza - $7

Coconut - $1-2.

Fruit shake - $2.

Beer - from $0.5. And even nothing like this, better than many of our conveyor belt ones;

Massage is cheaper here than in Thai, but it's hard to get a really cool master. It can cost from $4 to $15 depending on the salon, masseur, etc. Lifehack: if you're in Sihanoukville, look for Seeing Hands Massage, a massage done by the blind, it's in our top so far.

A tuk-tuk around the city can cost $2-5.

The price of accommodation depends on the season and location. In Phnom Penh and northern Cambodia you can find very nice options for $10 per night. In Phnom Penh, you can rent a room in a 5-star hotel for $35 . In Siem Reap and Sihanoukville a room or a room will cost $20-30 per night. Accommodation should be booked in advance, we were in Sihanoukville on New Year's Eve and there was nothing cheaper than $150/day. On the islands, prices are a bit higher than on the mainland.

To book accommodation:

- Booking.com;

- Airbnb;

- HomeToGo (a pretty good search engine).

Where else to go in Cambodia?

Tonle Sap Lake - we weren't there, they say it's a tourist rip-off, but the views are extraordinary and the real life of the poorest Khmers (Vietnamese immigrants in fact) is represented there in all its glory;

Kampot is a resort town with gorgeous French colonial architecture and the world's best black pepper;

Phnom Penh and the Mekong River - the capital is well worth a visit. It has great streets with bars, there's a fortune teller's market on the waterfront, also check out the royal palace and visit the memorial to the victims of Pol Pot's rule;

Sinaukville is a party resort. A lot of discos and places to hang out on the long beach (quite dirty). We didn't stay there for long and sailed to the islands nearby:

• Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem - gorgeous nature and clear sea. These are wild islands with lots of nice beaches that are hard to get to through the jungle. Usually come here for 1-2 nights, but keep a lifehack - get to Sihanoukville, get on a boat and plan your vacation on the islands. It's worth coming here for a week or more, but be prepared for snakes, poor connectivity and slightly higher prices for the sake of glowing plankton, great snorkeling and real island life.

The main thing to go to Cambodia for is the people. Sunny, kind, a little shy, genuine, simple and beautiful in their impulses. Live with the locals, eat with the locals, explore their lives. Cambodians can be quite loud - they can talk on the phone for hours or listen to their favorite chanson singer for the whole cabin. Be prepared for a Khmer to blow his nose or burp in front of you - it's the norm for them.

If you hear their karaoke somewhere - run away, it's just audiogenocide of the farangs (that's what the locals call tourists). One time we even went outside and asked them to make the night concert a bit quieter - and it even worked.

You should also realize that the country is developing, construction is in full swing everywhere. Just like in Sihanoukville, there is construction everywhere, and on the islands - at least near the ports. There is a lot of garbage, which can not help but repel. But along with this negativity is a lot of beauty, simplicity and delicious fried insects. I'm sure for you this country will be a real challenge, an experience worth experiencing for every traveler and we definitely recommend you this experience!