The Journey
The trip to Cambodia was initially a part of the Thailand visit until someone realized that while it’s easy to cross into Cambodia from Thailand on road, it’s quite a different story when trying to get back into Thailand with an Indian passport. In a spurt of enthusiasm, and while we were still in Bangkok, a couple of us booked flight tickets from Phnom Penh back to Bangkok, so that we could get a visa on arrival at the airport, and caught the next bus headed towards the border at Aranyaprathet.
A journey that usually takes about five hours took seven with the bus driver having to stop to ask for directions, a local sitting in front of us getting very annoyed at our conversation, an American loudly declaring that he found it odd that people still listen to Guns n’ Roses because he couldn’t recall the lyrics to Knockin’ on Heaven’s Doors (which was originally a Dylan song anyway) and how dubstep’s the real stuff now, and a downpour for the last couple of hours. This culminated in quite a climax which had us squeezing into Cambodia at about 1955 hrs with the immigration office closing at 2000 hrs. The officer at the Thai end clarified that we can reenter Thailand on road, although it remains to be tried, while the officer at the Cambodian end took a 100 Baht bribe because it was almost closing time and he could.
The trip to Cambodia was initially a part of the Thailand visit until someone realized that while it’s easy to cross into Cambodia from Thailand on road, it’s quite a different story when trying to get back into Thailand with an Indian passport. In a spurt of enthusiasm, and while we were still in Bangkok, a couple of us booked flight tickets from Phnom Penh back to Bangkok, so that we could get a visa on arrival at the airport, and caught the next bus headed towards the border at Aranyaprathet.
A journey that usually takes about five hours took seven with the bus driver having to stop to ask for directions, a local sitting in front of us getting very annoyed at our conversation, an American loudly declaring that he found it odd that people still listen to Guns n’ Roses because he couldn’t recall the lyrics to Knockin’ on Heaven’s Doors (which was originally a Dylan song anyway) and how dubstep’s the real stuff now, and a downpour for the last couple of hours. This culminated in quite a climax which had us squeezing into Cambodia at about 1955 hrs with the immigration office closing at 2000 hrs. The officer at the Thai end clarified that we can reenter Thailand on road, although it remains to be tried, while the officer at the Cambodian end took a 100 Baht bribe because it was almost closing time and he could.
