Foreign Territory: An inauspicious beginning

When we found out that J had a ten day break in October, it was quickly and unanimously decided that we had to go to Thailand. We bought our tickets to Bangkok, and we were ready to start planning ourselves a trip. I, however, decided that one country in ten days was not good enough and began campaigning that we hop over to Cambodia while we were there. J was not in agreement with me about this; he felt that would be rushing things too much [blah, blah, blah..] Needless to say, I was the victor in that argument, and now you can read below about just how right I was. [I feel like I should probably tone down the smugness there, but I really don't want to.]

A little eighth wonder of the world, anyone?

Ok, I got a little ahead of myself. We really need to begin with how we got there...

Like I said, we bought tickets into Bangkok from Shanghai. We went to the airport to catch our 11:00pm flight, where we encountered our first dilemma. We hadn't had time to eat dinner, and the only food option that was open after we got through security was KFC. For those of you who don't already know this I detest KFC. I think it is disgusting. I promised myself years ago after a very unfortunate experience (involving those despicable "bowl" creations that mushed corn, potatoes friend chicken bits, you name it- into a single eating entity. you remember.) there that I would never ever eat there again, and I had no intention of breaking that promise in China of all places. The problem was, I was starving, so I agreed to make this one exception.

I used the picture menu that they hand to foreigners to order (if you haven't done this before, they basically hand you a laminated copy of what's on the board and ask you to point to what you want). I ordered the smallest chicken sandwich on the menu that said "snack size." If I had to eat KFC I wanted to do it minimally. Ten minutes later they bring out my sandwich, it looks harmless enough, so I take a bite: THE HORROR. What have I just put in my mouth? The textures I am chewing do not make sense, so I steal a glance at the "chicken" "sandwich" I have just partaken of. I see...bits of green, orange, yellow and white fluff. It appears to be some kind of hodge podge of frozen vegetables and indeterminate protein? maybe?...

And it's time to board.

Now we're traveling on the cheap as best we can, so we've booked the discount fare that has an overnight layover (1:30AM to 5:30AM) in the Shantou airport (still in China). We'd already prepared ourselves for sleeping in the airport, clutching our bags. At least we'd be through security, right? Wrong. It turns out that the Shantou "International Airport" is about 100 square feet and closes down at 2AM. They kicked us out right as we arrived. So we were stranded with nothing but a bunch of ~~con artists~~ taxi drivers to, ahem, help us.

It's a very frustrating thing to know that you're being screwed over and having zero power to do anything about it. I won't go into all the details of this terrible evening. To sum up: When bargaining is the m.o. for an economy it's not a good thing for you when the person you're bargaining with knows without a doubt that they are your only option for transport and/or shelter.

We make it back to the airport in the morning, catch our flight and arrive in Bangkok before lunch. We take a hot pink Corolla taxi to the bus station across town and make it just in time for the 1:30 bus. Woo hoo! Things are looking up. We grab a quick lunch- some kind of delicious, fresh local curry, and get on board. The bus is nice, air conditioned, and the scenery is beautiful.

View out of our window as we were leaving Bangkok.

On the bus. Eventually he'll learn that by refusing to smile he's only hurting himself. eventually.

After a five hour ride we eventually come to Poipet where we catch a tuk-tuk to take us to the border. They stop once to try to scam us into buying fake visas but we were prepared for that so we staged a protest and insisted on being taken to the real border.

I liked his decorations. Those lights actually light up when he breaks and such.

After about an hour there of figuring out who the real police were and who we could trust (as it turns out, the answers were "everyone" and "no one" respectively) and walking way too far with our backpacks in an attempt to find the real taxi station that had shut down for the night as good luck would have it, we finally settled into a cab that took us to Siem Reap, where we booked a room at the Garden Village Inn for $7 a night.