Well last week we had a long weekend because of a Buddhist holiday. Some of my friends and I decided to take the opportunity to go to Siem Reap in Cambodia to check out Angkor Wat (very old ruins). We looked into flying but said no when we found out it would be around 300 dollars, for a four day weekend we thought that was a little too much to pay. Plus we've only been paid for about half a months wages. So we decided to take the bus. Now we had heard some stories about how this bus ride was not very pleasent, but we all agreed to go especially because it only cost us about 40 dollars round trip!



So early Thursday morning 5 of us set out ready to have an adventure. Our bus left on time around 8:00ish am and we drove for a couple hours then took a restroom break. The bus we had was a nice charter bus with AC and comfy seats so the ride was not so bad. We kept on driving for another couple hours untill we reached a town right outside the Cambodia/Thailand boarder. We stopped for lunch and had someone get our Visas so we could enter Cambodia. Total, we were here for about an hour. We finally got to the border when it started to rain.  So we all waited under a tent until the rain let up then we walked to the boarder. Getting through the boarder took a long time. We had to stand in line to exit Thailand then  fill out entrance cards

 and stand in line again to enter Cambodia. We didn't get through until about 4pm or so.



Once we got to the Cambodian side we got on a smaller bus and drove a few minutes to another place were we got off the bus and changed to another bus. People also exchanged money into the cambodian currency. Later I found out a lot of those people who exchanged their money got ripped off. We found out that some Cambodians are just looking to make a buck and would lie if they needed to. Thankfully no one in my group had any bad experience like this.



So once we were on our new bus, we headed to Siem Reap. Now you need to know that Cambodia does not have many paved roads. They are mostly dirt and clay. We were told that this bus ride may take up to 7 hours. We were prepared for the worst. Like I said before it had just rained so the streets were pretty muddy and there were a lot of holes making the trip a very bumpy one. I have some pictures of all the mess we were driving through.



After we got out of the city of Poi Pet we were pleasently suprised. The roads were not nearly as bad as we were told they would  be. Part of the time the roads were even paved. We drove foor about 2 hours and took a break . By now it was dark outside and the country side in Cambodia does not have any street lights so it was completely dark except for the buses head lights.



During this bus ride I read a book and would take short naps in between chapters. It was actually not very bad. Now this bus did not have AC but with all the windows open there was a nice breeze and with the sun setting it was rather cool on the bus. The cambodian country side was beautiful with rice fields and mountains in the background. The trip from Poi Pet to Siem Reap actually took between 4 and 5 hours not 7 like others predicted.



When we got to Siem Reap it was prettly late and we wanted to get to our guest house. This guest house is kinda like a bed and breakfast. We ran into some trouble with the room the first night. They actually gave our rooms away b/c they thought we would not show up b/c it was late. But they were very kind and foudn us another room for the same price just a couple minutes away. Then they picked us up the next morning and took us to our actual rooms.



I need to go for right now and will write about what we saw and did at Angkor in another entry. Pictures will also come soon.