Since all of Bangkok was in political upheaval and the airports did not work we decided to cross into Cambodia by land: early morning 5 hour train ride to the border, then another 2 hour taxi drive to Siem Reap, the city of Angkor Wat.

The train ride went by smoothly as I was completely absorbed in my yet another Bryce Courtenay book and didn’t notice the time passing at all. Nothing particular to mention, except that being blatantly ripped off at the border when getting our visas at the Cambodian embassy made for a sour welcome (the visa stamp clearly said $20 but they charged us $30 each – “Special price just for us”).

The border crossing town itself was a mess at the Cambodian side with heavy construction going on the main road, but once out of town the road to Siem Reap was mostly freshly laid and only the bridges over the many creek crossings were still being renovated. The taxi ride was lovely and full of sights of provincial Cambodian life. I did my best to capture what I saw. Some things of note were the “petrol stations” – simple roadside stalls with petrol in bottles, then a few guys on bicycles carrying huge amounts of empty petrol bottles (obviously to get the filled) and people using the good asphalted stretches of the road to dry their crop.

At the end of the day I had my first ever “Geez it’s a small world!” experience as we went out at night to take a walk down the streets of Siem Reap, stopped by an “oasis” of posh western outdoor bar party in the midst of 3rd world country chaos and ran into Ben from Vanuatu – just like that. I have heard of the incredible coincidences before but  experiencing one just like that was quite another story – it was cool!