We arrived at Hualamphong train station at 3am, expecting to be able to wait for the 5.55 train to
Aranyaprathet.
As we paid the tuktuk driver, he told us that the train station is
closed until 5am...he could of told us that earlier hey?! So we had no
choice but to wait. We went into a 7/11 and got some drinks and then
made our way back over the road to the train station. There were
litteraly hundreds of people sleeping rough outside the staion, we
couldnt find anywhere to sit. We finally found some spare ground and
sat down. The floor was dirty, as you would expect, there were lots of
rubbish and some of the biggest rats I have ever seen in my life! We
sat and talked, we played 'who am I' by writing names of famous people
on the back of some playing cards and sticking them to our foreheads,
this drew some attention from the locals, I thought this wasn't
necessarily a bad thing though, I somehow felt safer knowing so many
people were looking at us.
The doors to the station opened about 430, the locals who were
sleeping rough were actually really nice, they told us that the doors
had opened, as we hadnt noticed, and ponted us in the right direction.
We got our tickets, found a seat and waited some more... We got on the
train at around 5.45am.. and that was where we stayed un til 12 noon.
The train was hot and dirty, the others went to sleep but, as you know, I cant sleep
unless i'm horizontal! The only way to achieve this would of been to lay
on the floor, and believe me, I wasn't that tired! There was an overhead
fan which was just blowing warm air and dirt around...I was glad to get
off that train.
From the train we got in a tuktuk to the boarder. The boarder
crossing was quite an experience, so many people! I was hard to tell
who was trying to sell us things and paperwork we didnt need, and who
was actually telling us the correct way to go.
It took about an hour to get through, I guess it was a pretty smooth crossing.
So, we are in Cambodia!
An American guy came over and asked if we'd like to share a cab with him into
Siem Reap,
we said yes. He was a med student who had gone to Thailand to work in a
new hospital for the winter, but when he got there the hospital wasnt
ready to open, so he'd packed up and gone travelling. The cab ride was
about 2 1/2 hours, we stopped half way at a little roadside store, I
think the driver had an agrement with the store owner, we bought food
and drinks, and he got his cab washed for free! We finaly arrived at
our hostel in Siem Reap at around 5pm.
The journey from Koh Samui, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia was a 712
mile, 29 hour experience! ..it's a really, really long way! The shower
I had just after we arrive at the Tom and Jerry hostel in Cambodia was
the best shower of my life!
We got food at the hostel, which was cheap and quite nice, we ordered
our food as we checked in and as we'd been telling them about our long
journey, they insisted on bringing it up to our room for us! Later we
walked into the town, found an ATM and got a foot massage, which was
heavenly!!!
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