Thailand - Cambodia Visa Run - Pattaya/Bangkok - Siem Reap/Phnom Penh

Thailand is such a nice place, but they only give me a 1 month visa for free. Since I was planning on staying longer than that, I needed to go on an infamous visa run.

For those not up with the visa run terminology, it basically means exiting the country you are currently in (Thailand) with plans to return shortly there after with a new visa. In Thailand a tourist visa is not extendable past the one month provided. This means you really do have to leave the country or start paying fines when you finally do decide to leave. In Thailand I believe a fee is imposed for each day you go over your visa end date.

Given that I was on Pattaya at the time, heading to Cambodia seemed like the thing to do. I had a friend who had once mentioned to me that Cambodia was home to some temples that had been found rather recently (as those things go) and that they were amazing to see. This sounded like a pretty cool thing to check out, so I started investigating the options available to me in regards to Cambodia.

It turned out that the temples were near the city of Siem Reap. Cambodia has two main tourist destinations. Phnom Penh, the capital, a good place to learn about the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and see the life of a big Cambodian city. The second main tourist destination is obviously Siem Reap and the famous temple complex housing the jewel of the temples, Angkor Wat (my favourite temple was a different one, but Angkor Wat is the most famous).

Siem Reap was actually closer to Pattaya than Phnom Penh, so I was looking at the overland options. It turned out to be a pretty scary prospect.

The closest border crossing between Pattaya and Siem Reap was Poipet. After doing some research, the trip sounded like a nightmare. Getting to the border didn't sound so bad. There are a plethora of minibuses etc that want to take you to Poipet.

There are plenty of shops of a recurring theme in Thailand and travel shops offering visa runs are plentiful. Note that the ones in backpacker central, Khao San road, Bangkok, are perhaps not the most trustworthy of choices. It doesn't even need to be a travel shops, I was even offered a deluxe taxi drive by my barber.

At the border post of Poipet there are a mass of beggars that will be waiting for tourists that might throw them some money. Whilst their situation is terrible, it is generally it is regarded as a bad idea to give a beggar money, as then the horde will be upon you expecting the same. With numerous land mine victims and such poverty, it must be a very heartwrenching experience.

There are also huge numbers of scammers wanting to make you pay extra money. The biggest scammers are probably the government workers themselves at the immigration booths. Reading up on what these scams are and how best to tackle situations that may come your way is very advisable. One popular scam is people offering to fill out your immigration form for a fee. This form is so easy to fill out that no such help is necessary.

If you make it through the pain of immigration, you now have to get from Poipet to Siem Reap. That road is a particularly bumpy one. It is rumoured that certain people go out of their way for it to remain so to keep their own business interests in check. Catch a plane anyone?

Other scams also come into play here. Some operators will actually pretend to break down and delay your arrival. Why... so that when you arrive late, tired and in the dark, they are more likely to be able to get you into accommodation where they are going to receive a kick back. Welcome to Cambodia, where kick backs are a major part of life.

I was getting fed up with the whole visa run thing when I talked to a friend I had made. He suggested checking out Air Asia
. Expecting to find some shifty airline, I was most surprised to find that Air Asia was a Malaysian airline that had won awards for its service. The best part about Air Asia is that they are also extremely cheap. This were starting to look up. Check out my articles here on Air Asia - Air Asia - Quality Cheap Flights Throughout Asia

I managed to book 1 way tickets from Bangkok to Phnom Penh (they don't fly to Siem Reap) for about $50 each way (taxes et all included). I think the added safety and comfort of the taking a plane over Thai and Cambodian roads, missing out on the ugly scenes at the border crossing (although I think this would definitely be something you would remember for a long time) were well worth it.

I was able to get a bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap in a nice deluxe bus for something like $8. This is about a 6 hour drive! To my surprise this even included a bottle of water.

I also later talked to someone whose friend had taken a ferry trip from Bangkok to Cambodia. Apparently she recalled it as the scariest thing she had done in her life. The river was extremely rough and they thought the boat was going to sink. They were also sharing the boat with poultry. This sounds like a pretty interesting story to hear about, but perhaps not to be involved in, if it is in fact true.

Whilst in some ways I think it would have definitely been a pretty amazing experience to do the overland border crossing to Cambodia from Thailand, I'm still pretty happy I took the flight option and saved my sense of adventurer for other parts of the holiday.