Day 20 (18th Feb 2013)

Day 20 / 18th Feb

Packed up and headed to the bus stop at Siem Reap. There we packed our cycles for travel and waited, we were asked to cross the road and wait, as soon as the bus came we loaded the cycles and our bags. The driver came and immediately asked us to unload all our gear, it is so frustrating sometimes when there is a language barrier. Anyway after some time we were asked to reload our stuff on another bus much to our relief. They had initially said 5 USD for the cycles but ended up taking 6 USD for each. The bus stopped near the border where all passengers going on to Bangkok and Pattaya were given red stickers for onward transport as this bus would not cross the border, it was fairly chaotic with a lot of people not understanding what to do.

There was a lady selling fried locusts or grass hoppers I wanted to try them but could not bring myself to, so asked Dipankar and he promptly put one in his mouth and started chewing but said they were ok and only tasted of the spices. Maybe i will try next time.

We got off at Poi Pet, assembled our cycles and rode to the border post. A policeman asked us to park our cycles and assured us that they would be safe in his custody and we should go and complete the exit formalities. There was a big queue, but everyone was waiting patiently for their turn.

We got our passports stamped, collected our cycles and bid goodbye to Cambodia. Cycled to the passport control at Aranyaprathet on the Thailand side, there was a huge queue there too. We filled in our arrival and departure cards and waited for our turn. Kedar meanwhile came and gave us an address to be filled up on the form for our stay in Bangkok. When i went to the immigration officer, looking at my helmet he asked where we had come from, I told him our story in short and he said very good. Then he also told me that the address we had given was where the 'normal tourists' stayed and they were areas we may not want to go to unless we were interested in that sort of 'fun'. The only thing i could surmise was that he had great respect for what we were doing, felt good.

It took us more than an hour to complete the formalities at Thailand immigration. Taking a clue from the mistake we made last time by not getting the exchange in Cambodia, we entered the first bank we saw and got some money converted in Thai Baht. ( 1 US $ = 29.50 Baht) Then we carried on to Aranyaprathet, our first city in Thailand which was 6 kms away. By the time we reached there it was 3.00pm so we decided to have lunch.

Kedar suddenly realized that his helmet was missing, went around to the train station, where we had stopped to get information, but no luck, also tried the puncture repair shop where we had given the tube for repairing.... finally came to the conclusion that he had left it at the bank where we exchanged currency. Bangkok supposedly had good cycling gear shops... so at least one place to visit was fixed after reaching Bangkok :-)   ....

After lunch we went to inquire about buses to Bangkok at the bus station. We found a bus just about to leave, tkts were 216 Baht each for us and 200 Baht each for the cycles. Bus left for Bangkok at 5.00 and to our pleasant surprise we could load our bikes with even without removing the pannier bags. Bus stopped at 7 eleven, a mega store chain in Thailand. We had quickly grabbed some ready to eat food and a cup of coffee and boarded the bus. We reached Bangkok at 9.30 pm and inquired about hotels. We came to know that the hotels were near Hua Lamphong (Old name was Bangkok) railway station, which was 10 kms away, so got on our bikes. Couple of police men escorted us to the main road and gave us the directions. We found a good hotel opposite railway station, luckily a  room with three beds was available and they allowed us to park cycles in the lobby. I took shower and went to bed. Dipankar and Rajoo went out for dinner.

Later found that they had dinner and a couple of beers on the roadside stall outside the station. |Dipankar had his favourite 'Pad Thai' :-)