Cambodia ;-)

Hello,

today we got up at 6am, packed and enjoyed once again a delicious breakfast at our hotel. I have to fit in a short review of the Park Plaza Sukhumvit, for anybody wanting to stay in Bangkok, in a nice hotel which is not overpriced.

We had a deluxe corner room, with a freestanding enormous bathtub (fotos of Christian in it exist ;-) ), the previously mentioned rain shower (a dream), a desk, a couch and a really big bed. The view was really nice - though it naturally cannot compete with the 60 stories high skyscrapers. We were on the 12th (second to last floor), on the city side, so the noise from the street in front of the hotel was barely noticable. The room cost 3800Bhat (ca. 95€)  including breakfast for both of us. Surely that isn't cheap but we didn't want to live cheap the first few days of our vacation ;-) but we also didn't want to spend 200 - 300€ per night in one of the brand hotels. The service was impeccable, as was the rich breakfast buffet. The rooftop pool offered an amazing view and was a great place to relax after an exhausting day. The meals in the restaurant were also great. In addition to that the hotel is about 200m from the skytrain. Yesterday we let the nice lady at the front desk book a taxi for us from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. If you are looking for something like that we can really recommend Mr. Suktara (Tel: 081 - 442- 1674 or 02 - 915 - 0147). The whole trip to the border, which took roughly 2,5 hours, cost us 2000Baht. 

On our arrival at the border our driver unloaded our stuff and as I went to pay him Christian was already held hostage by one of those scammers who try to get you to fill out some sort of border-passing forms, which then also costs you a fee and does not serve any purpose. I pulled him away, we grabbed our backpacks and went straight for the border. The scammer had suddenly vanished...The thais nullified our visa, we crossed a bridge and got our cambodian visa for 20$ and an additional 100 Bhat per Person. Were the 200 Bhat another scam? I don't know, but we weren't in the mood to fight over it ;-) After getting our visa we walked another 200m and came to an „Arrival“ booth. We had to fill out an „Arrival & Departure“ slip, and Christian had all of his 10 fingertips scanned – the scanner on my side was broken, so I came through without fingerscans...

                                                            Border on the Cambodia side

The next stop was the booth of the Cambodian Ministry of Tourism which offers free minibusses to the bus & taxi station. We got into a bus and arrived 5minutes later at the official transit station. The guy who accompanied us was veryyyy talkative. But, as we have to admit, also very helpful. He explained about the bus/taxi fees to the different cambodian locations – taxi and bus cost the same per Person, but a taxi is laid out for four people, so you pay double fee if you are taking a taxi with only two passengers. We paid 40$ for the taxi to Battambang. That was the moment Christian realized that his sunglasses were missing... FUCK! We panicked a bit – what to do, where to go... the talkative guy called the minibus, so we could check there first – it arrived 5minutes later with a couple of tourists. Christian searched the bus and found his glasses – thank goodness... our first real „adventure“ had come and gone ;-)

We got into our taxi, drove off, just to stop again a few minutes later. Our driver stuffed some things into the trunk and an old man and a little child – no more than two – got into the taxi. The more the merrier....

The drive to Battambang took nearly two hours, after which our driver let us out at the wrong hotel. Luckily ours was only a 10 minute walk away. The Phka Villa. It's nice here but we are still not sure, that it really is worth 50$ a night... We will see.

                                            View from our terrace at the Phka Villa

We arrived here at 15:00 and decided to chill today. We read, and had dinner here. I think we will call it a day soon and do some sightseeing tomorrow.