Despite my wife’s fears my trip to Cambodia was a lot of fun. I took the trip with two British Guys – Tim from England and Andy from Scotland plus Jon from Omaha. We left Bangkok in a rented van around 1:00 PM Saturday and arrived at the border crossing around 5:00 PM.
We had no major problems getting into Cambodia mainly because we were willing to pay the price that the border guards preferred. Officially, the cost of the visa to enter Cambodia is about $25.00, but in order to actually get into the country I ended up paying about $50.00. The thing that stood out was that each border guard we ran into also wanted a “fee” for his service.
We did have one hitch though. Poipet is really just a gambling town but the casinos are located inside the border zone. We crossed through the zone and into Poipet itself and had a beer. When we went back to the Casinos we were stopped by Cambodian border guards who took our passports. They said that we had to leave the passports with them and they would give us photocopies in order to check into the hotel in the casino/border zone.
Tim and Andy are used to dealing with the border guards and refused to give up their passports. However, the guards were insistent. After a while Tim asked how much money it would take to fix the problem. Suprisingly, the guards said no money that this was a new rule.
At this point I was beginning to imagine being stuck in Cambodia without my passport. But, Tim stuck it out and came up with a compromise. We would keep our passports, but come back in the morning so they could process our passports once again. The guards relented and we headed for the hotel.
We weren’t quite out of the woods though. When we got to hotel we found out it was fully booked. So we went to another hotel and found it was booked as well. A trip to a third hotel was not successful either. Tim became a little suspicious and decided to lead us back to the first hotel. He asked if a more “expensive” room was available and sure enough it was. Tim, Andy, and I decided to split the cost of the room and that was that. The hotel room itself was quite nice clean, spacious, and modern.
After dinner we started our night of gambling. We spent most of time at the baccarat tables. I actually had a lot of fun and while I did lose a little money it was only about $30.00. We continued playing till around 3:00 AM before heading back for the room.
As far Poipet itself I will let the pictures so the talking. But I will say it was not as bad as I had read.
Click on a picture to open the slideshow and see the captions.
We had no major problems getting into Cambodia mainly because we were willing to pay the price that the border guards preferred. Officially, the cost of the visa to enter Cambodia is about $25.00, but in order to actually get into the country I ended up paying about $50.00. The thing that stood out was that each border guard we ran into also wanted a “fee” for his service.
We did have one hitch though. Poipet is really just a gambling town but the casinos are located inside the border zone. We crossed through the zone and into Poipet itself and had a beer. When we went back to the Casinos we were stopped by Cambodian border guards who took our passports. They said that we had to leave the passports with them and they would give us photocopies in order to check into the hotel in the casino/border zone.
Tim and Andy are used to dealing with the border guards and refused to give up their passports. However, the guards were insistent. After a while Tim asked how much money it would take to fix the problem. Suprisingly, the guards said no money that this was a new rule.
At this point I was beginning to imagine being stuck in Cambodia without my passport. But, Tim stuck it out and came up with a compromise. We would keep our passports, but come back in the morning so they could process our passports once again. The guards relented and we headed for the hotel.
We weren’t quite out of the woods though. When we got to hotel we found out it was fully booked. So we went to another hotel and found it was booked as well. A trip to a third hotel was not successful either. Tim became a little suspicious and decided to lead us back to the first hotel. He asked if a more “expensive” room was available and sure enough it was. Tim, Andy, and I decided to split the cost of the room and that was that. The hotel room itself was quite nice clean, spacious, and modern.
After dinner we started our night of gambling. We spent most of time at the baccarat tables. I actually had a lot of fun and while I did lose a little money it was only about $30.00. We continued playing till around 3:00 AM before heading back for the room.
As far Poipet itself I will let the pictures so the talking. But I will say it was not as bad as I had read.
Click on a picture to open the slideshow and see the captions.
RSS Feed