Caught the plane (after departure tax Rup 100,000 ea) to Bangkok just after midnight. Don Muang has improved out of sight in the last few years and passenger processing is professional and painless. Quick taxi (Bt300) into the Asia hotel , sucked into no meter again, but at 3am what can you do ? Then the bloody taxi broke down on the freeway, just as I was going to leap out shouting, he got it going again and we made it to the hotel. Heads down till about ten am, sat waiting in the restaurant for the buffet lunch to start. It's worthwhile staying at the Asia for no other reason than to eat the lunch (Bt 250). Had Tom Yum for dinner at the little café down the road where the baby elephant came by looking for handouts, even though they're supposed to be banned from walking the streets of Bangkok.

Sunday morning at 6am we took the skytrain to Morchit bus station (following the instructions copied from the talesofasia website). Detoured briefly to look at the weekend market but unfortunately very few stalls were open. Bought tickets (Bt 164) to the Thai/Cambodian border and left on the 7.30 bus. Lunched at the Aranyaprathet bus station with a couple of Americans we met on the bus. Ege was of Turkish extraction and Sung had been born in Korea. Tuk-tuk to the border (Bt50), welcome to the zoo. Very little motorised vehicular traffic except for hundreds of hand carts pulled by little dark people in rags and bare feet. Fought our way past the local mafia to get to the appropriate windows and bought our visa (Bt 1,000), politely declined a request for a bit extra to grease the wheels because they insisted on calling me "papa". Once into Poipet the trouble really started. We chose a Camry from all the Camrys lined up in the square but who should arrive but the sleazy looking blokes we thought we had left on the other side of the border. They proceeded to harass us about the price of hiring the car, excluding the driver from the negotiations. We got into the car and they positioned a tuk-tuk behind until the driver agreed to pay them a bribe. I forgot that life is cheap and threatened the touts with reporting them to the police, then sobered up by realising it was only money and not worth lying, bleeding in the mud over a couple of dollars. Still, it pisses me off that the driver has to do all the work and those arseholes make just as much as standover merchants.

Finally left Poipet about 1pm and after 6 hours in hell arrived in Siem Reap. It got dark about 5.30 so our driver had to ask directions to the Angkoriana Hotel. As it turned out the hotel was quite near the town centre, on the road to the temples, just around the corner from the Grand Hotel D'Angkor. Ege and Sung decided to stay at the Angkoriana also and proceeded to haggle the price down from US$50. They asked what we had paid and I said about AUD$65, so they offered US$30. The night manager thought that they were with us and (I think) didn't want to offend Venture Holidays (who had booked for us) so she gave in. Later, when she found that the Americans weren't with us, they had only shared our car, she questioned why we had told what we had paid, as though it was our fault. We had agreed to pay BT 1400 for the car but the bloke did such a good job we gave him Bt1,000 and the others gave him Bt 800. The road was almost destroyed in parts, holes so big we didn't think the Camry would get through. The locals called it the 'dancing road' as all the passengers flop around as the car grinds it's way over, around and through the enormous pot holes. Never again !

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CAMBODIA & VIETNAM
December 2002
Arrived in Denpasar mid morning, unusual for us as most flights Darwin – Denpasar are middle of the night. Caught a taxi (Rup25,000) to Kuta and took a day room at Champlung Mas ( AUD$30) had a swim in a lovely pool all to ourselves, lunched and snoozed. Went for a walk to the beach and it started to rain so we sought shelter in a little restaurant. Everything is very quiet, very few tourists, the streets are almost empty, most of the restaurant/hotel staff have gone back to their villages. Those remaining wear T shirts with "Don't let the terrorists win….. Come back to Bali".