After visiting Thailand’s gulf islands we wanted to pop over to Cambodia to see the historic Angkor Wat in Siem Reap and the capital, Phnom Penh. We read that you can take a bus from Bangkok over the border directly to Siem Reap and that this option would be significantly cheaper and take about as much time as flying since all flights stop over through Phnom Penh. So, we organized our exit from Koh Samui based on this plan. We decided to get a ferry + night bus from Koh Samui to Bangkok’s main bus station, called Mochit, so we could get a bus from Mochit over the border and save money on one night’s accommodation.
Friday, April 22
In preparation for the long journey ahead we went to the Whole Foods-like grocery store for snacks, also grabbing some weird pastries for breakfast (one involved a powder I described as “essence of hot dog”).
The ferry from Koh Samui to the mainland took about 1.5 hours. After disembarking the ferry we stumbled around the parking lot looking for the company we booked with. There were people crowded around a woman shouting ‘Bangkok’ so we showed her our email itinerary and she gave us a piece of receipt paper with a QR code on it and told us to wait. Less than a minute later she boarded us, and the crowd, onto a mega bus, taking our QR codes (without scanning it, a common occurrence in our travels).
After we had all boarded she came on the bus to count us and found her count was off. She recounted a few more times and then must’ve realized a resolution because we took off. We were on this bus for over an hour, making local stops for people to get off.
Approximately 5 non-Thai gringos were also with us and we kept glancing at each other nervously wondering if this bus was part of the ticket, since no one ever confirmed or told us what would happen next.
After an hour the bus stopped and we got out into the parking lot of a closed bus station. Not a word was said of what was happening. Of course, I had to pee, so I tried to pry open the locked station doors while looking longingly inside. The driver of the mega bus got out and into the driver’s seat of a taxi truck. As he walked by Carl asked where we were supposed to go and the man pointed at the locked doors of the station. About 6 Thai passengers got into his taxi truck and they drove away.
Another official looking guy appeared and eventually directed all the gringos into a passenger van. We drove through the town and he seemed to stop on a random road. As we got out of the van we joked that they were going to load us into Tuk Tuks, to continue the trend of putting us into smaller groups in smaller vessels all the way up the coast.
Then we realized we were across the street from the real (open) bus depot, where a big overnight bus waited for us. We went across the street to get dinner at a greasy chopstick and I pointed to the wrong translation on the menu (and Carl didn’t correct me!) so we got some rice and pork and a side of fried egg, which ended up being pretty good. At the depot we got onto a very fancy overnight bus. I’m not joking about the very fancy part. The front of the bus said ‘VIP’ in swirly pink font, and we did feel as if we were treated like very important people.
First, there was a bus crew member that spoke to us in English and told us about all the features of the bus and when we’d arrive in Bangkok. There was pretty good wifi and chargers. They provided pillows and blankets and the chairs went back almost 180 degrees. They also gave us water, cookies, coffee packets, ice tea, and moist towelettes. This treatment was night and day different from our experience at the closed bus stop. But good experiences feel ever better after bad ones, so maybe it was worth it.
Saturday, April 23
At 5:30am we rolled into Mochit station. We got out and wandered around, looking for the main terminal. Finally a woman in a fluorescent vest told us, in pretty good English, that we need to walk ‘that’ way, ‘far’. Through the maze we found the main terminal. The blog we’d read said look for orange signs with 999 written on it that signify the company ‘Transport Co Ltd’ who have buses to Cambodia. We walked all around and asked several people before finding the right window. At one point I asked the guy at the information booth and he just said ‘no’, held up his hands in an X, and left through the back of the booth, closing the door lightly on his way out.
Turns out he went to ask another lady (and two more confirmed) that buses were not going across the border because it was still closed because of COVID. We had read on multiple sites (including the Cambodian immigration site) that the land border had indeed opened again but the Cambodian representative at the DC embassy had not replied to our email to confirm.
We were presented with the option of taking a bus up to the extent of the Thai border from where we’d have to take a Tuk Tuk and walk to get to the entrance to the Cambodian border, and then find a bus from there. We’d read that this land crossing can be dodgey, with lots of scam artists ready to walk you to the wrong building and ask for money for a Cambodian visa.
Even though we had our e-visas, and we knew to expect dodginess, we weren’t sure the adventure would be worth it especially if the border was, in fact, still closed. So, using our limited phone data in the bus terminal we booked the cheapest flight that we could find for the following day.
We’ve been using the Marriott Bonvoy credit card for all flights and hotels and this has paid off in the form of Marriott hotel points. We are overflowing in points. So we opted to use some of these points to book a nice place in Bangkok for the day/night. We picked the Surawongse Marriott (named after the road it’s on) and were so happy with this choice.
We showed up to the hotel lobby just before 8am with no reservation. The desk staff let me connect to their wifi in order to reserve a room through the Marriott app, using points. Then they said the room was ready for us to go in to AND they upgraded us to a higher floor.
We cruised up to the 25th floor and ogled at the views from our room. Even though we were exhausted, we wanted to eat something and see a little of the area before giving up on being tourists for the day.
We walked to a place called ‘(Not just) Another Cup’ for breakfast. I had an iced caramel latte that tasted like a milkshake made of dreams come true and Carl had a Coco Americano (americano with coconut juice). Then we split a ciabatta egg sandwich with avocado, bacon, and a lemony pesto sauce and had a smoothie bowl for desert. It was pricey, but worth it.
Then we walked in the opposite direction toward a place calle Warehouse 30 that I’d seen in google maps. The place was a grouping of art galleries and fancy shops that reminded us of our beloved Industry City in Brooklyn. We looked around the galleries, at the street art, and the wayyy overpriced vintage clothing store. Then we headed back to our hotel.
Carl took a nap while I went to the pool. I sat in a couch lounger behind an infinity pool that looks out over the city. I ordered an overpriced Chang and cooked myself in the sunshine, grateful for every decision we made leading to this moment.
Eventually Carl came to join me. A man next to us overheard our loud American accents and we ended up finding out he has lived in Davis for nearly 50 years. He and his wife (who told me I must go buy some knock off handbags and told Carl to ‘let me’ buy them) were on their 45 wedding anniversary trip. He is a civil engineer and he had some unique (mildly crazy) ideas for how to preserve Californias limited water supply.
For dinner we decided to look for the nearest night market. One had closed due to COVID but we found stalls lining another street. We got some barbecued pork, sweet beef soup, and rice with fried chicken on top. We also played our new favorite night market game where we point to things that we have no idea what they are and ask, ‘Is it Cake?’ As we walked around we passed by several strip clubs and bars with red lights and later realized we had been in the red light district!
Unfortunately the hotel TV did not have Netflix to watch more ‘Is it Cake?’ but we entertained ourselves with watching the end of Harry Potter (the same part we watched in a hotel before!) and a show about an exotic zoo in Scotland.
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