The Long Road (and Border Crossing) to Cambodia!

November 18-20.

What would have been an hour or so flight took nearly 24 hours by overland travel. My friend Peter, when we were in French West Africa, had said he enjoyed seeing the landscapes and meeting locals, it was more enjoyable than flying, blah blah blah. I could see his logic but frankly, I think I’d rather fly next time HAHA. From the islands of southern Thailand, I took a ferry/bus to the mainland and the train back to Bangkok, where I stayed overnight. I met up with two of the French guys I’d met in Koh Lanta, one of whom lived in Bangkok and the other trying to, swam in the rooftop pool and we had a fantastic dinner in Chinatown.

The first train to the Thai border town left at 6 a.m. and cost less than US$2. I love Seat61.com (best guide for worldwide overland travel) for all the detailed information it provides! Leaving Thailand, I realized that I had accidentally overstayed my visa by a day and was fined 500 baht (about US$15) by the Royal Thai Police. Oops.

The entry into Cambodia was filled with scams and it didn’t seem to end once we entered the country. (= overall opinion of Cambodia.)

1. Taxi from the train station to the Thai border took us to a fake Cambodia embassy fit with “Welcome to Cambodia” sign (before we had even left Thailand – how do people fall for this?). We simply walked to the Thai border ourselves.
2. To get our visa on arrival, the officials wanted a 100 baht (Thai currency) “processing fee” despite the sign saying it should be exactly and only US$20. I told him no a few times and then he finally turned in my paperwork. One of the girls on the train just gave him the evil eye. It took less than 10 minutes to get a ghetto handwritten visa back on our passports.
3. Bus to the Passenger Transit Center was free, but once at the center, you were charged an exorbitant (by Cambodian and Southeast Asian standards) amount for bus or taxi to the city of Siem Reap. I’m told it’s run by 3 different mafias and they alternate days.
4. The taxi we took that said we would be dropped off at our hotels actually dropped us off at a taxi station somewhere outside of town and we had no choice but to pay for another taxi to get into town because it was getting dark out. They said the taxi ride was free unless if we booked them there and then for US$15 for a tour of Angkor Wat the following day. Grrr. Also casually asked the efftard taxi driver about SIM cards, he said they were US$10 for foreigners but as a local he could get them for US$5. (Every other SIM card in SEA I’ve had has been US$0.25-2.00.) Evil eye.

I was rather cranky by the time I checked into my guesthouse and didn’t really leave my room much (do I feel like being wary/annoyed about constant scams/ripoffs/misinformation and suspicious of everyone I encounter today?) The outside world was hostile and I couldn’t be bothered with it. Not liking Cambodia at all. It was so unpleasant compared to every other Southeast Asian country I’d been to this year, which was pretty much all of them.

However, my NYC best friend Sri and his wife Nipa were arriving the following evening. Yaaaaaaaay! Excited to see them after a year! :D

Arrival in Dakar, Senegal!

October 15.

Being in the capital of Senegal was a relief after two weeks of depressing Mauritania and nearly an extremely frustrating/stressful week stuck at the border. Electricity! Running water! Internet! No border-patrol assholes! Some form of city/civilization! Peter and I seriously needed to decompress. We did nothing the first day except sit/lay in air conditioning and maybe look out the window.

Peter was ill from something and I was leftover angry/stressed. I had so much negative energy from Riff Raff Rosso I didn’t know what to do with it. Where can I go shoot/punch/kick something?

We wanted to GTFO of Senegal ASAP but considering all the trouble it took to get into the damn country, we thought we should maybe try to stay. The country could be redeemed…? :? (Eff this place!)

The plan had originally for me to follow Peter around the coast of Western Africa (or maybe slightly inland to Burkina Faso) to eventually reach his girlfriend in Benin by end of November. Neither of us knew what we were going to do. Peter was playing with the idea of going through Mali, which was on my eff-no list, because of the conflicts going on there. I eventually determined that the train he was planning to take was actually defunct. Ivory Coast? Burkina Faso? Ghana? Togo? Fly direct from here? Are we going to Gambia? What are the visas situations? Where are the embassies? Eff visas! 

We messaged Tilmann and Jessica to tell them where we were so that we could finally meet up after nearly a week. I didn’t realize once we got to Dakar how much I had missed the German couple and my sanity.

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Ha. Writing about the stress makes me slightly stressed, two months later.