Scammed, again.

It's tough getting out of bed at 5am Davis Hotel Styleee.
This bed is warm. It is comfortable. The sheets are crisp and clean and the pillows...ah the pillows. Everything a down pillow can be and then some. This is my last bit of luxury in SEAsia. It's back to living lo&cheap.

But it's a new day. And new days bring about new adventures. I am meeting Martin with his blue hair at Soi Ram Butri's 7Eleven. We are taking a 12 hour bus journey to Siem Riep, Cambodia to check out Ankor. I am excited.

We check out downstairs. They give me a breakfast box.
Thanks The Davis. You guys are so switched on.

I am back in the Kaoh San 'hood. Same as last time, the prozzies are holding up the lager louts. And the air smells of beer and stale cigarettes. It's not very pleasant but I don't care. I see Martin in the distance. We go into the 7Eleven. We need a caffeine fix.

The mini bus is on time. A first. We pack into it with about 7 other travellers. Martin and I have not seen each other in 4 weeks and we want to catch up. We chat away much to the irritation of the grumpy/sleepy guy in front who says something like "GRRR ay ay quiet, sleep please."
"Whatevah".

The mini bus is air-conned. It's comfy. After talking for about an hour the monotonous highway gets the better of me and I start to doze. The trip to the Cambodian border seems to go by quickly. And then it comes to a standstill.

We have stopped. At 11am. For lunch.
Some people are getting grumpy. Most of us want to move on. But of course we all order pad Thai or green curry and tuck in. The food is not too bad.
An hour clocks by. The bus driver "assistant" who is well dressed in a pressed shirt, slacks and smart polished shoes hands out visa forms.

There's a bit of a rumble between us travellers. "Hey, can't we get our own visa at the border"
The assistant in almost perfect English growls "yes, if you want to catch another bus. This way is quicker"
So of course we all take a form and dutifully fill it in. We all pay the ADDITIONAL 500 Bhat (about $18). We want to get there fast. We want to save time.

But time continues to rush past and we are going nowhere. We are still stopping for lunch. It's now been an hour and 15. People are getting antsty. One guy asks (the grumpy guy from the morning) "Hey, what's going on. You told us only an hour stop. We wanna go."

The assistant snaps.
"I don't like foreigners who not treating me good. You want to get to Cambodia you respect. Me no time for people like you"
The grumpy guy grumbles. We all look a little embarrassed for him. I feel guilty for the Thai assistant (sucker flaw number 1).

We hang around in the heat. The guys from the mini bus start a game of sh*t-head. A brilliant card game, with a rather awful name! Martin and I LOVE sh*t head. So we join. It's a good ice breaker and soon we are all chatting.

I meet Tamara. She is from Belgium. She is really cool. We chat about psychology (she's a psychologist) and a travelling. We really get on.

And suddenly the Thai assistant calls us to the bus. TWO HOURS LATER.

The bus is now a truck. We are all shoved into it like cattle.
(did no-one stop to think that something WEIRD was going on? Of course not. This is Asia)

We get to the border in 15 minutes
(So are you telling me we waited for TWO HOURS just to get to where we wanted to get to in 15 minutes. What the HELL IS GOING ON???)

The border post between Thailand and Cambodia has a weird feel about it. This might have something to do with the hate these two countries harbour for one another. There is a market on the Thai side. It sells everything from clam shells as snacks, clothes, food, electronics. But I cannot shake off this strange feeling. This feels like no-mans land.

The Thai assistant guides us into a queue. It is so hot and all of us are lugging our packs in this humid, heat. We stand around for a bit and finally enter an air conditioned hall where we are handed our passports which we then pass onto the border officials. Our passports are stamped and we're all in, except Martin.

At "lunch" when the Thai assistant was collecting our passes he missed Martin by mistake. Martin doesn't want to pay the extra 500Bhat. He wants to do the visa himself. But the Thai assistant is NOT having any of this. "You give me the money and we can all go quick otherwise you go alone." There is some tension in the air. It is weird. Martin hands over the money and the passport.

And then we wait. And wait and wait. For TWO MORE HOURS. God knows what we are waiting for. As we are fanning ourselves from the unbearable heat, waiting, I remember we need to get currency. Our smart assistant overhears me mention this to Martin.
"You must draw money in Thailand. No ATMS in Cambodia. And you get better exchange rate at the border"

I ask Martin how much he thinks we need.
The bus assistant answers
"How long you in Siem Riep for?"

3 days.

He says an amount equivalent to about 80GBP

Martin and I look at eachother. That is a LOT of money in Asia for 3 days.
We decided to draw less. A whole 10GBP less each. Big deal.

(why lord, did our warning bells not go off round about now?)

Panic. What if the queue starts to move and we miss the ATM and we miss the exchange rate that's so good? We decide we need to go back into Thailand to drawer or else we will be screwed and cashless. I go across. It takes a while. I have to go back through passport control into Thailand.

Eventually I get the cash
Martin takes it to exchange around the corner.

As he walks away into the distance something clicks. This doesn't feel right.
Siem Riep is a MAJOR tourist spot. Surely there'd be ATMS and money exchange?
Why is our assistant being so helpful?
What if the rate is not correct?
Is this a scam?

"No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous. This guy is trying to HELP us" I think to myself.

Martin comes back.
We exchanged at 70 to 1

We are then pushed into a mini van. In fact we squeeze in and the Japanese fellow who was on our am bus now has to SHARE a SEAT with a new traveller. A Cambodian called Bo.
Bo welcomes us to Cambodia. He tells us that he will assist us in getting accommodation when we arrive in Siem Riep. He seems really nice. Maybe a bit too nice?

We start driving. It is AWFUL.
The worst road we could possibly be on. It is a dirt road filled with potholes. It's hardly a "road". We are in the middle of nowhere bumping along at a VERY slow pace. How long will this take? Another SIX hours. The trip is getting longer than expected. People are angry and upset. My back is in agony from the road. This is so bad.

We have only been driving for an hour when the mini van pulls up to a restaurant.
Another stop.
But we don't want to stop.
We have no option.

Inside we scan the menu. It's not expensive for us - a dollar a meal, but in Cambodia that is a FORTUNE for a bowl of soup.
We order.

After everyone has eaten we all get back into the mini van. It is getting dark.
We continue to bump along. The road does not get better for the next 6 hours. It gets worse.

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Martin and I eventually arrived in Siem Riep that evening at 10pm. We were conned into taking one of Bo's rooms. It wasn't too bad of a deal.
We found out later that the exchange rate was 120 to 1. We had each lost $50 - a lot when you're budgeting! We also found out that the route we had taken is known as the "scam route". Apparently all that waiting at the border is to make sure most ignorant tourists change money to fill the pockets of the touts. The stop at the restaurant is a commission stop. And the additional 4 hours tagged onto the pothole road drive is there to make sure you are so exhausted by the time you arrive in Siem Riep you will take the first room offered.

The first thing we did once we'd checked in was go directly to an Internet cafe. Here we booked two return flights back to BKK. There was NO way I was going through a day of hell on earth again. I felt angry not only at the bastards that took us for a ride, but more so at myself for being so bloody stupid.

After booking the flights, we decided to take the day as a lesson and to let all that bad energy go.
We were both still excited about the next 3 days of Ankor.