Sisophon, Cambodia - What a DUMP!!!!!

A bit worse for wear!

The train stopped at Aranyaprathet where we crossed the slightly confusing border crossing into Poipet, Cambodia. You can actually visit various casinos before you have to officially go through immigration!

We were immediately irritated by the rip off bus/taxi service company that takes you further into Cambodia. There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it as there is no other way of getting out of Poipet. We spoke to another couple who got followed around by this company who scared off any other drivers who offered to take them into Siem Reap for a cheaper price. There is literally a taxi mafia and the Cambodians are scared of them!

Anyway, we planned to go to SiSophon as there are ruins close to the town. The road to the town is infamously bad, basically just a mud track, and as it had been raining all the pot holes are ten times worse! When the taxi pulled up in SiSophon I wanted to cry! The town was a cesspit, mud and rubbish everywhere and the car got surrounded by people trying to pull us out of the car and sell us things. We managed to get some moto drivers to take us to a nearby hotel, charging us a fortune for what turned out to be about a 200 meter drive. No sleep, hungover and now VERY pissed off with Cambodia... not a good start! Luckily the hotel was our saving grace, really nice with TV!

There was nothing around us and as it was Sunday there was no where to change money. We had a few Thai baht on us and managed to convert that but it was about a pounds worth. We traipsed through the muddy streets and tried to find somewhere for dinner as we hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. We ended up just managing to find a little corner shop and had a delightful meal of pineapple biscuits and disgusting prawn crisps! We decided that there was no way we were staying here and longer than nessessary and just wanted to get out of the dump. The following day we took the bus to Siem Reap.