Anyone Recently Travelled Overland From Cambodia To Bkk?

[jimmiethefish]

Hi, I will be taking the bus from Cambodia (flexible as to which town I depart from) to Bangkok soon and am hoping to get any up to date advice on best place to cross the border, rip-offs, through-tickets (I know they aren't proper through-tickets, just cut out the purchasing hassle after crossing the border - supposedly), travel times, bus/mini-bus or bus/bus or bus/train - best combo, road conditions and how good/bad the drivers on the Thai side - I'm well familiar with the road conditions and driving habits on the Cambodian side; I'm hoping it improves over the border. I am a non-flyer due to medical reasons so please don't suggest that I fly.

Cheers

[hansell]

Hello jimmiethefish,

I've done this a couple of months ago, from Poipet / Aranyaprathet border. Although I was approached by a lot of beggars, it was not a bother for me. From what i remember, on the Thai side, there's a bus terminal in front of Kasikorn Bank that departs hourly to Bangkok and fare is cheap, 200 baht more or less.

A friend suggested that there's a more comfy bus (also air conditioned) if I wait til 5 pm. So I just did some shopping (bags are cheap) on the border market and ate early dinner and slept most of my 3 1/2 hour trip to Bangkok.

Good luck!

[ESB7]

Did Sihanoukville to BKK by bus in the daytime about 5 months ago.......although a long journey, I think almost 12 hours in total......no problems at the border or anything. Cost was about 800 Baht.

[Spaniel]

My wife and I crossed from Cambodia to Thailand at the Poipet/Aran border crossing last month. As soon as you leave the Thai Immigration area you can get a tuk-tuk to the bus station in Aran for B80. Buses depart quite frequently for Bangkok so you probably wouldn't wait over an hour. The road is an excellent 4 lane hiway and I think the travel time to Bkk is about 4 hours but this could be longer depending on the traffic conditions as you get nearer to Bangkok. I dont recall any hassels/rip-offs to look out for coming into Thailand from Cambodia at this border point. Most rip-offs seem to be going from Thailand to Cambodia, on the Cambodian side.

[SantiSuk]

Thai roads are better and faster than Cambodian roads. However Cambodian coach drivers strike me as being sober and relatively skilled (5 long distance journey sample over 4 years). Thai coach drivers are some of the worst in the world - tired, popped up on Red Bull and overconfident. Don't sit in the front seats, or get a train.

[asiawatcher]

Does anyone know if you can take your Thai registered car into Cambo for a break?

[phuketrichard]

Just posted and yes its easy,

Cambo

[jimmiethefish]

Hi and thanks for all the info. In the end I decided to go through Koh Kong, and to break the journey into 2 stages as I had plenty of time & I'm not so good at sitting in buses for a long time.

The bus ride from PP through the Cardomoms to Koh Kong was very good with an excellent driver who drove very carefully around the twisty bits. I stayed at the Apex which was adequate with the added bonus of a pool to jump into to rid one's self of bus fatigue. I booked the through-ticket for Bangkok at the hotel.

The bus to the border forgot to come so a car pick up was arranged at no further cost. At the border, I confused the Cambodians at first by having my old and new passports with my visa in my old, cancelled one, theoretically making the visa invalid from the date of issue of the new passport. They managed to take it all in their stride and stamped me out on my new passport. On the Thai side I still needed to show both passports. As I had a lot of baggage, I made use of the lady porters and their trolley but you don't have to. I got onto a mini-bus (Transit van) quite quickly and then had to transfer several times.

Now, something that I wish that I had known about before was the elevated expressway going into Bangkok. My 2 greatest fears are speed and heights. I can cope with one at a time but putting them together for a 40-50 minute white knuckle road race at night nearly killed me. If I had known, I would have taken the minvan to Pattaya and caught a train from there, even if another night was involved.

I have to say that after all the stressing about a land border crossing between Cambodia and Thailand with all the stories of being taken advantage of, things going wrong etc, that it was one of the easiest border crossings I've ever done, and I enjoyed my overnight in KK. I recommend the breakfast at Bob's ice-cream bar (it's the only ice-cream bar in town so hard to miss) and the 2 for 1 coffee.