Thai Bus Company to Operate In Cambodia

[craigt3365]

Nakhonchai Air Co., a Thai bus operator, is planning  to open three new bus lines linking Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam together. 
 

Kruewan Wongrakmit, managing director of Nakhonchai Air Co., said she hopes to launch the new routes early next year. 
 

They will connect Bangkok with Siem Reap, Bangkok with Phnom Penh, and Phnom Penh with Ho Chi Minh City, according to the Bangkok Post. 
 

The company will have finished negotiating with Cambodia about the ten buses (to operate in Cambodia) by September. 
 

It is the first Thai company to invest in public transportation outside of Thailand. The company is also looking into expanding services to Laos and Myanmar.

 

 

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/3295/thai-bus-company-to-operate-in-cambodia/

 

[Ricardo]

Whereas if you're a Malaysian bus-operator, who wants to run services up to Southern-Thailand, you're currently not very welcome ? 

 

Good for NCA, identiying the need & expanding within the region, hope that the changes to ASEAN at the end of the coming year will see a lot more of this sort of thing !

 

Because it's good for the customers, which is what really matters !

[craigt3365]

Whereas if you're a Malaysian bus-operator, who wants to run services up to Southern-Thailand, you're currently not very welcome ? 

 

Good for NCA, identiying the need & expanding within the region, hope that the changes to ASEAN at the end of the coming year will see a lot more of this sort of thing !

 

Because it's good for the customers, which is what really matters !

 

I think Thailand stopped the Malay buses from coming over because Malaysia stopped Thai mini-vans.  Or something like that.  But there's a bit more to the story...I just can't remember the details.  Protectionism only helps the business owners.  Consumers are the ones who get hurt.

 

It would be fantastic to have a bus service all the way to Vietnam.  Especially in nice rigs like NCA has!
 

[Chook]

This is great news but what about the people that live in Surin wanting to go to Cambodia Will they be starting this run in the near time Kindness Chook

[aarn]

Five years ago, <<people that live in Surin wanting to go to Cambodia>>  had only about 120km to the border, then 16km to that dusty town Anlong Veng, then plenty transport ~ 3hr to Siem Riep.

Maybe all has changed... AA

[khwaibah]

Five years ago, <<people that live in Surin wanting to go to Cambodia>>  had only about 120km to the border, then 16km to that dusty town Anlong Veng, then plenty transport ~ 3hr to Siem Riep.

Maybe all has changed... AA

 

Gee how times change. Its only 75 Km from Surin to the border crossing at Chong Chom  and a  2 hour taxis ride from O'Smach to SR. BTW black top road.

[Tomtomtom69]

At this stage I highly doubt Thai buses would be allowed to enter Vietnam. Currently Vietnam doesn't allow any vehicles with right hand steering to enter the country at all. Maybe once an agreement with Vietnamese officials is reached, this could change. But so far I haven't heard of anything to suggest that.

 

Also, the article is a joke and presents widely inaccurate information: "It is the first Thai company to invest in public transportation outside of Thailand. The company is also looking into expanding services to Laos and Myanmar."

 

Umm hello but the Transport company has been operating services between Thailand and Laos for years, with numerous routes now operated. The latest one added was Loei-Luang Prabang. Lao buses are allowed reciprocal rights to operate some, or all of these routes alongside the Transport company buses on an alternate day basis, or for destinations with more than one daily service (e.g. Vientiane - Khon Kaen/Udon Thani/Nong Khai) every second journey is conducted by a Lao bus.

 

As for Cambodia, The Transport Company in co-operation with Cambodia's Nattakan transport have been operating Bangkok-Siem Reap services twice daily for well over a year now (previously only once daily), while Bangkok-Phnom Penh services, originally seasonal and daily are now year-round and operated once daily. So what Nakornchai plans to do is nothing revolutionary. Anyway, I think if they want to be the first to do something, focus on linking Thailand to Myanmar by bus. Unlike in Vietnam's case, the steering wheel/side of the road argument is no issue there as most vehicles in Myanmar, which now drives on the right, also have their steering wheels on the right and Myanmar has no such law to prevent this arrangement, unlike in Vietnam.

 

[Tomtomtom69]

One more thing: irrespective of whether the same bus is able to be used all the way to Vietnam (highly unlikely, as I don't think Vietnamese officials can easily be swayed to allow Thai buses to enter their territory) there is almost no chance of making it from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) in one day unless Cambodia greatly improves it's road infrastructure, consisting of mostly narrow, single lane highways. Currently, if you take the daily Bangkok-Phnom Penh bus, which leaves at around 7am, I'm told you're lucky if you can arrive in Phnom Penh by 6pm, which is when the bus should make it to Phnom Penh. Generally it takes 12-14 hours. Although I've never caught it myself, having seen the bus heading in the direction of Phnom Penh before Battambang, around 4pm back in February suggests to me that it wouldn't have arrived much earlier than 9pm. No idea why a mere 300km took them a full 9 hours (including the border crossing), unless the bus left Bangkok quite late, perhaps at 9 or so, but even so, the border crossing shouldn't take more than an hour and I assume there might be some sort of lunch arrangement as well, which wastes additional time.

 

As the main Vietnamese/Cambodian border closes at 8pm (unless that's recently changed) and is located a good 3-3.5 hour drive east of Phnom Penh, any bus from Bangkok, even if there were say a Cambodian bus waiting for passengers from the Bangkok bus waiting in Phnom Penh to go onto Ho Chi Minh, would need to leave no later than about 3pm from Phnom Penh. The current latest scheduled bus services, operated by any company out of Phnom Penh bound for Ho Chi Minh leaves at 4.15pm I believe, and usually just makes the border crossing. Therefore, this new service, if it can be negotiated with the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments would only work if the bus could get into Phnom Penh by say 2pm, and then leave for Saigon not much later than 3pm. Otherwise, Nakornchai should focus simply on being a competitor to The Transport Company on routes to Siem Reap/Phnom Penh or perhaps it might consider secondary routes like Trat-Sihanoukville or Trat-Phnom Penh via Koh Kong, which don't currently exist.

[craigt3365]

Incredibly good info!  I thought there was another bus company doing part of this route, but couldn't remember.  And I think they were also on and off a bit for a while???  At least for the start dates, IIRC.

 

That would be a loooooooong trip to do in one day.

[worgeordie]

So they are going to start crashing buses in other countries now !

regards Worgeordie

[asanee]

there are NOT nr 1-nr 2. the State-run BoKOSo already- extensively posted too on this very site, has in cooperation with a Khmer buscomp 2 routes ex BKK-to SR (doubled in high season due to high demand) and 1 to PnPn-stopped in low season last year. Main prob with this route was the very, very long delay at PoiPet border for processing.

VNam has at least 5 different Khmer bus companies-beside probbaly as much Vnese, doing the PnPn-HCMC run, with up to 20 trips/day combined. But about all these Khmer buses have been bought from Vnam