How to travel from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia for less than £10 (€13) each!!

Time line of journey from Bangkok to Siem Reap.

Make sure you check out the tips for the trip at the bottom! It's better to prepare yourself for this journey! 

After hearing about the potential scams, we found that it wasn't as bad as previous years.

5am - Taxi to Hua Lamphong train station, Bangkok. Get your hostel/hotel (we stayed at iSanook) to call a taxi for you so it's on the meter! We stayed in Silom, 10 minutes drive from the station. 

Cost: 50baht (split by two - 25baht each)

5.15am - Get your tickets. Go to the ticket counter, it's not hard to miss. Ask for the 5.55am ticket to Aranyaprathet. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and showed it to the man at the counter with the time. 

Cost: 48baht. Total so far: 73baht

5.55am - We leave. Train leaves slightly later and arrives at Aranyaprathet station at 12pm (it said on ticket arrival is 11.35am) but this is quite good for Thai-(never on)-time! 

12pm - Arrive at train station. Tuk Tuks outside of the station will try to charge 100baht, you can bargain down to 80baht, I didn't see or hear anyone get any lower! You want to go to the border, be careful they may try and stop outside a travel agency. To avoid this if they mention about a visa just say you have an e-visa. 

Cost: 80baht (split by two - 40baht) Total so far: 113baht

From here, it's pretty simple. All you need to do is just walk through Thai immigration and get your passport stamped out of Thailand. When you leave here you then walk into the Immigration office on the right hand side of the road, you're in Poi pet which is full of casinos and this office is just before the holiday palace casino. (If you have an e-visa you don't need to come into this office. Just walk 100 yards passed the casinos and you will see a sign saying "ARRIVALS"). It took us about 5 minutes to get our VISA, we gave them our passport and paid $30 US Dollars and then 100baht each because we  didn't have a passport photo. I've heard about scams here but again just be careful and know how much your paying.

We then walked 100 yards with our visa to "ARRIVALS" on the right hand side of the road. We queued for about 10 minutes filled out an arrival card and got stamped into Cambodia. I had read before that it takes a lot longer (45mins-1hr) because they take fingerprints. However, they did not use the fingerprint scanner. The place was under a shelter so even in the hot midday sun we felt cool there. 

The "free shuttle bus" is free and takes you to a bus terminal. Here you can book a taxi ($12 each for 4people), a minibus ($10 each) or normal bus ($9 each) 

We opted for the minibus because the man said it was about to leave (it left 30 minutes later) but it was a good option, it had 10 people on there, it was very spacious, comfortable with leather seats and air con. 

Our minibus left at 2.30pm 

Cost: $9 US dollars (320baht). Total so far: 433baht

The minibus driver made a toilet stop (at a shop where you had to buy something to use the toilet), then we arrived somewhere where a lot of tuk tuks were waiting for us at 5.15pm. 

They tell you it's a free tuk tuk to the centre but it's just to take you to travel agency's and guest houses to stay and book tours. By this point we were really tired, we didn't want to book anything until we got to our guesthouse (Siem Reap Rooms Guesthouse). We negotiated with the tuk tuk driver to take us straight to our guesthouse for $3

Cost: $3 (110baht. Split by two: 55baht each) 

Overall total: 488 Thai baht or $13.66 US Dollars or £9.85 GBP or €12.50 euros per person! 

                      

Tips:

1. Make sure you get a taxi on the meter, they always say "traffic" and try to charge you three times the price. Ask your hotel to book you one and then it will be on the meter.

2. Get to the train station early! The train will be there so i recommend to get on it as soon as possible. Locals use this train and there are only two a day so it gets busy quickly.

3. Upstairs in Hua Lamphong station there is a bakery where you can buy food for 40-60baht. Buy something and take it on the train. They do sell drinks & food on the train but it is nothing special. 

4. Get a seat on the left side of the train to make sure you don't have the sun on you the whole way. It's pretty cool though with the fans and Windows open the whole way!

5. Now have your wits about you! The tuk tuk from the station may try to take you to a travel agency where they will complete your visa forms for you and charge you more money for a visa. If the tuk tuk driver says anything about a visa just say you have an e-visa! Ours didn't say anything and took us straight to the border. 80-100baht tuk tuk to border from Aranyprathet, you will find people to split it with if your a single traveller. 

6. There's nothing in Aranyaprathet so don't stop there at all, make sure you get straight in the tuk tuk! If you need cash/food you can get this at the border. It isn't a scam. We changed our baht for US dollars at an currency exchange in a bank and we got a good rate!

7. They will accept Thai baht everywhere up until you arrive in Siem Reap so don't panic if you don't have US Dollars by now!

8. The visa is $30 and 100baht if you need a passport photo. If they try to charge more my advice would be just to talk loudly so everyone else there can hear, they will soon want you quickly gone and charge you correctly.

9. There are very official looking "immigration points" where the men in uniform look legitimate. We asked how much for visa (for our own curiosity) and he wanted $40. Stick to the main points as I've explained in the blog.

10. Get your passport stamped out of Thailand and then proceed to get your Cambodian visa.

11. Use the "free shuttle bus" service. By this time you definitely would have met others doing the same as you - get talking to them and if there's 4 of you I would definitely opt for getting the taxi!

12. Be careful when they make the stop in the minibus. They don't use Thai/US coins in Cambodia so all the change is in Cambodian Riel. A guy we met bought a beer for 40baht, he gave the lady 100baht and she gave him back 2,000 Cambodian Riel which worked out to be 18baht instead of his 60baht change. He managed to get the money back easily, but just be careful! I recommend getting the www.XE.com app, it updates every time you have an Internet connection and is perfect to check your not being ripped off!

13. We were tired and hungry so just told the "free tuk tuk" driver we didn't want to stop anywhere only our guesthouse, ok we had to pay $3 but by this point we were tired after a 4.30am wake up! If you know where you're staying you can for sure use the free tuk tuk service and just say no when you arrive at the centre to save more money.

I hope this helps you on your travel across the border.

Please pass on to a friend if they too are doing the same

Happy Travels 

Jade

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