Sihanouk Ville, getting there...

After speding a few days inPattaya, we had planned  to head to Cambodia.   There are any number of tour operators advertising they run a Bus service to Had Lek, we seemed to book with the one who had a driver who had no idea he was supposed to take us to Had Lek, this was of course not know to us at the time or we would have looked elsewhere and saved the hassle.

Toni had organised a bus transfer to Had Lek, a land crossing on  the Thai/Cambodian border, even the bus trip turned into a journey, as we'd thought we'd purchased a ticket to Had Lek.  The driver however had other ideas and abandoned us at a bus depot in Trat.  Toni was having none of that and had it out with the driver, who conceded in the end and paid for a trip to Had Lek from Trat in another mini bus,

Trat Bus Transfer Station

 once again like the trooper she is, she sorted it all out.

We arrived in Had Lek, finally, you leave Thailand by walking up to the office, people with carts bringing pigs and chickens the other way, nothing like the glitter of Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, then you walk across no-mans land

Striding across no-mans land between Thailand and Cambodia

 to the Cambodian side

The plan was to go to Shianouke Ville for a couple days, relax and try to take in the real Cambodia.   The reil (pun intended, the Reil is the Cambodian currency, though the USD is the de facto currency, dispensed at all ATM's etc) Cambodia started by getting scammed at the border by having a couple guys fill in our immigration forms, 100 Baht each, thanks for coming.  I had tried to warn her about this but she had our passports whipped out before I could say boo.  She is not used to officials being complicit in scamming tourists, the Immigration offical sitting as immplaccable as Buddah on the other side of the counter.. One of the many touts on the Cambodian side leapt to our "help" in securing a private taxi (from hell !) to Sihanoukville, after some haggling we got him down to B2600, not sure if that's a good price or not, who knows, he started at B3500.

The drive in the private taxi was CRAZY, 4 bald tyres, a dilapidated Camry,

Taxi Ride from hell !

a nasty clunking wobble coming out of the front left side, the A/C worked, sort of, he had to switch it off going up hill, he never slowed down when overtaking on blind corners, or even going through towns, there he simply blasted on his weak horn to warn the villagers to get the hell out of the way.  Stock was all over the road, buffalo, pigs and chickens but mostly cattle.  Rather then  take in the scenery, which I was lapping up, I suggested Toni close her eyes, man, what a ride.  5 hours later, we made it but once again, we had assumed we would be dropped off at our destination, never trust that assertion, we were simply "abandoned" at the bus interchange at Sihanoukville once again.  From there, we negotiated with a Tuk Tuk driver for $5 to take us to the Tranquillity Guest House on Serendipity Beach, hopefully they had a room.

Our first Cambodian Tuk Tuk ride

I had read on a  travel forum somewhere that it was decent,  it was and they had a room thank Buddah !  Started travelling at 7:30am, arrived at the destination at 7:30pm...

Our room

sweet, a quick shower and dinner, then turn in tired from doing nothing but sitting in buses and Taxi's all day in two foreign countries

Had Lek (Thailand) / Koh Kog (Cambodia) border crossing