Today’s ride on Komoot – to Poipet
Today’s ride on Komoot – around Aranyaprathet
I made it out of the hotel and to the Chao Doi coffee shop next door. A massive effort before sitting down to coffee and waffles. Both were fantastic. I’m still trying to think of the last time I had waffles but it’s just too long ago to remember.
Today will take me through the infamous Poipet border crossing, a place I’ve been to before. Back in 2012, it was totally disorganised, dirty and dusty with loads of people just hanging around. I’m looking forward to see how it’s changed, but first, I had about 45kms of flat road to make it there. I also have just under USD20 in Cambodian Riels to spend before the border, so I expect to eat very well today 😁.
I stopped at a small store beside the main road out of Sisophon and grabbed a bottle of water. The kind 12 year old who served me, made me put it back and he grabbed a cold one from their ice box. Very nice of him – he didn’t have to. So I thanked him profusely and when I left, he had a big smile on his face as if to say – I did a good thing. He did.
The ride was flat and boring but quick and as I neared Poipet, the traffic became quite busy.
The crossing has changed a bit in ten years – for the better too. However, I veered away to the north and went in search of a restaurant and a grocery store so I could spend the rest of my Cambodian Cash. I got lucky and found a nice place to eat over the road from 7-11.
Then it was on to the crossing. I parked my bike and walked up stairs to be processed out of Cambodia. Very quick and easy. I then rode to the Thai entry point, parked the bike, filled in a form and headed upstairs to be processed into Thailand. That took nearly 2 hours – aaaagggghhhh !
I must have arrived just after a busload of tourists, and being lunchtime, the border staff were disappearing for their breaks every few minutes. The time dragged on and on. When my turn came, the lady couldnt understand why I didn’t have the details of my hotel in Aranyaprathet. The fact was, I had almost no mobile reception at all in Poipet and couldn’t book anything. She also wanted details of my flight out of Bangkok which I couldn’t provide for the same reason. She went away and came back only to ask the same series of questions again. I really thought she was going to refuse me entry which is nuts because Thailand is currently screaming for more tourists.
In the end, she shook her head and let me through.
Next job was to recharge my Thai sim card, so I thought I’d stop at a phone shop and see what options I had. Across SE Asia, there’s more phone shops than any other, so I couldn’t believe it when I made it into central Aranyaprathet without finding one that could help me. I went to a coffee shop that had wifi and used that to recharge and all of a sudden I was connected again.
I really depend on it for booking, routing, finding food etc, so to be disconnected felt strange. I should do it more often, as it makes travel more ‘old school’.
The hotel, was four kilometres back from where I came and on the way, I had my first dog chase for months. That didn’t take long. Six mutts decided to show me their teeth and bark, growl and chase. I got sick of it, jumped off the bike and ran at them. They ran away, but everytime I turned my back, they ran back again. The big dog came out to see what the commotion was and they fell into line behind him. So, I picked up a handful of stones and as I did so, they all ran away. The Cambodian dogs couldn’t be bothered and very few Vietnamese dogs were interested, but therre’s something about Thai dogs for some reason. Wish I knew what it was.
The hotel was great – simple and clean, with a restaurant 100 metres away. I had a Chicken Biryani and it’s the best chicken I’ve had since leaving Thailand at the end of September. It’s good to be back. er … except for the dogs
