The bus journey from Siem Reap to Bangkok was advertised as taking around 6 hours. A quick search on google maps suggested about the same, so I figured that by taking an early departure I could get into Bangkok by the afternoon. I could then comfortably find my way to another bus station for an onward journey the remaining 2 hours to Kanchanaburi, to the west of the Thai capital.
After nearly 4 months on the road in south east Asia by then, I really shouldn’t have been so optimistic (or naive) to take that journey time in good faith and assume we’d make it in good time. Particularly as the journey would include crossing the most notoriously sketchy land border crossing on the backpacker trail.
The bus itself was unremarkable. No surprising luxury features, but nor was it as cramped or overcrowded as other journeys. Armed with a fully charged ipod and a few news articles preloaded onto my phone as well as a new book, I had my entertainment sorted. I don’t remember the scenery out the windows being quite as captivating as in some other areas, but still it was nice to watch it for a while as I prepared to say farewell to a country that gave me a pretty incredible range of experiences and emotions across just three weeks. I hoped (and assumed) it wouldn’t be goodbye forever. If I did end up teaching English in Vietnam in the future as I was planning to do, I’d be able to pop across the border to visit pretty easily.
I was conscious of the time throughout the journey, and we seemed to make it to the border town of Poipet in a pretty timely manner. So far, so good.
We piled out of the bus and were ushered over to a long, snaking queue outside the departure building, an ageing, rusting tin shed of a place that reflected pretty accurately the reputation that the crossing had.
I had my guard up more than usual, having carefully placed any valuables in hard to reach places and keeping a good grip on my bags, phone, wallet and passport. I’d read too many horror stories on travel blogs and in my Lonely Planet about scammers and pickpockets operating there.
The queue moved slowly, and the longer I was stuck in it the more I grew worried about the time. The later we left the border, the more likely we’d be to hit peak hour traffic on reaching Bangkok, and the lower my chances would be of making it to Kanchanaburi that night.
I don’t know how much time had passed by the time I finally got stamped out of Cambodia, and completed the much quicker process of getting stamped into Thailand before walking across the border to wait for our new bus on the slightly less chaotic roads on the Thai side. I got myself lunch from a nearby 7/11 while waiting - a toastie and a cornetto. It already felt great to be back in Thailand.
There was a brief bit of confusion amongst the group from my bus, as we stood around waiting for a little longer than expected for another vehicle to show up and collect us for the rest of the journey. When it finally did it was a fair bit smaller than what we’d transferred from, so we braced ourselves to be cramped up for the next few hours as we made our way to Bangkok.
At least there were only about 3 hours left. Right?
Wrong.
I watched the clock and watched the scene outside the window, constantly on the lookout for signs that we were leaving the countryside and entering the urban area that surrounds Bangkok. There were multiple false alarms thanks to the industrial complexes that line the highway at a few points along the way, and we were up to around 5 hours since the border crossing before we did actually hit the outskirts of Bangkok.
It was already early evening by then, and peak hour traffic was building. Still, we didn’t have that much further to travel so I figured I could probably still squeeze in the journey to Kanchanaburi before it got too late. I paid increasingly more attention to the increasingly busy and frenzied city streets outside the window. Even though I planned to leave straight away that night, I was so excited to be back in the city. I loved it so much already and did so more and more with each visit, and arriving there is always a bit of a sensory overload. I grew more hungry with every street stall serving up noodles, curries, grilled pork or fried chicken that we passed, the aromas (combined with traffic fumes, yum!) wafting in through the open windows whenever we were stuck in traffic jams, which was often.
The traffic got progressively worse, and we watched the sun slowly go down over the city streets through the windows. I love the atmosphere of Bangkok at sunset and the hectic urban scene outside my window was beautiful to me, but I had been hoping not to be there for sundown on this occasion. From when we first reached what I’d deem to be outer Bangkok, it took us another 2-3 hours before finally reaching our destination and getting off the bus.
It felt like an eternity. It was pitch black by then, and I had given up on reaching Kanchanaburi that night. Getting back on a minibus for any longer was just too unappealing, and if I did manage to get on one I wouldn’t make it to Kanchanaburi until close to midnight. After spending nearly every waking moment on buses I needed to eat, and to sleep. The rest of the journey could wait for the morning.
Before we got off the bus I flicked through my Lonely Planet for a few hostel recommendations, and set out to find one close to where we were dropped off.
Being Bangkok finding a decent hostel was almost too easy, and after briefly confusing myself trying to navigate a few sub-soi’s to find the right place, I walked past a pack of adorable street kittens and into a small, modern hostel reception. I secured a bed for the night, dumped my backpack on it and went right back to the front desk, asking for advice on a good place to grab dinner nearby before hitting the streets.
I walked back past the kittens, stopping to pay them some attention and attempt to take a photo or two on my way past, and noticed a big pile of cat food that someone had left for them. Something I’ve really come to love about Bangkok and Thailand in general is how local residents so often seem to feed and look out for the stray animals that hang out on their streets.
The hostel was just off a main road and close to a couple of Skytrain stations but still a good distance from where I’d stayed on my last stopover in the city, transiting between Laos and Vietnam almost 2 months ago. I went walking and wandered a kilometre or two in each direction along that main road, building my first impression of a part of the city I’d not yet explored until finally my stomach demanded I pull up a plastic chair at the next random food stall along the way.
As ever, that was a happy experience. Stopping to catch your breath, take a seat and watch life continue at a frenzied pace around you while you do nothing but sit, drink and eat in a sweaty south east Asian metropolis is truly one of life's most basic yet beautiful pleasures. I had a simple but typically delicious dinner, a Thai style omelette with rice (which I have since learned how to cook at home), washed down with a large Singha beer.
As excited as I was to get to Kanchanaburi the next day (nearly 2 years after trying and failing to get there on my first visit to Thailand) a part of me longed to just stay in Bangkok until my flight home a week later instead. Every time I found myself there I fell in love with it more, lost in the endless possibilities that only a city like Bangkok can offer. I promised myself not to linger too long in Kanchanaburi and miss out on spending a few nights back in the capital before going home.
I walked slowly back to the hostel after dinner, taking a few detours to see what the area had to offer before again going straight to the front desk once back at the hostel. I pre-booked a bed for my return from Kanchanaburi, happy enough with the place to go back rather than search for another place to stay when I did return in a few days' time.
I also asked the receptionist which bus station I needed to go to in the morning, and was told I’d instead be better served going to the nearby Victory Monument. There I could searching the massive roundabout surrounding the monument for the where the regional minibuses departed. He wrote down both directions and the Thai script for my destination on a piece of paper to make life a little easier for me in the morning.
Following that, I had one of the greatest, most satisfying showers of all time.
Showering after a long day of travel always feels pretty good, but after weeks, months even of weak trickly streams of lukewarm to cold water falling pathetically onto my skin, the powerful water pressure and steaming hot water were both absolutely heavenly.
It was a long one, and I slept damn well afterwards. Some of the best sleeps of my life have been in cheap hostel beds after an exhausting day, and this one was right up there.