Land Travel: Siem Reap to Bangkok

If you ever get bored in Siem Reap (which is most likely to happen after staying there for 3-4 days) and have a few more days left for vacation leave, then I suggest you guys go on a side trip to either Phnom Penh or Bangkok. I didn't want to go because according to other travel blogs it takes forever to get to both places by bus. But I didn't have a choice so off we went to Nattakan Cambodia Co. Ltd.

Nattakan Cambodia Co. Ltd. is one of the few bus companies that offer trips direct to Bangkok.
Photo grabbed from Artydubs.com.

We didn't have any reservations and went there by 8:00 in the morning to buy our tickets. Luckily, the bus was not that full and we were seated near the toilet at the back. Tickets cost US$28.00 each and is inclusive of snacks, drinks and lunch.

The company gave us this ID and must be worn the whole trip.


According to the agency, trip will take around 6-7 hours. Sa totoo lang, nagsawa ako sa view ng lupa. Napagod din ako kakapikit. Haha.

 
They served us mamon or sponge cake with juice for snacks and rice topped with shrimps/chilly from 7-11 for lunch.

Travel Tip: Bring your own snacks if possible. Obviously, food served wasn't enough. Good thing Faye brought candies and that at least helped us get through boredom, etc. Don't forget to change a few dollars to baht before leaving Siem Reap. We had one stopover and couldn't buy anything from the store 'coz we didn't have money and our ATM cards were not activated to make withdrawals abroad. Such a hassle.

The trip took longer than expected. To make it easy for your guys, here's a timeline:

• 8:30AM - Time of departure from Siem Reap
• 11:30AM - Arrival at the border of Cambodia and Thailand
• 1:30PM-2:00PM - Left the border after almost 2 1/2 hours. We had to wait for almost 30 mins to an hour in the immigration. They had about 2-3 immigration officers processing almost a hundred or more passports. And since we're traveling with others, we had to wait for everyone to finish.
• 2:00PM-7:00PM - Took us 5 hours to get to Bangkok. Traffic was sooooo bad, probably worst compared to what we have in Manila. By this time I'm starting to get annoyed by the smell of the loo. No, I did not bother using the toilet. It's not lady friendly according to my guy friends.
• 7:00PM-7:30PM - We arrived at the Bangkok Bus Terminal in Chatuchak but got stuck for a while trying to figure out where to get our baht. There were a lot of drivers approaching and offering us service to our hotel but we wanted to play safe so we got a cab direct from the taxi line.
• 8:15PM - We finally arrived at our hotel, The Berkeley. We also got our baht from the nearby forex store.

To make the long story short, if you have all the time in the world then take the bus. Make sure to load your ipads or smart phones with movies and don't forget to bring snacks. But if you have extra cash, travel by plane. Air travel from Siem Reap to Bangkok takes less than an hour. :)

Getting stuck inside that bus for almost 12 hours sucked big time. I think I deserved a large cup of thai milk tea and french fries from McDonalds. Om nom nom nom!