I was nervous about our trip from Koh Chang to Sihanoukville. We had bought tickets that take us from our hotel to the ferry, over the water, up to Trat, then to the border, then into Koh Kong in Cambodia, and finally on to Sihanoukville. The day started with us wondering why the bus wasn't there to pick us up. We phoned the booking agent and discovered they had written down the wrong hotel to pick us up from. It was written in Thai so we didn't realise, but I should have known by the nodding head, but confused eyes of the lady who made the booking, who barely spoke or understood english.
Outside of this things went well until we hit the Cambodian border. Nepal had it's moments where we were not comfortable and did not feel like we could trust what was happening around us, but not like this. I had read many stories about crossing this border, most of them involving one scam or another, or all of them. We had a very official medical officer point some thing at our ears that then beeped, followed by a demand for money to pay for a medical exam that "you must have" to entire Camdbodia. I had read that this was horse shit so we just repeatedly told him that we didn't believe him, and he repeatedly insisted we must have it until we walked away.
Despite having paid extra for "e-visa's" rather than getting over charged by the corrupt border officials, it was still quite a slow process getting through. Once we were done it was not quite clear where to go next and there was no big bus waiting for us as was indicated initially. Several touts ask you to see your tickets and when you refuse they get all aggressive with you, even though they hold no authority and are just looking for a way to get money from you somehow. One guy told us we had to take one of his taxi's, but then another fellow ended up taking over and it soon became apparent that he was the actually person we were supposed to be dealing with, though it was all a complete guessing game.
He dropped us at a ramshackle "bus station" and told us the bus to Sihanoukville would arrive at 1:45 and leave at 2pm. This was after taking us past his money changing connection and insisting we change all our Baht to Riel, and then giving us the hot tip on how much to pay him, even though we had paid for everything already. It is impossible to know who to believe, and whether or not anything is in fact legitimate.
We had more touts at the bus station trying to change our bus tickets and solicit us for private taxis for the 4 hours journey to Sihanoukville. Our border guy that dropped us off explicitly told us not to let anyone write on our tickets or they would become void, and when 2 o'clock rolled around and no bus had showed up, my questions to a sea of people about which bus and where was met with "can I see our ticket". I showed one guy, who immediately went to write on it, and I had to snatch it out of his hand. We were getting increasingly frustrated with the situation, and really just wanted some straight answers on how to get we were were going, but we just couldn't get them. It was rapidly becoming our first real taste of Asia!
In the end it turns out there was an indirect bus that eventually got us there, but we had already missed it. No one was able to tell us this the entire time, even though some of these people did speak english. So now we were stuck in this town that we already did not like for no reason other than our experience there so far. We would probably have to stay in a hotel and wait for the bus that supposedly left the next morning. Out of nowhere, some one gave Tara a cellphone and she started talking to someone about our bus drama. About 15 mins later, our border guy showed up again looking pissed off and put out by the situation. He was kind of rude and condescending about the scenario, suggesting that WE were giving HIM trouble. I resisted the temptation to let fly at him and he took us to one of his commission paying hotels, before we paid him again for his "services". He had made a killing from us and we were still stuck in this town, nowhere near our destination.
Needless to say, I was not impressed with my first taste of Cambodia, and found myself sincerely hoping things improved rapidly or this portion of the adventure would be stressful and very unenjoyable.
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