Reaching the village area where I visited for five days was an adventure in and of itself, involving various and interesting modes of transportation. Gayle and I left her apartment by taxi at 4:00 a.m. in order to get to the bus station and purchase our tickets. 207 Baht later (roughly $6.75) we stowed our belongings and climbed on the bus for our trip from Bangkok to Poipet, the town on the Cambodian border. We made various stops along the way, picking up and dropping off passengers. Here are a few guys waiting at one of the bus stops.
Once we reached the the final stop, we loaded our belongings into a tuk-tuk to take us to the actual border crossing area. Drivers, like the one in the picture, wait for passengers to come along.
We went through immigration and customs to leave Thailand and enter Cambodia with no problems. They had previously had some issues with this border crossing so we were very thankful to get through!
Gayle hired two motorcycle taxis to take us to “the end of civilization” or at least the end of the paved road. Riding behind the driver, I managed to hold on to all of my belongings and stay balanced enough to take a couple pictures of Gayle up ahead!
Once we reached the corner, we didn’t have to wait very long to catch our ride to the village where we were going. Drivers gather passengers into their small pickups, and we piled into the backseat of an almost-full pickup. We managed to cram 3 people, plus our belongings into the backseat, and then then there were 4 in the front including the driver. At least 20 other passengers sat in the back of the pickup and on the roof, jumping on and off along the way at their stop. We were off on a dirt road which followed along the Thai/Cambodia border. We drove past fields and villages along the way, hitting about every rut and pothole you can imagine and getting covered by a solid layer of dust. I was thankful for that dust because it meant the window was open getting some air flowing through, since there was no electricity. After a two and half hour drive we made it to our stop in the Kilometer 13 village where we stayed. I wasn’t able to get a picture of our particular truck (because I was rather squished), but here is another truck getting passengers ready to go.
The journey out at the end of our trip was basically a repeat of the same, although for the first portion out we took a car, a four-door Toyota Camry in which we fit 8 people. I enjoyed all the various modes of transportation and getting to see a lot of the countryside along the way. Here’s a picture of the road in the village to give you a bit of an idea.
A Heart Like His 