On this new tour I had a very mixed group of ages and nationalities that seemed like they were very much up for an awesome adventure from the start of the tour.\u00a0 I had about 12 passengers for this fun leg of the journey. So for those who have not been to Bangkok<\/a> and have not taken some of the local long haul buses to border towns this should be a fun one for you.\u00a0 At the start of the day I get my group going at about 6:30am to depart our hotel, and have a briefing before setting out into the start of another blazing hot day in South East Asia.\u00a0 We have our chat and everyone is ready to rock and roll as I say when out on tour, ( with TL Brian, or you can just call me TL Bri).\u00a0 So on this Tucan Travel adventure tour we use local transport, by taking local taxis, buses, tuk tuks, and well at times ferries too.<\/p>\n Out we go onto the main street to find our taxi\u2019s, but I always call it taxi fun as most of the taxi guys seem to always have their meter broken for me and well maybe every western in Bangkok.\u00a0 Or they don\u2019t know where one of the biggest bus stations in Bangkok is or better yet they think that I just fell off the turnip truck and try to have me pay 300 Baht (close to $10 usd) for a trip that should cost about 125 Baht or about $4 usd.\u00a0 After many taxis go by that don\u2019t want to put their meter on for us I finally get the four I need for my group and head over to the huge bus station that is Mo chit bus depot.\u00a0 At this point when we get to the bus station it\u2019s about 7:30am.\u00a0 I get the group to get some fast breakfast items and we all get on the next bus out of Bangkok and off we go. We take the local bus out of Bangkok<\/a> to the border town of Aranyaprathet in Thailand<\/p>\n The local bus from this now second leg of the journey is just awesome, as there is me and my group \u00a0all westerners tossing our backpacks under the side of the bus and then slowly trying to find our seats, all the while the local Thai people look at us as if we have just entered onto the wrong bus.\u00a0 Somehow there is always a crying baby or a the perpetual crying baby for this 5 hr bus trip.\u00a0 Stopping a few times along the way.\u00a0 When we have finally made it to the Aranyaprathet border town.\u00a0 We get dropped off in one very dusty random bus parking lot.\u00a0 All of my passengers stumble out and say oh hey Brian is the border very far from here.\u00a0 Where I eek out “naa mate just a short tuk tuk ride and we are there.” \u00a0After a very long bus trip with spotty air con and random stops along the way the passengers always seem to love the less than 10 min tuk tuk right directly to the border.\u00a0 With everyone holding their backpacks between their legs or has it teetering on the middle bit of the tuk tuk we peter off into a dust cloud to loads of “whooo ahhhh here we goo” from my group.<\/p>\n Just as all the people on my tour are just starting to get into the tuk tuk trip we finally arrive at the border. \u00a0“Ahhh Brian how much further from the border are we now?” and I go “mate, it’s right behind you there but first let\u2019s get some lunch supplies for the next leg of the journey”.\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018The huddle\u2019 I should call it now is when I get the group to just drop off all their backpacks in one pile and run off to the 7\/11 or random fruit sellers at this border, or one mean ice coffee from the guy that always remembers my name even though I see him once every 2 and a half months.<\/p>\n Right, so off the local transport for a moment and onto our feet to walk across this awesome border.\u00a0 This tour had about 6 people still needing to get their Cambodian visa.\u00a0 Which is great as I feel it gets everyone to stop and look at all the local wagon pushers and random casino workers hurrying to work.\u00a0 The local wagon pushers stack up their goods so high in their cart that it\u2019s sometimes hard for just one of the guys to push it or to even keep it level.\u00a0 These guys, I should point out are all covered from head to toe in sun protection gear as the sun always seems the strongest at this border crossing.\u00a0 They have these hats that cover their head, face and neck completely from the burning 36C heat and they are always wearing long sleeved shirts and long pants.<\/p>\n As we are now slowly leaving the Kingdom of Thailand and entering into the Kingdom of Cambodia it\u2019s always great to stop and remember that one burning hot moment on tour, with a photo.<\/p>\n One of the many roles I play out on tour, team photographer is one of them capturing this awesome group shot moment.<\/p>\n After we have finally gathered everyone together after crossing these two border crossings it will compete our 4th leg of the journey and that was by foot.\u00a0 Finally we have made it into Cambodia to the non-stop hectic busy border town that is Polpet.\u00a0 From there we jump onto the local bus transfer to the bus station.\u00a0 We than climb aboard our private mini bus to our final destination of Siem Reap<\/a> home to the famous Angkor Wat.<\/p>\n As everyone is just thrilled to learn that this will finally be out last form of transport until we can finally check into our hotel.\u00a0 After we check into the hotel I give the group the low down and the ins and out outs of Siem Reap<\/a> as it will be home for the next few days.\u00a0 The last and maybe best part of this day is finally taking my group out into town for our orientation walk into this awesome town of Siem Reap<\/a>.\u00a0 As we stroll into town everyone will hear the call of the tuk tuk guys, \u201chello lady\/ hello Mr. tuk tuk, tuk tuk\u201d.<\/p>\n As I always like to bring the group to one of the best spots in town for our first night, it has great local food and awesome culture.\u00a0 This could be none other than the Temple balcony bar and restaurant.\u00a0 This is where we get our first taste of local Cambodian food and drinks too.\u00a0 The awe inspiring traditional dance of the Cambodian people is called the apsara dance.<\/p>\n This is one awesome day out on tour with Tucan Travel and one very adventure filled day as well. It is followed by an awesome \u00a0celebration in Cambodia as well an awesome meal and show right in Pub street.\u00a0 For those that were counting along the way up until we ended the day with our meal on pub street you would have then 7 total legs to finally make it to our dinner table that night.\u00a0 As for Tour Leader Brian it\u2019s all in a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have always said there is nothing quite like a good old border crossing. Whether your crossing the border from Chile to Argentina to get over to the Mendoza side to just sample some the amazing wines that are on the Argentina side.\u00a0 Or maybe even crossing the Bulgaria to Turkey border where as you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":4889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[16,58,340,203],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Brian-border-crossing-2.jpg\" "\\"Brian")
<\/p>\n![\"Brian](\"https:\/\/www.tucan.travel\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Brian-border-crossing.jpg\" "\\"Brian")
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