If you’ve ever heard about a town called Poipet, the chances are you didn’t hear anything good about it. There are horror stories online about crossing the Cambodian border from Thailand (and the other way around) by this town. However, our experience was far from the horror stories that flood the internet. Here’s our updated guide for 2024.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t as bad as they say it is!
Before crossing the Cambodian border
We were in Koh Chang, an island on the Gulf of Thailand. We decided to travel to Cambodia, due to its proximity and to visit Angkor Wat, one of the most amazing monuments in the world. While in Koh Chang, we stayed at Little Eden Bungalows, a beautiful backpackers’ bungalow resort, where we were offered transportation to Siem Reap (the city where Angkor Wat is) through an external Thai company. The receptionist recommended not to do the whole trip with them and get a taxi as soon as we reached the Cambodian border. This way we would avoid scams like: “Sorry the bus is broken, you all need to get these expensive taxis waiting conveniently for you in this corner”.
The CROSSING day
In the morning, a mini-van picked us up at 7 AM. The guy didn’t seem very friendly, but who cares, right? After picking up some tourists we made it to the pier, where we waited 30 minutes for the ferry. 45 minutes later we had made it to the mainland. Back in the mini-van, we had a 3 hours drive ahead of us to Aranyaprathet, the Thai town where the border is. Turned up the stories were right and the guys took us to a restaurant where we “would have lunch before going to the visa office“. We said “Nope, thank you, we’ll walk”, got our luggage, and started walking. We had read they could get pushy when doing this but they were ok with it.
At this point, it was recommended to get a Tuk Tuk to the border, as the town is supposed to be dangerous. We didn’t see any (plus they would try to take us to the “unofficial office” to scam us), so we just walked. The town wasn’t nice but it didn’t feel too dangerous either. Thai people taking care of their business and not a single person said anything to us. After 15 minutes we made it to the border. Happy times!
We were expecting long queues but it was clear we were way ahead of most of the tourists, which were probably stuck “having lunch”. In less than 10-15 minutes we had our leaving stamp on the passport and we were in Poipet, Cambodia.
Once there, some guys tried to help us out with our transport to Siem Reap as they “knew someone who could take us very cheap”. Ignore ignore ignore. We walked to the Visa Cambodian office where we would get our visas. Funny enough, we found again an empty office, full of Cambodian officers (around 10) and maybe 3-4 tourists. We filled up the requested documents, handed them to the officers along with a photo and…it was scam time again!
The visa price is officially 30$, and even in the office, there is a big sign that says the same thing, 30$. We had read they would ask for more money and turned out to be right. The officer pointed to a very lame paper where we could read: “30$ + 100 Baths” (Bath is the Thai currency, 100 baths are about 3$). We said “Nope, it’s only 30$, is written there”, but the guy didn’t even blink and repeated “100 Baths“. We tried to make him understand but he left us no choice, so we gave him the 100 baths.
Trying to avoid the scam wasn’t really about the money but about playing by the book. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough patience. If you hand out the 30$, sit and wait, after some time they will give you the visa. Who knows how long you will wait though.
We walked a bit more and pass around a few casinos where Thai people gamble as it’s illegal in Thailand. The next step was to get the Cambodia entry stamp on our passport, which went quite smoothly. A random guy offered me a pen and of course, it turned out he knew a guy that would take us very cheaply to Siem Reap. We got our stamps in our passports, walked out of the office and the “pen guy” was waiting for us. He offered a price of 45$ for our hotel (we were 3, as Nicky, an American friend we had met in Koh Chang, had joined us). After negotiating a bit, we agreed on 40$ (13$ each) and we were on our way to Siem Reap.
Crossing the Cambodian border: CHECKED!
We left Koh Chang at 7 AM and arrived at our hostel in Siem Reap at 5 PM. I can’t say it was a pleasant journey but it wasn’t that bad and it turned out to be a bit of fun. It’s sad neither the Thai nor Cambodian governments care about tourists being scammed as soon as they enter their countries. This shouldn’t stop you from enjoying what is a beautiful country with beautiful people!
Accommodation
If you’re looking for accommodation, we stayed at Velkommen Guesthouse. It was cheap, nice (swimming pool!) and well located as it’s closer to Angkor Wat than most of the hostels. They provide free bikes so you can cycle to the city center (10 minutes) or Angkor Wat! I 100% recommend it!
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