The hotel offered a breakfast at 7.a.m. and I was curiousabout that, so I had a later start. First, I only saw some small, packed cakes, but then they brought a big bowl with soup and rice. Maybe not the best I everhad in Thailand but good enough and satisfying.
The later start was no problem, because (This refers to day 143) it didn’t rain, but it was cloudy until noon. I must admit, a good solution to the problem to let it not rain and let it not not rain. And convenient for me, too.
On the way, I wanted to spend the smaller Thai Bath notes and hoped to get Ka-nom-chan for a last time. I saw one booth with Roti sai mai and thought, ah, I will make a stop at the next one, but no other came. So, I was more cautious from now one, not to miss anything and made a few stops,always taking something, but never getting Ka-nom-chan.
At a market, I got beautiful, cheap and tasty small bananas and joyfully crossed the street to get similar good pineapple. And I got the most expensive and at the same time worst pineapple since I had landed in South East Asia. The border came nearer and a few hundred meters before, there was a crazy, chaotic big market. I asked a seller if I could get Ka-nom-chan anywhere around, the answer was no and instead I bought some fruits that I had never seen before. At the hotel, I had great difficulties to open and peal the first one. The taste of the flesh was similar to some apples and had a slight note from green beans and raw potatoes. There were big seeds tasting like the should not be eaten. The next one was much easier to peal, but brown and slimy – should I eat that? I asked ecosia and the answer was yes, because that’s how tamarind is like and the seeds can be roasted and the also eaten (and are used in curries). The next one was brown but stinky, so I was sure it was gone, one had some animals inside and while I was fighting with peeling, preparing and eating that, I listened a youtube propaganda about the 18 health benefits of it.
But back to the border!
At the Thai side, they wanted to see my entrance stamp (in one passport) and the Cambodian visa (in the other passport). They didn’t like to deal with a person with two passports, so one gave the passports to another and he to the next and then the last one asked me about that and I tried to explain about travelling with one passport while the other one was in Vienna because of the Chinese visa that only can…
He gave me the stamp and I could proceed!
Normally, the area between the two passport control offices of the bordering countries is empty and undefined. Here it was undefined and chaotic but for sure not empty. I was curious to see the point when the traffic would change from left (Thailand) to right (Cambodia) but it was not possible in that crowd and confusion. But I could buy another pineapple here! (7/10, not so juicy and sweet, a bit too much fibre but a compensation to the expensive one!)
At the Cambodian passport control, there was a similar situation, officers handing my passport from one to the next, but in the end, I got my stamp and could go!
Poipet, the city at the border, is a crowded chaotic place, but partly Aranyaprathet at the Thai side was that, too.
But I wanted to go to Sisophon, anyway and after ~10km I was outside. Very soon, I noticed that even more people, especially children,waved, smiled or shouted “hello” here. Car drivers and motorcyclists use their horn much more than in Thailand or Malaysia but drive cautious and the signal is only for telling, “Hello, I’m coming!”. Then, there came a motorcycle, modified to a small delivery truck and I moved in his slipstream. I just saw that we overtook a cyclist, but I had to concentrate in case the motorcycle would slow down, and I had to cycle hard, because he was going 30-36km/h. After a few minutes, I gave up. I went on another 20min and then made a break to eat some bananas. And then the cyclist caught up. He had tried to reach me but I had been going fast also after that episode in the slipstream, so we only met,because of this break. It was Lalit, from North India, 250km from New Dheli. He is also on his way to Siem Reap, and later Vietnam.
On the way we made two stops, one for a soup and one for water and in both cases the people were very friendly and smiling.
We drove together to Sisophon and separated there, because he wanted to continue, and I had my hotel booked there.
When I bought a local SIM card for 2$ it was no problem to pay with a 100$ note and I got back 98$, no Riel.
Generally, I was surprised how many people could talk English and how many things were written in English.