After 20 hours on buses and a shared taxi with non-working AC we made it from Chiang Mai (N. Thailand) to Siem Reap (which, incidentally, means Siam conquered), the city base for visting Angkor Wat.
Chiang Mai was a delightful city -- small and easy to get around with plenty of cultural stuff and a higher temple to person ratio than perhaps anywhere I've visited. The last day we rented a motorbike and rode to the top of a hill to visit one of their big Buddhist temples. I was a bit scared having only ridden on a friend's scooter once around the block but after seeing entire Thai families riding them, or watching 8-year-olds drive their 4-year-old siblings around, I decided to get over my fear. I had the easier role of just being a passenger.
The day with elephants was quite fun. We made friends with a British couple at the cooking class and joined them for elephant program they'd signed up to do. Jungle treks to visit the Hill tribes are a big thing, and often combine riding an elephant, white water rafting and other activities, but we preferred to spend our whole day with the elephants. We wanted one where the elephants were treated well, and didn't spend all day ferrying people up and down the mountain. I wasn't thrilled with their conditions (one of their legs was chained up when we arrived) but they seemed reasonably happy. I think they were happier than elephants in zoos, though not as well-off as ones on reserves. We ended up riding them and giving directions in Thai (though there was one actual trainer per elephant to help), bathing them and having a water fight (they won with the unfair advantage of their trunks). Elephants used to be used by Thais for all sorts of things -- fighting wars, logging, etc., but logging was outlawed a few decades ago so the need for them has declined. Most of them are are used for tourist purposes. Our particular elephant, Pailin, was 14 years old and liked to dance around and flap her ears. We took turns riding on her neck and back. Since she was one of the smaller ones we weren't very high off the ground but it felt plenty elevated when we were headed downhill.
In order to save time we took the overnight bus from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok, and were once again roused for a post-midnight dinner. We'd downgraded to VIP 36 (36 seats) from VIP 24, which turned out to be the bus that Thais take. They showed Dark Night but unfortunately it was dubbed, not subtitled. We arrived at the Mo Chit bus terminal in Bangkok at 4:30 a.m. and were on our way to Aranyapathet(?), right at the Thai-Cambodia border, half an hour later. Unfortunately, in my bleariness I managed to fall smack down on my face, but the kind people at 7-11 gave me some free ice.
We arrived at the border about 4.5 hours later and were immediately send on a tuk tuk to the border crossing. However, before we could get there, our tuk tuk driver took us on an unsolicited trip to a cafe, where someone came out and told us he was Cambodian (basically he wanted our money). We had discovered a great web site with information on how to get through the border crossing and avoid scams -- this being one of them. Although the guy got angry and said we'd be going back to Bangkok when we refused to engage, the driver eventually brought us to where we needed to be. We made it through the Thai side easily enough -- the line for foreigners was quite short -- but at the Cambodian visa application place they managed to get an extra $5 per person for us (it was supposed to be $20).
By then we were feeling rather harried and wary when a "tourism official" spotted us as we were leaving the visa place and clung to us as we went to the arrival office and rode with us as we took the free bus to the bizarely modern and nice taxi/bus terminal. According the the web site on border crossing, the cost for a taxi is supposed to be $45 (you can share with up to four people per car) though if you can manage to get one of the non-tourist buses a kilometer a way it's more like $20-$25. But since tourists are supposed to take the tourist-association one, they could get the driver/passenger in trouble if you take one and since we were the only two people there when we arrived, with half a dozen-plus cabs waiting and no idea which way to catch the cheaper cabs, we were essentially stuck. Our minder continued to hover, too, which was annoying. But we did manage to pay only $13/person for the cab instead of the $15/person they at first demanded, even if that was more than the $45 we should have paid.
The ride from Poipet to Siem Reap involved a lot of swerving, honking at people on motorbikes and pedestrians and riding on dirt/unpaved roads. The Thai-English couple kindly shared their chicken and sticky rice with us, so at least we weren't hungry. We ended up at the "No Problem" guesthouse -- the same that the other couple had booked in Bangkok. For $12/night (paid in U.S. dollars since that is the preferred currency almost everywhere) we got an air-conditioned room with two full beds and HBO.
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