Chanthaburi

The glamorous Cambodian side of the border.  That's my classy taxi.

The equally glamorous Thai side.

Songtheuw to C-Town!  All aboard!!

Thailand!! I am back in the land of Easy. Au Revoir Cambodia.

By shared taxi, by moto, by songtheug and on foot, I made my way from Pailin to the border crossing at Ben Pakard. Middle of nowhere, Thailand.

First the shared taxi. After roaming around town picking up locals, it dawned on me that these folks were not going to Thailand. Ding! Lightbulb on. The guest house had told the taxi Battambang, where I had just come from. Hahaha. Everyone is laughing. No problem.

Another taxi appears, magic! Money changes hand and the secret network functions. North to the edge of town, we pull over. New taxi pulls up. "You change here sir". Ok sure, what do I care? I have two weeks to get to Bangkok.

Mysterious hand signs and more money ( not mine ) and we zoom to the border. Bing bang, I walk across no mans land, the usual forms and I'm in Thailand. It's 60 kilometers to the next real town. Nothing but a few nasty looking Russian tourists heading for Pattaya in their own mini-van. No no no.

So I ask around. Nope, no mini-vans. Ok. I've done this over and over. The secret transport network always smells.......baht!!!

Money. A traveler in tea so had money. Sure enough, Mr BlueVest pops out of nowhere. "Chanthaburi?" Ok, no problem. He knows where I'm going (how the fuck do they do this? It's a mystery) and he knows how to get me there. 50 baht moto ride to somewhere and then 100 baht mini-van to C-town. Cool. Motos away!!

A few kilometers later, we pull out into a lonely Thai two lane. Just as a songtheug shows up ( how the fuck do they do that?). Ok, climb aboard, one Thai hipster guy in back, and we roll.

I get off more or less in the center of town. The dodgiest bit is knowing where to get off. The songtheugs wiggle through town on their own arcane route. Everyone else knows the route, but not you, aye Mr Foreigner? So you have to choose a spot that looks right and bail.

And here I am, in the gem trading Capitol of Thailand. Which will wait for another post.