7.30am departure today for the long drive to Bangkok from Battambang
Retraced our steps a bit till we reached the border at about 10am. We think the night in Battambang is a deliberate change to the tour to maximize the input to Cambodia because it used to go from Siem Reap to Bangkok direct
To summarize Cambodia as a country it is hard to see how it is going to redevelop quickly - corruption at the highest levels, minimal long term foreign investment, high illiteracy rates, a low % of educated people due to Pol Pot and educated young people leave the country, education free but many families can't afford the books and uniform costs and need their kids at home to generate income to enable them to survive, poor standard of health care those that can afford it go out of the country (including the King) and those who can't afford it have to go to local hospitals where they stay on the floor unless they pay for a bed (corruption again), roads in bad condition, rubbish everywhere, poverty evident everywhere. Despite that grim outlook we loved it and the people were friendly and it was a wonderful experience but when we crossed back into Thailand the differences became even more evident
Border crossing an interesting experience and we had to disown Thy because he is not allowed to be seen to work as a guide in Thailand
Once through all ok for him and we have local Thai Intrepid guides as well
Over the border we swapped into 2 minibuses - comfort plus and great air conditioning - super luxury on our last leg!
Never been in a country under martial law before so will be interesting - so far 3 stops by army / police to check bona fides - they are operating near the border entry points to control who is going where and why
Uneventful trip and arrived in Bangkok about 4.30pm. Even though we are not staying the night they still had rooms at the Viengtai Hotel for us so we had a rest for a while then wandered up Khao San Roadbedore having last drinks with the group
Final farewells at 7pm then off to the airport for 10.40pm flight to Phuket
Thailand all as normal so far and curfew has been shortened now 12midnight to 4am so all ok
Arrived at resort by 1am but disaster - Mamama's luggage lock stuffed so reception sent out a handyman to cut it open at 2am
Bed at 2.30am stuffed but happy to be back in our Thai Phuket home away from home - everything about this place is exceptional