We’ve all heard a lot of “horror” stories about the overland travel from Bangkok to Siem Reap and a lot of travelers who blogs have shared their stories about it and wrote how they dealt with the touts that plague Aranyapathet and Poipet border.
Well, the good news is when you go the other way around, it’s not the same story. The overland trip from Siem Reap to Bangkok is very easy and almost hassle free.
I have tried a variety of bus companies from Siem Reap to Bangkok and the usual process is like this.
- You buy a (bus-van) ticket to Bangkok from Siem Reap.
- You get picked-up from your hostel.
- Bus travels from Siem Reap to Poipet but stops at a store for a few minutes.
- You then board the bus again and the journey continues and then it stops again at a garage where they put stickers to passengers (they use stickers to tag the passengers that will then be picked up by their counterparts on the Thai border.
- You go through the Cambodian Immigration for the exit stamp.
- You queue to the Thai Immigration for the entry stamp.
- You get picked up by and then taken to a restaurant where you’ll have to wait for around half an hour and then board a van to Bangkok.
- Van stops usually at Khao San but you may sometimes request to be drop off along the way (if your destination is part of their route – e.g. Victory Monument etc).
Usually when I leave early in the morning I still arrive in Bangkok late in the afternoon and if the traffic is so bad during that day then maybe around 7 PM (the latest arrival I had was 8PM due to heavy traffic in Bangkok).
On my last travel to Bangkok from Siem Reap I have decided to buy a ticket from Capitol Bus (located near Alley West of Pub Street – it’s hard to miss if you’re in that area).
And what a surprise, the travel was shorter because we didn’t stop that much along the way. There are no stops from Siem Reap from Poipet and the stickers were placed on you while you’re waiting at the immigration for your exit stamp.
Make sure that as soon as you enter Thailand, go straight to the covered waiting area outside the border post itself where a guy will then pick all of those who have stickers and bring them to the van station (around 5 minute walk across the road). There was also just one stop from our journey to Bangkok from Poipet.
Have you traveled this route? Feel free to share your experience in the comment section.
