Saturday, June 20, 2009

5-Day Siem Reap Trip for Two for Only P38K- Part 1

My Hubby and I love to go on trips. Every anniversary, when time and
budgets permit, we go backpack locally or in other countries, with
location heavily dependent on the Cebu Pacific fare discounts. The
trips have been a blast everytime.

But the best so far was our trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia last 2007.
That year, we booked a 5-day trip, taking advantage of Cebu Pacific's
Zero Fare red eye flight (Manila-Bangkok-Manila).

Key to planning this trip was research, research, and may I say again,
research. Thank God for sites like Tales of Asia and wikitravel which gave us
literally a step-by-step guide on the how to's, what to expect, etcetera.

Bangkok Arrival



Arriving at Bangkok at 1am, we took the airport bus going to the city, which saved us a few hundred bhat. Then we took a cab to MoChit station. One o'clock in the morning plus a profit-hungry cab driver spelled disaster. We insisted on the meter, so the driver took the
long route to get to the station (haaay). Mr. Cabbie didn't know I traveled to Bangkok before so I knew he was stalling and maximizing the meter run.

Costs:
Airfare: around Php 8,000 for two, round trip fares! (Wow! Thanks Cebu Pacific.)
Airport Tax - Php 3,240
Bus ride from Airport to Victory Monument - B 32 (Php 48)
Cab Fare from Victory to MoChit station - B 100 (Php 150)

MoChit Station

The station was deserted but safe as we paid for our bus tickets going
to Aranyaprathet/Poipet border. The bus ride took around 8 hours. It
was a smooth ride, the road lulling me to sleep while Hubby stayed awake (for security reasons). The ride was pretty much uneventful, except for a man sleeping on the floor of the bus, which
was weird. It kind of reminded me of bus rides to Philippine provinces, except for experiencing basic airconditioned buses with comfort rooms. (In the Philippines, you have to pay premium to get an airconditioned bus with a toilet, because other aircon buses do stopovers for wiwi breaks.)

Costs:
Bus ride for two to Aranyaprathet - B 440 (around Php 660)
Sleeping with Hubby's valiant efforts to stay awake... priceless (thanks Hon!)

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