After the kayaking, we had a driver take us to the Cambodian border. It was quite the formal spot.
Thankfully, we had read that one cannot obtain a visa at his particular border crossing and we had gotten Cambodian visas while in Vang Vieng. As a result, we paid our $1 each to get out of Laos and our $4 each to get into Cambodia and we were on our way in less than 10 minutes. We had pre-arranged a car and driver to take us to Kratie for the night and then on to Siem Reap the next day. Our first driver explained to us that we would be relayed by several cars and drivers from the border to Siem Reap. He gave us his phone number and told us to phone him if there were any problems. Normally this does not give me a comfy, cozy feeling that we may need a phone number for problems. However, in this case, it turned out to be a God-send. We arrived in Kratie with virtually no money expecting to replenish our US funds in Cambodia as that is the currency used at the ATMs. Much to our dismay, we discovered that there aren't any ATMs in Kratie. So with no money (such experienced travelers - NOT!!!) we were getting a little panicky. Well, we phoned Mr. Throng and he was more than happy to arrange a loan for us so we could pay for our hotel and have dinner. We just needed to pay our taxi driver the $100 when we got to a town with an ATM. What an amazing fellow. He didn't know us from Adam, but did not think twice about helping us out. We ended up having a relaxing night in Kratie and headed off to Siem Reap the next morning.
This is a stretch of the main highway between Kratie and Siem Reap as taken through the windshield of our taxi. It wasn't a quick drive, but it was very interesting. You get to see a lot out the window when you are only going 20 kms/hour. We changed drivers about 3 hours into our day and the next driver was a maniac. The roads weren't a lot better, but he was pushing 70 kms/hr most of the time. Dean finally asked him to slow down so we could at least attempt to enjoy the trip. At 70 kms/hr all I could think about was how to keep the kids safe when we went off the road or hit someone or something. We even made a futile attempt to find seatbelts in the car. We all felt a little bit better when he agreed to slow things down to about 55 kms/hr. We made it to Siem Reap about 3:00 and heaved a great sigh of relief.
