Cambodia!

Woke up early and got breakfast at our spot then waited in front of our hotel for the minibus driver to pick us up. We waited for him for a good 45 minutes and then the van appeared and 5 of us in total scrambled in with all of our junk. Within the first hour and a half Ainhoa had to pee very badly. She asked the driver if we could stop at a gas station to which he said no, no stops. This went on for over a half hour. Ainhoa was walking back in forth in the bus jumping up and down in circles trying to control herself and the bus driver still wouldn't stop. At this point another girl had to go as well so they both attacked the driver. The girl, from Ukraine just started whimpering please as Ainhoa yelled I will pee on your seat! The driver would not relent, he had a strict schedule to keep to apparently. Ainhoa was literally about to jump out at an intersection and run to some near by bushes when the driver yelled back 10 minutes. We finally pulled up to a gas station and Ainhoa and the other girl went at a mad sprint towards the toilets. Not before the driver told us 5 minutes, you no eat. No one listened to him, we all bought snacks and ate them as the driver filled up the tank. In another 2 hours we stopped near the border of Thailand and Cambodia for lunch. A man at the restaurant who we were made to believe was with the bus company came over and helped uss unload and order and then fill out our visa papers for Cambodia. Then he said so I will go get visa for you, only 1000 Baht (about 35 USD). No, no, we said we get our visa at the border ourselves and for only 20 USD. He tried to convince us that the border would take too long, more than 2 hours he warned and he threatened that the bus would not wait for that long of a period and would leave us there. We stood firm though and told him we'd take our chances and that as we had paid all the way through the bus would wait! He seemed disgruntled and skulked off to another booth in the restaurant. We drove only 5 or 10 minutes to the border and were met by a guide from the Cambodian side of the border who would take us from there. This man was completely different. You ready he asked? I'll lead you to the border and you will go through and get your visa yourself and I will be waiting for yu on the other side. He took a glance at our papers. The one given us from the bus company in Thailand he tore up. You won't need this, this is part of their scam to get you to get visas through them. Glad you didn't. He explained to us how everything would work and what we needed to do. He walked along the no mans land with us giving us information about Cambodia and the people. He was overall very helpful and seemed genuinely like a good person. We made it through the border in about 20 minutes, mainly because you have to walk through from one office to the next as you go through a number of windows to make sure you don't have diseases and have all your papers. We ended up on another minibus with only 5 people again. We made one pit stop where a pushy Cambodian woman opened the sliding door to the van and said in her high pitched heavy accent. 'Your driver no speak English, time to get out. You use the bathroom you have to buy something, so first we go toilet then we all buy cool drinks, you follow me!' We all groggily went into her shop where everyone used the toilets and then were overpriced for cokes. It's a brilliant plan, we were not used to the currency at all and this was to be our only stop until Siem Reap. Her first offer for a coke translated to about 3 USD at which point Ainhoa and I laughed at her. We eventually got it for about a dollar, still a bit much, but whatever we did go bathroom now it was time we buy cold drinks. The ride through Cambodia wasn't too long and we were shortly dropped off in a small looking town. There were tuk tuk drivers there waiting and we took one for 2 dollars to our hotel that we had booked online. He asked us if we had a plan for tomorrow and we said the temples and he offered to take us around the next day. We didn't know exactly if that's how these things were done but we decided to say yes. His name was Tony and he knew the owner of our hotel, they grew up next door to each other in a small village right outside of Siem Reap. We put all our stuff down in our new room and set out into the town we went to Pub Street which is the center of the Old French Quarter, their central downtown area. There is a lively night market and stalls of food, clothes and other trinkets all along the river. We had a traditional Khmer dinner where they bring a small BBQ to your table and then pour in broth and vegetables as your meat cooks on the top of it. It was delicious and we were just thinking how lovely Cambodia was when a kid came up trying to sell us postcards and some books. We said no but the kid would not leave. He was very good at what he did and we eventually broke and said we'd buy some postcards, but then he didn't have change for our money so he then waited for us to be done with our food so we could get change for him. He sat with us for at least a half hour. He did an excellent job of looking sad and giving us some serious Western guilt.