Day 128
Waking up at 3:30am was not hard, when all we had to do today was sitting on our asses all day while we were chauffeured to the Thai/Cambodia border.
As we were passing through the narrow back alleys in Sukhumvit at 4am, the after party had just started. What we thought were abandoned vans parked by the curb during the day turned into mobile bars at night. There were enough boozy tourists to keep the street business going after all the bars were closed.
We made it to Korean Town (Sukhumvit Plaza) at 4:30am and the Bangkok Buddy staff took care of all our paper work. We were on the road at exactly 5am as promised. While we were whisked away in a well-appointed van with reclining captain’s chairs, we indulged in podcasts and before we had a chance to doze off, we were dropped off at the border. Again, the staff took care of everything and we didn’t even need to queue for immigration.
While our passports were being processed we enjoyed a complimentary buffet at the border casino, making this trip even more decadent. The physical distance between the Thai/Cambodia immigration counters creates this grey area for gambling, which is otherwise illegal in both countries. As we were quickly herded into the air-conditioned buffet hall, the glimpses of the Cambodian border provided sharp contrast to the cornucopia of plenty in the casino.
We quickly made this buffet breakfast worth the 2200 baht we paid for the visa run, and at 10am we were back to the Thai side. Before 2pm we were back in the heart of Bangkok, with 2 new 30-day visa stamps. Despite the fact that we normally don’t like being mollycoddled, being led by the hand from door to door, this was a great value and was quite relaxing.