Siem Reap to Bangkok - Moving Day

It's moving day! Time to leave Siem Reap and head to Bangkok. But first we must enjoy one more free hotel breakfast. A 6am sitting as we need to leave for the bus station at 7am. We ordered up a Grab App tuk tuk after checking out. It's only 2km to the bus station which doesn't take long and costs 4,500 riel about $2 NZD. But we gave the driver almost all our remaining Riel, about 40% more than the fare, as we will have no need of it. He was very appreciative.

The bus company is called Giant Ibis and they are very organised and the bus is quite flash. Flash Packing, that's us! On boarding we are given a pastry snack, a bottle of water, and an iced coffee in a can. The pastry had raisins in it so that means 2 for me. 🎉

We sit back in our leather seats, relax and start watching the road and the countryside. The roads are very straight and smooth. The bus driver is good at fitting three vehicles wide on a two lane road. We tick along at around 80-90km/h but there are lots of slower sections.

The view out the window is mainly rural with cows in fields, rice paddies, etc. Some quite basic houses but also lots of new plaster clad buildings that may be houses. There are many roadside stalls selling all kinds of things. We wonder how the people make a living given there are so many of these little businesses. The 460km trip is expected to take 8 hours with the first 3 in Cambodia. At the 2 hour mark we have a short toilet break at a petrol station. Everything is clean and tidy. The horizon though, like Siem Reap, is hazy with smoke/smog. We are assuming most of that is caused by the farmers burning their post harvest waste as opposed to being from vehicles.