Day Call girls in the doorway All giving me the eye But my heart's just not in it I might as well pass right on by βBob Dylan. Few, however, actually hang around in the town of Poipet itself. Naturally, as we passed through Masayo and I decided to get a room in Poipet for the night in order to see it more. The train left at an ungodly early hour. Masayo was dozing but I bought one. The coffee was terrible. I looked out the window at the people in the station. The buzz of excitement was everywhere, even if nobody was quite awake yet.
I sipped my coffee and loved its wretchedness. It was perfect. Eventually the train started to move and we started pushing through the outskirts of Bangkok. The city is, generally speaking, well-off and there are several nice districts with upscale shopping centers and nice, new apartment blocks. After an hour in the hot Thai countryside the train arrived at the terminus of Aranyaprathet. We also changed some money over to Cambodian riels. Emerging from a narrow concrete walkway with a motley bunch of disconnected locals and other travelers, we saw a man with a clipboard waving us effusively over to a little covered area, inside which were about four guys sitting at a long cheap table.
Masayo and I approached and they asked us to sit down and hand them our passports. Alarm bells immediately went off in my head. Further towards the Cambodian border, as we passed under a giant gate decorated with the spires of Angkor Wat and then past a large casino and hotel complex, we saw that most tourists were entering a small immigration building on the right. I looked wanly at Masayo, who was tired but being patient with me and my paranoia.
We returned to the covered area and its sighing and apparently official guards. Other tourists were finding bus rides to the Cambodian interior. A large Khmer statue faced us in the middle of the roundabout, assuring us that all was well. We pushed past all of this; I wanted to secure a room for the night. Getting this far from Bangkok was enough for a day, and I hated to just step into Poipet and then immediately leave.
The main road through town was unpaved and we walked along the edge of the mud, motorbikes and cars fighting with each other inches from us. It was hot and dusty and the air was full of fumes.
