Prep and Day 0: Thailand and Cambodia trip

Trip Preparation:
News that Thailand was hit by a massive flood two months before our scheduled departure was big concern. This happened right after we booked our flights and the hotels. I was reading bangkok post regularly and monitoring the staus of the relief work to assess whether we could visit the tourist places in and around bangkok. My friend Joseph was concerned (read paranoid) about the post-flood diesease outbreaks in Thailand that he took half a dozen vaccination shots before visiting. On the other hand, I was sporting a "If I could live so long in India, I can survive anywhere" attitude.

Our plan initially was to reach bangkok, assemble there and go to Cambodia by road. We had planned to  cross the border at Aranyaprathet on our way to Siem Reap in Cambodia and then come back to bangkok from Phnom Penh at the end of trip by flight. My friends and I had planned to apply visa for both Thailand and Cambodia to avoid any hassles and to save time.

Obtaining Cambodian visa was pretty easy. Head over to http://www.mfaic.gov.kh/evisa/, fill up the application form, pay $25 and the visa will be in your inbox in 2 days.

Thailand supports Visa on arrival for Indians but I wanted to get the work done before going there. I was advised by VFS to apply for double entry transit visa. The main difference between the tourist visa and the transit visa for Thailand is only the validity of stay. Validity of stay for Transit Visa is 30 days while the validity of stay for Tourist visa is 60 days.

Following are the documents that were required to be submitted for visa approval
1) Visa application form that is completely filled out. Can be downloaded from here. Also needed is a photocopy of the filled out application form,
2) Passport with validity not less than 6 months with one blank page. Also, a photocopy of first and last page.
3) Two recent photographs of the applicant
4) Evidence of Transportation: Flight tickets to and from Bangkok, Flight ticket from Phnom Pehn. Since we were traveling to Cambodia by land one way, I had to submit a Cover Letter addressing  The Royal Thai Consulate-General, Chennai stating that I was traveling by road and explaining my Itinerary.
5) Evidence of adequate finance: Need to get endorsement of $500 per person or $1000 per family in the passport. I didn't even know such a section existed in my passport before this trip. If you don't want an endorsement in  the Passport, just the receipt for buying the Forex is enough.
6) Proof of hotel accommodation in Thailand: Had to submit the confirmation email received from both the hotels that we had booked in Bangkok.

The visa fee is payable by DD favoring "The Royal Thai Consulate General" payable at Chennai. VFS does this work for us at a service charge of  Rs. 56.

Once the above documents were ready, I had to head over to VFS office in bangalore to Submit these docs. Got a token no from the security and we are called based on the token number. The total expense was Rs. 3747. The breakup of the fee collected by VFS is as follows

1) Transit Visa Fees:  Rs. 3200 (1600 for each entry)
2) VFS Service Charge: Rs. 291
3) Service Charge for Visa Fees DD: Rs. 56
4) Courier Charges: Rs. 200.  This is for sending the passport to my house through courier rather than me going and personally collecting it from VFS office.

In UK, Joseph had a problem obtaining Thai visa as they wanted flight tickets to&from Cambodia or get a visa on arrival at the airport. So we booked Bangkok Airways flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap for $250 at the last minute to obtain the visa. He got double entry Tourist visa.

The following itinerary is how the trip happened almost along the planned lines.
Day1: Bangkok Grand Palace, Wat Pho
Day2: Angkor Thom, Angkor Thom Little Circuit. Apsara dance in the evening.
Day3: Beng Mealea, Koh Ker and Roluos Group
Day4: Sunrise at Angkor Wat, Kbal Spean, Bantey Srey and again Angkor Wat
Day5: Siem Reap Museum, Travel to Phnom Penh by Mekong Express Bus
Day6: Choeung Ek Genocide Center and  Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S-22 Prison). Fly back to bangkok by evening.
Day7: Bangkok National Museum, Siam Niramit Show
Day8: Ayutthaya Historical Park
Day9: Shopping


Day0 (22nd Dec, Thursday):
I reached the airport by bus and was there by 10:15 PM. The flight was scheduled to leave by 1:35 AM. The Flight Track app installed in my android phone was showing that flight was scheduled to take off on time. Once I reached there, I didn't see the Bangkok Airways counter at all. I then came to know that Bangkok Airways flight got cancelled. Shock of my life. Even worse was the Flight Track app (paid app) which was showing my flight status as delayed by 1hr. I was scolding myself for preferring Bangkok Airways over Thai Airways. Lesson learnt.

Luckily I was one among the few who had reached the airport at that time. So I could approach the attendants and explain that I have a connecting flight to cambodia the next day. He then asked me for the flight ticket to cambodia and after a brief frantic search I provided him the ticket info from my mail client in  mobile phone. I was praising Joseph in my head - if he hadn't insisted on booking the flight to cambodia from bangkok, I would've reached Thailand only the next day on the next available bangkok airways flight. I was then taken to the Thai Airways ticket counter where I was given a boarding pass. I then proceded to immigration/security check. Right now sitting near gate 20 for boarding Thai airways flight. Meanwhile, Joseph called me from Malaysia to let me know that his flight got delayed at the malaysian airport. We heard nothing from Visu who started before both of us from US. A wonderful beginning to the trip.