The border crossing from Laos to Cambodia is a pretty painless affair as long as you don't mind parting with $1 bills. The bribery of the officials has become quite formalised. Everything costs $1 and if you are not happy paying the fee then you won't be leaving Laos or entering Cambodia. I've been told that the Cambodia Thailand border is more of a free for all especially with the decline in value of the US dollar. It is much easier if you have $1 bills with you. There were 40 odd westerners all crossing at the same time who had come by minibus from Si Phan Don. The customs officials very quickly run out of change and are not interested in helping you otherwise. If you don't have US Dollars make sure you have some form of currency. At the Cambodian border one guy protested that he didn't have any other money (after paying $20 for the visa) and the Cambodian official refused to give him back his passport so someone else paid the bribe for him.I bought my ticket to Stung Treng from Papa. It cost $14 including the boat transfer (provided by him) to the mainland. Papa walked me to the minibus station and paid for a ticket. I got the impression that they aren't pre-booked, people just show up and they squeeze everyone on to the available minibuses. I'm not sure how onward journeys are checked because I wasn't provided a ticket and Cambodians take over from Lao once you cross the border. The minibuses are meant to leave Nakaseng (the 'port' on the mainland for access to Si Phan Don, an ugly place to say the least) at 8am but as expected we didn't leave until closer to 9am. There were 5 minibuses packed with Falang and piled high with rucksacks. It took about half an hour to get to the Laos border checkpoint. The photo at the top is of the Laos bordering crossing point. Two guys sit in the shed one takes your $1 bribe and the other stamps your passport and takes your departure card. The Chinese are building a big new highway here but when I passed through it was a dirt track. The minibus drops you here and they drive to the Cambodia border with your luggage, just a five minute walk across no man's land.
The Cambodian border is a bit more impressive than Laos shed. There are a few buildings and quite a few officials. The first thing you have to do is apply for your visa which means filling in a firm and providing a passport photo. If you don't have a passport photo they charge you $1 to take your picture. A couple of swiss people had their passports examined very closely and were made to wait a bit longer than everyone else but they eventually got their visa. I did not have a Cambodian visa. It costs $20 on the border plus a $1 bribe. Next up is up your arrival and departure card, to get one of these costs another $1 and then you are officially in Cambodia. No one checked the luggage.
The next stage was a bit more dodgy. The Laos minibuses had unloaded our bags and we were left in the hands of Khmer DelBoy. He was the only person who seemed to know what was going on and his priority was trying to get you to travel further with his operation. I was going to Stung Treng and wasn't charged any more money. As I mentioned earlier I am not sure how people got on who were going all the way through to Siem Reap. It seems to me that as you get passed from one set of minibuses to another someone is going to say you need to pay more. I have no evidence of this, its just my experience of the way other places work. There isn't any public transport at the border and the journey to Stung Treng is two hours away and I didn't see any moto drivers hanging around. Unsurprisingly Khmer Del Boy squeezed us all into a bus and a couple of minibuses and off we went to Stung Treng. The road is straight and smooth and there is very little traffic. Once we arrived in Stung Treng Khmer Del Boy lead the group to a guesthouse for lunch, no doubt he has a deal with them for sending them the business. I was the only person to stay in Stung Treng and I went off to find somewhere to stay (I didn't take Del Boy's guesthouse).
Click here for Travelfish's take on the border crossing.
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