After spending (resting) yesterday in Bangkok, my goal was to reach Cambodia and Siem Reap to visit Angkor historical site.
I opted for a direct bus, mostly to avoid changing vans at the border and because it is supposed tp be quicker.
I went with the Giant Ibos company which runs daily direct bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap.
The big advantage of Giant Ibis is the departure location, right at Kaoh San road post office. Which avoids havibg to go to Mo Chit bus terminal and spend time in traffic to catch a bus at 8pm.
The bus is ready at 7:15 and departs at 7:45 after control of tickets is finished and everybody boarded. The bus started this morning right on time. There are 2 drivers and they swap after 4 hours of driving. The "bus chief" is there to make sure you are all confortable during the trip. He provides information about the trip and deal with all the visa paperwork during the ride.
A breakfast snack is provided and the bus stops after about 2h for a restroom break.
The bus is reslly confortable with huge leg room and seat reclining to a nice 45°
Giant Ibis provides the visa services for a fee of 5$ (plus the visa costs of 35$) which is not optional. The goal is to have all the application forms provided at the same time and you get the visa in your passport while on board, avoiding the queeing time at the Cambodian border.
We reached the border at noon and the bus droped us on the parking lot nearby. The bus chief walks us to the Thai departure control in order to get the stamp.
After that, we crossed the border by foot and directly headed to the Cambodia arrival imigration check.
Since our visas were resdy in the bus, we just needed the stamps in the passport and immigration form. The main added value of Giant Ibis, it is quick and smooth process. Although it was hard to keep track of the bus chief at the Cambodian border...
Our bus gets a defect just before the border crossing so we had another bus at the Cambodia side but all luguage were already transferd by our driver. Since it is a direct bus, all items can stay in the bus during the border crossing.
Lunch was provided to us once we jumped in the bus and we were all ready for the last 2:30 hours of driving in Cambodia to reach Siem Reap.
All in all, it took us 7:30h for the all transfer.