Border Crossing part 1 of 3

Cambodia and Thailand are right next to each other. They’re part of the same peninsula. It seemed like a no-brainer to combine them into one trip. After Thailand, we hoped to head over to neighboring Cambodia to visit the famous temples at Angkor Wat.

Before leaving home, we researched how to go from Koh Chang –our last stop in Thailand- to Angkor Wat.

Turns out, you can’t get there from here.

We clicked around in a multiple TripAdvisor.com and LonelyPlanet.com chat rooms. Almost everyone warned about what a nightmare it is to try to get from Koh Chang to Angkor Wat. Most people advised against attempting. Among the people who had success made the trek, every one of their methods was different.

Getting from Koh Chang to Angkor Wat would require three buses, two taxis, a train, and a walk across the border. And if we were lucky, we could make the four-hundred-mile trip in one day. If we ran into trouble at the border, it might take two days.

I knew this trip was going to be my family’s one trip to the Indochina peninsula. If we didn’t make it to Cambodia on this trip, it wasn’t ever going to happen. Period. I really wanted to go to Cambodia, but it was going to take additional money and an extraordinary effort. For the sake of marital bliss, I had to let it go. While Angkor Wat wasn’t on the top of my must-see list, it was still tough knowing that I had gotten so close and wasn’t going to see it.

Oh well.

I let it go.

I wasn’t going to let missing Cambodia ruin my trip to Thailand.

Can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

So the decision had been made.

Or so I thought.