Pattaya To Sihanoukville

[Lucky33]

I have friends that live in Sihanoukville so I make the trip down there usually two or three times a year. It's usually a relatively easy trip, from my condo to the hotel in Sihanoukville is 600 kilometers and it usually takes me about ten hours to make the trip. Sometimes I go straight through and other times I stop in Koh Kong or Trat and make it a two day trip. My bike is a Honda CB650F with Hepco and Becker panniers.

It's easy to get your bike through Thai and Cambodia customs, here are the steps that I go through each trip. First when you get to Thai immigration go to the Thailand exit station and check yourself out of Thailand. Then go across the street to the enter Thai immigration station and go to agent number 5. Hand her your passport and green book, she will write them down in something and send you to exit station 2 where you will sign some big book and they will give you two copies of documents, one for exiting Thailand and you turn the other one back in when you enter. After that is complete, go across the road again to Thailand customs where you will once again present your green book and passport and they will give you another form. Keep this form with you and be sure and turn it in when you return through immigration coming back into Thailand, it is a 10,000 baht fine if you forget to turn it in!

Now you are done with Thailand immigration and customs. Take your bike across the border and park in front of Cambodia immigration and a tout will come up to you and want to fill out your form and get in line for you and charge you 100 baht. I always pay the 100 baht. After you get your Cambodia visa Cambodia customs is right across the street. Usually they wave you through with no documents but sometimes they will give you a customs form. In my dozen or so trips only once have they given me this form. Also I get the Cambodia E-Visa online, that saves a little time but it's not necessary.

After you do all this you are good to go, hop on your bike and you have one last stop at a checkpoint about five kilometers from immigration. This whole process usually takes me about forty-five minutes to an hour. There are 28 stop lights from my condo in Pattaya to the Thai border at Koh Kong and you know Thailand stop lights, it seems that you have to wait forever. After you reach the border, there are no stoplights from the Cambodia border to Sihanoukville and the road is in good shape and paved most of the way.

Here are a few photos I took on the trip. The first one is of me starting out in Pattaya, 2 is the view from a bridge over a river in Cambodia, 3 is a small shop where I stop for a break and 4 is the road in front of the shop. The last ones are of the monkeys and beach around the hotel where I stayed. All in all it's a fun trip, all of the extra things that you need are a switch to turn off your headlight during the day or some tape and something to cover the headlight. That's it.

 

[monsterman]

any hassle from cops etc once you are in Cambodia

 

[Lucky33]

The only place that I have ever been hassled by the police is Sihanoukville. As you can read in the thread below, the 'Sihanoukville Shakedown' used to be alive and well but the last two or three times that I have visited there they had discontinued doing it. They had a new police chief installed into office a couple of years ago and he vowed to discontinue the practice, lets hope that he is successful. At the worst, I always talked them down to $5 US or less so it wasn't that bad although they start out wanting $50 US and threaten to impound your bike, etc.

 

[monsterman]

last time i went to sianoukville was 2009 the cops were happy if you gave them $3

but in 2011 the Thais stopped me taking my bike out at the border ,, other big bikes were let through

 

[Lucky33]

last time i went to sianoukville was 2009 the cops were happy if you gave them $3

but in 2011 the Thais stopped me taking my bike out at the border ,, other big bikes were let through

Why did they stop you from taking your bike in while they were letting other people do it? Did they give you a reason?

 

[Moto-Rex]

Your Honda CB650F with Hepco and Becker panniers looks like a good set up.
Thanks for the update on the process of crossing the border, should be of help to many here.
Is the beach photo Sihanoukville?

Moto-Rex

 

[Lucky33]

Your Honda CB650F with Hepco and Becker panniers looks like a good set up.
Thanks for the update on the process of crossing the border, should be of help to many here.
Is the beach photo Sihanoukville?

Moto-Rex

I see on the forums guys wanting to know how hard it is and what documents you need to cross the border so I thought that I would do a step by step. I agree about the Honda, when I bought it I thought about getting one of the large touring bikes but I usually go on my motorcycle trips and stay a week or so at a time and the CB650F is perfect for getting around town while I"m there. The beach photos were both taken at the hotel in Sihanoukville.

 

[monsterman]

Why did they stop you from taking your bike in while they were letting other people do it? Did they give you a reason?

all my paper work was in order green book .tax insurance ,, age of the bike might have been the issue,they were not very clear, , all the other bikes in the group were only 2-4 years old, no problem when i went to laos or malaysia and the bike was then 14 years old now its 17 years old

 

[bill]

As you can read in the thread below, the 'Sihanoukville Shakedown' used to be alive and well but the last two or three times that I have visited there they had discontinued doing it.

Its still alive and well, but they've shifted their focus to the Chinese Casino workers.