How to…get from Belize to Mexico

Belize is a perfect holiday destination; sunny, exotic and friendly. Although there are only two main roads across Belize, we found it easy enough to travel around, well set up for tourists. However, when leaving Belize to go to Mexico we fell for a bus scam. So as a tip - don’t buy your bus tickets to Mexico from the Belize City Marine Terminal.

Two daily buses leave the Belize City Marine Terminal for Mexico - the San Juan travel agency minibus at 10:30am and a large ADO bus at 12:00pm. We bought a bus ticket from Belize City to Tulum, Mexico, for $30 USD from one of the many agents in/around the Marine Terminal offering tickets for the same price on the same bus.

We opted for the early bus. The ride was smooth, passing through tempting jungle and rivers and signs to quaint sounding places like ’Orange Creek’. We would have loved to stop but time and money didn’t allow. Instead we arrived in Mexico at Chetumal bus station, late, but expecting to carry straight on to Tulum.

At this point the San Juan bus driver disappeared, and when we went to the ADO ticket office we were told our bus ticket was not a ticket, just a voucher. We swapped it for a bus ticket that cost $10 less than the price we’d paid for it. We were then told that the next bus to Tulum was sold out and that we’d have to wait for two and a half hours for the next one. Humph!

So there was no direct connection in Chetumal to Tulum and we were sold a ticket at a highly inflated price. Don’t buy your tickets in the Marine Terminal! Just buy a ticket to Chetumal, Mexico, and make your own way from there - it‘ll take the same amount of time and cost you less.

You have to pay to leave Belize - $30 Bz (or $15 USD) for the “visa processing” fee and a $7.50 Bz Protected Areas Conservation Trust (PACT) fee. Everyone pays the visa processing fee, but you only pay the PACT if you’ve been in the country more than forty eight hours. The exit procedure was quick and easy - as you’d expect for that price!

Entering Mexico was also easy. If it’s your first entry you need to fill in a tourist card, but if you already have one (as we did) you can just stroll right in, through customs with all your bags.
We left Belize with a longing to return. It is a great place to go and is easy to travel onwards to Guatemala or Mexico overland. Just make sure you don’t fall into the same bus ticket trap as we did.
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How to…get in to and out of Cambodia overland

Aranya Prathet, Thailand, to Poipet, Cambodia
We crossed the border into Cambodia at Aranya Prathet, one of Thailand’s five land border crossings. It was a very confusing process with little information and scams a plenty. Have your wits about you and don’t trust anyone.

Having been warned against taking the ‘direct’ bus from Thailand to Siem Reap (that apparently takes you around the houses and down the worst roads so you arrive late and tired and go to the first guesthouse the driver suggests) we made our own way to Aranya Prathet. It feels like the end of the road with little in the way of accommodation and the dredges at the bottom of the culinary barrel (including frog, lizard and bush meat).

The border is open from 7.30am to 5pm and you can buy your visa at the border. The tuk tuk journey from town (6km) should cost no more than 50 Bhat, and make sure your driver takes you to the border and not to the ‘Cambodian Consulate’. The Cambodian Consulate is a scam. The sign and building certainly look legitimate and they do sell Cambodian visas, but after one too many “sure brother’s" we got suspicious. Only it was too late; as we had handed over $30 for a visa that we later learnt should cost only $20. The best place to buy your Cambodian visa, if you haven’t got one in advance, is from the visa booth once you have gone through Thai immigration and customs. Cambodian immigration and customs are then a straightforward stamp and enter.

Poipet is an unnerving and unwelcoming entrance to a country. After the relative ease, cleanliness and smiles of Thailand, Cambodia throws dust, ragged children and deformed adults at you. Women pull carts through a cesspool of a road piled high with rubbish and mud. Going through the Angkor towers gate into Cambodia felt like walking through a portal in to another world.

Moving on from Poipet to Siem Reap or anywhere in Cambodia is a chore. The Cambodian authorities claim to have made it easier to avoid scams by providing their own irritating touts and escorts across the border. Whether you like it or not, they’ll accompany you from Aranya Prathet to Poipet and put you on a free bus to the tourist bus terminal (about 200m), where you pay corresponding tourist prices. For a bus terminal there are very few buses. You can wait for the single daily bus to Siem Reap that leaves at 3pm ($10) or share a taxi ($60). There doesn’t appear to be an alternative. The taxi turned out to be a good option (although expensive for a three hour journey) as the road to Siem Reap is dire and you need all the comfort you can get. Rumour has it that Thai Airlines pays the Cambodian government to keep this road in poor condition to encourage more people to fly.

It is a slow roller coaster ride on red mud, about as bumpy as the roads in northern Laos, but it is also a fascinating introduction to Cambodia. Dazzling fields of rice stretch as far as the eye can see with water buffalo wallowing, children playing and men fishing with nets all up to their waists in water. Given the country’s history it feels tropically eerie. These feelings were offset by the surreal as a man on motorbike went by with two rigor-mortised pigs, trotters pointing towards the heavens, strapped on the back.

The last part of the trip is finding your guesthouse in Siem Reap. On the city outskirts the taxi driver passes you over to a tuk tuk for the final leg of the journey. Make sure you have a hostel reservation, or pretend you have one, and insist on being taken there and not to the one where the driver receives commission. The tuk tuk ride is included in the taxi fare. Another irritating ‘official’ rides with you trying to sell tours of the temples. Ignore him too. Once settled Siem Reap is definitely worth the hassle, and the journey there is an unforgettable and unique part of the Cambodian adventure.

Bavet, Cambodia, to Moc Bai, Vietnam
Leaving Cambodia is a doddle in comparison to entry. The road from Phnom Penh to Vietnam is good and there are direct buses from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) that take six hours ($12). Most hostels in Phnom Penh will sell you a bus ticket with a ride to the bus terminal included in the price. Many hostels also offer a visa service ($35), perhaps the easiest way to get a visa for Vietnam. British nationals need a Vietnam visa before arriving at the border, but other nationalities, such as the Swedes, may be able to travel visa free for up to 15 days.

There is little more to say about the crossing. It was easy. You give your passport to the bus staff and they get the exit stamp for Cambodia while you are eating lunch and admiring the bling of Bavet‘s casinos. You then get off the bus to go through Vietnamese immigration and your bags are scanned at customs. Back on the bus and you’re in Vietnam.

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