English Language Skills

French colonisation and the structure of the French language may have been relevant three or four decades ago, but following first the Khmer Rouge and then the Vietnamese, French influence and the French language have virtually disappeared (apart from in the restaurants and bakeries!), despite the best efforts of the French (Alliance Francaise, etc) to encourage use of the French language.

The idea of face saving is very much an Asian concept, not a Thai one, and one which I found to be just as relevant to Cambodians as it is to Thais.

The biggest reason for the difference is simply the efforts made by the UN (and their money!) and a number of international NGOs following UNTAC and the return of "democracy". There is a lot of outside (international) funding for both teachers and teacher training, a lot of schools in the urban areas for street kids who are given free meals as long as they attend lessons, and foreign volunteer teachers and aid workers (VSO, etc) are welcomed. None of this applies to Thailand.

Road Travel

A cheaper & potentially slightly safer route to Siem Reap is to take the train from BKK to Aranya Prathet (48 bht, 6 hours), followed by a Tuk Tuk to the border (80 bht), then share a taxi with some other tourist to Siem Reap (say 50% of $40). At the moment, the road is un-made most of the way, so this keeps speeds down, which must be a good thing.

I actually recommended this to PM as a good alternative and a time and money saver, but there is no need to endure 6 hours in third class on the train. Some visa-runs from both Bangkok and Pattaya still go to Aranyaprathet / Poipet (ensure you do not go to Pong Nam Ron / Pailin by mistake!) and travel agencies can arrange a one-way trip, a taxi to Siem Reap and back, and a return trip from the border (Poipet). There is also a coach from Pattaya to Aranyaprathet every day taking Thais to the casinos, leaving Pattaya early in the morning and returning in the evening for 100 baht (one way or return), but this is very much a "Thai" bus with drums, etc, so personally I would avoid it.

I would also avoid this journey (Poipet - Siem Reap) in the rainy season - as z909 said the road is unsurfaced; it is actually laterite, like most of the roads in rural Cambodia, so in the dry it is fine as long as you do not mind red dust (and your driver's windscreen wipers work). In the wet, however, it becomes a mud slide and can be very treacherous even with a good driver in a 4x4 - and that precludes 99% of those on the road!