Once again, I’ve failed to update regularly…oh well. In an effort to avoid a ridiculously long entry (don't get your hopes up too high, this one's still pretty long), I’m just going to go through Cambodia on this post, even though I’m already more than halfway through my time in Vietnam. I’ll pick up where I left off.
My last night in Bangkok was great. Jang treated me to yet another delicious meal followed by some galactic bowling with her boyfriend. I hold her fully responsible for the great time I had in that crazy city. It really makes all the difference in the world to have that combination of a friendly face and a native speaker. I packed my bag late that night, and took off from my hostel at 6a.m. the following morning. I left my small duffle bag behind, and am now traveling ultra-light with a few changes of clothes, essential toiletries, my frisbee and my laptop crammed into my small daypack.
The eleven-hour trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap (the town in Cambodia closest to the temples at Angkor) was definitely an adventure. The plan was to take the public bus from Bangkok to Aranyaprathet (the border town in Thailand), arrange “private transportation” from the town to the border itself, walk across the border and finally hop a bus from Poipet (the border town in Cambodia) to Siem Reap. Apparently scams to rip off unsuspecting backpackers like myself abound along the entire route, so my real mission was to make it to Siem Reap with as many of my hard-earned greenbacks in my pocket as possible. Sounds like fun, right? It actually was, but didn’t go exactly according to plan.
About three hours into my surprisingly comfortable and swift bus trip towards the Cambodian border, the bus pulled over to the side of the road and the driver pointed at myself and a couple of other people, and then pointed at a (much less comfortable-looking) bus on the other side of the highway. I was suspicious, and kept asking whether that bus was going to Aranyaprathet. The bus driver pulled out one of the least reassuring (and most common) combinations of body language that you see in this part of the world: he cocked his head to the side to indicate that he didn’t understand a thing I just said, then said “yes, yes” and motioned for me to get off the bus in a tone that unmistakably said “I have no idea what you’re trying to say, just get off the damn bus so you’re not my problem any more.” I got off the bus and began to cross the highway, fully expecting both buses to ditch me in the middle of a vast expanse of rice paddies. Fortunately, the driver of bus number two got out and waved me across. Bus number two was a solid step down in comfort. There was no AC (not much fun in 95-degree heat), a few crying babies and a woman directly in front of me who kept taking whiffs of some kind of concentrated, eucalyptus-based liquid that made me feel like I was swimming in a pool of Vick’s vapor rub.
Fortunately, the ride to Aranyaprathet was only another hour or so. I ate a quick lunch at the “bus station” (a tin roof with a few food stalls and some plastic furniture) and found my “private transportation” to the border in the form of a stoic 60 year-old man on a motorbike. This was my first time on the back of a motorcycle, and I think it was my driver’s first time with a 6’-4” passenger with a 30lb backpack. It was a little nerve-wracking, but we both survived just fine. He was, however, also the first in a long line of people to try to rip me off.
Instead of taking me straight to the border crossing, my driver took me to an “agency” where a smooth-talking, well dressed Cambodian guy with a fancy laminated ID card tried to tell me that he worked for the Cambodian government, and could arrange a visa for me for the small fee of 1000 Thai baht (about US$30). I knew from talking to other travelers that this was...well...bullshit, and that a visa could be obtained on arrival for only US$20. The little bastard was persistent though, and before I finally convinced my driver to take me to the real border, he shouted “fine, you try at border, you pay much more! When you come back, I don’t help you, I charge you more!” One scam down. How many more to go? My “trusty” driver then took me to “the border”...again. This time, “the border” was actually the Cambodian consulate, where a uniformed official informed me that I could apply for my visa for a mere US$30. I politely declined his offer, saying I would take my chances. Two scams down. I returned to my moto driver, who seemed to understand that I wasn’t likely to fall for any more shenanigans and took me to the actual friggin border.
As I walked towards the Thai border office where I would receive my exit stamp, about a dozen more “travel agents” approached me, waving visa forms in my face. As I brushed them off and kept walking, they all went through the amazing transformation from being my best friend and border-crossing advisor to pissed-off con artists who threatened to leave me high and dry when I inevitably came back for their help. Getting stamped out of Thailand was easy (and free), as was declining more offers for “help” as I walked across the dusty no-man’s-land towards the Cambodian visa office.
Even though I had been told to expect it by fellow travelers at my hostel in Bangkok, the blatant corruption amongst the uniformed Cambodian border officials still surprised me. A large sign directly above their office clearly read “TOURIST VISA: 20 USD,” and yet the guy behind the counter looked me straight in the eye and asked me for 1,000 Baht ($30). I expected this, and had a lone $20 bill ready in my hand. “This is all I’ve got,” I lied. “You no have passport photo, must pay extra. 1,000 Baht.” I shook my head calmly: “I only have twenty dollars.” He paused, then said quickly “twenty dollar and two hundred baht.” Are you serious!?! I was actually haggling with a customs official! Priceless. I shook my head one more time, and got him down to twenty dollars and 100 Baht (about US$2.50) before I gave up and paid the man, feeling I had at least escaped in better shape than most from this scam (is this number four or five? I forget).
Feeling pretty good about my performance thus far, I walked into Poipet. My only previous experience with a border town came on my cross-country road trip with Bassett, Dave, and Homans in 2005. We made a quick stop in Nogales, New Mexico and walked into Mexico for lunch and a tequila shot. The town we found on the Mexican side of the border was…well let’s say it was not a place in which we wanted to spend much time. Poipet made our stroll through Nogales feel about as shady as a walk down Newbury Street in Boston. The level of poverty in rural Cambodia can be shocking, and Poipet was no exception. It was a rough place, and I didn’t envy anyone who had to spend more than a few hours there.
After standing near a group of westerners for five or ten minutes, declining every offer for help I received (I had heard that many people get suckered in to paying around $50 for transportation to Siem Reap, but that the three-hour trip could cost as little as $10), I decided to put my trust in a reasonably well-dressed guy who was steered me towards a bus and assured me he could get me to Siem Reap for $10. This first bus only took me about 400 feet into town, where it dropped me off at a “travel agency” (a reasonably clean room with a ticket window and some plastic chairs). At the agency, I was informed that I could take a taxi to Siem Reap now, but if I wanted to take the cheaper bus, I would have to wait three hours. I said I would be happy to wait (much to the taxi driver’s chagrin), sat down in one of the chairs and turned on my iPod.
The bus left only an hour later (three hours my ass), once enough Westerners had showed up to fill it. Sadly, this was the one place where I failed the scam test, as they managed to charge me 500 Baht for my ticket ($14 instead of the promised $10 fee). My sleep-deprived brain didn’t do the math until about 20 minutes into the bus ride, and I was too lazy to put up a fight over four bucks. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. Naturally, the bus “wasn’t permitted” to go all the way to the center of Siem Reap, so they were “forced” to drop us about seven kilometers from the city, where hungry tuk-tuk drivers were conveniently waiting. I piled into a tuk-tuk with a Swedish guy, a Finnish guy and all of our luggage, and finally made it to the hostel I had reserved just before sun down, passing at least three or four full-sized buses in downtown Siem Reap. Eleven hours, four buses, one motorcycle taxi and a tuk-tuk…that was a trip.
The rest of my two weeks in Cambodia was really great, with a three day break of crappy intestinal illness in the middle. I think my pictures do the best justice to the incredible temples around Angkor, so I won’t say much about them here except that I think everyone should try to see them at some point in their lifetime…they’re that cool. Siem Reap itself was actually a nice town with some good restaurants and bars and very friendly locals (a common theme in this part of the world). I hung out a fair bit a Swedish guy and two Irish girls who were my roommates at the hostel there, and who provided a nice break to the constant sightseeing/eating/sleeping cycle that is easy to get caught up in when you’re traveling alone. From Siem Reap, I took a gorgeous boat ride down a couple of rivers and across the Tonle Sap (Southeast Asia’s biggest lake) to an old colonial city called Battambang. The boat ride was a great way to see the true rural, water-based side of Cambodia. Battambang itself turned out to be less than impressive, although it was a good place to rest up while I battled the aforementioned intestinal illness (Pol Pot’s revenge?).
From Battambang I took the bus to Phnom Penh to check out the Genocide Museum and the Killing Fields. Having just finished Hiang S. Ngor’s biography, Surviving the Killing Fields (which was a great read, by the way), it was really moving to visit the sites of some of the Khmer Rouge’s worst atrocities. Not what I’d call “fun,” but interesting and very compelling. Once again, my pictures probably do more justice than words here. Other highlights from the capital included causing trouble with a hilarious Irish guy named Nike (pronounced like Mike, not the shoes…go figure), and meeting Barry.
Barry is the only New Englander I have met on my trip so far, and as it turns out he was born and raised in Brunswick, Maine…what an amazing coincidence! Barry and I had a great conversation about all things Maine when I met him at a restaurant near my hotel, and he told me that he’s been running a bar in Phnom Penh for about a year and a half. As he paid for his meal, he said I should swing by the bar tonight if I felt like it; it was just up the street, the one with the neon yellow sign. What a nice guy! Later that night, I was wandering around the city and decided to take Barry up on his offer. I found the bar just fine, but was a little…troubled…when I read the neon sign: “Knickers & Liquors.” This made me suspicious, but I decided to give Barry the benefit of the doubt and went in through the tinted glass doors.
My worst suspicions were confirmed when I walked inside. I was greeted by an enthusiastic chorus of Cambodian women between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, all of them “stylishly” dressed, all of them clearly “on the job” if you will…and there was Barry behind the bar, the pride of Brunswick, Maine, serving cold beer to a lone sixty-year-old British guy. I was already inside, and Barry had spotted me, so I had what has to be the most awkward beer of my life, trying to chat casually with Barry about Maine and financial planning (his next career path, apparently) while turning down offers of “massages” in broken English from a Cambodian girl that would not leave my side. Definitely one of the more surreal experiences of my trip thus far.
That was it for Cambodia. From Phnom Penh I took a (much less complicated) cross-border bus trip straight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam where I began a part of my trip that I had been looking forward to ever since I first planned to come to this part of the world.
