Hello Cambodia

Getting to Siem Reap is a true nightmare. I knew that hundreds of tourists make the trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap daily, but I was still petrified to do it. I had read every guide and travel tip available, and had the whole thing calculated out in my head, but the whole thing still made me nervous. After the overnight bus to Bangkok, and a four hour bus to the border, we arrived at Aranyaprathet to a parade of tuk-tuks, loading all the bus passengers into their vehicles, without a word of where we’re going or how much it would cost. They demanded a hundred bhat from us, and dropped us at an unofficial building to get visas. We luckily got out of there without paying, leaving other frazzled foreigners left to get scammed (sorry guys! We met up with one of the couples later that had ended up paying twice as much for their visas as they should have). We got kicked out of the building for refusing to get the visas with them, and looked around helplessly for the border. It was really only a short walk away, and we were able to get through Thai customs and make it to the Cambodian border where we could process our visas for the actual price. Getting across the border was such a relief, and it was basically cake after that, since the stupid Cambodian tourist agency has a monopoly on the transit from Poipet to Siem Reap, so we had no options and no bartering to get to Siem Reap. We had to pay the monopoly price for a bus, which was really only 9 US dollars.

The whole thing was kind of dumb and made me feel bad for Cambodia. First, they have to deal with all these tourists that can’t, and don’t even make an attempt to try to speak Khmer. I made it a point to learn hello and thank you in Khmer so I could at least be respectful of the people at the border and the stupid tourist agency, and everyone was surprised I could say thank you! Does really nobody else say thank you to you in your own language? And secondly, because so many tourists go to Siem Reap, they hardly use their own currency. They use mostly American dollars and give you change in their currency, Reel, and they also take bhat! I watched our tuk tuk driver one day give a store US dollars for gasoline, and get change in bhat. That is a lot of currency conversions, and I really don’t trust that they’re doing it right. I wonder what its like on the Eastern side of the country. I hope they don’t have to deal with American currency over there too. That would be quite sad. Also, the whole Khmer Rouge thing in Cambodia is incredibly overlooked in world history. How many Americans do you think know that Cambodia had basically a holocaust only 20 years ago? I certainly didn’t know much about it, and I study Asian history a lot.

So anyway, we arrived in Siem Reap fairly late at night. As we gathered our things off the bus, a tall, fairly built Cambodian introduced himself by saying “Hello, I am your tuk-tuk driver”. He was so cool! He showed us to his cute little tuk-tuk, and took us straight to our guesthouse. The tuk-tuks in Cambodia are a little different than Thailand; they’re just little carriages attached to motorbikes. He dropped us at the guesthouse, and asked if we needed a driver for the next day to see Angkor Wat. What a professional! So we hired Tull for the next day, without even thinking to barter with him, cause we loved his style. And that was the third guy Jillian fell in love with this trip.

After dropping off our belongings, we went to explore the streets of Siem Reap. It’s a pretty cute town with a lot of shops and restaurants very close to our guesthouse. As you can imagine, it is full of tourists, and everything is in English. It’s so weird to talk to Cambodians, Spaniards, Germans, everyone in our language, knowing their all using their learned language. And even if they weren’t talking to us, the Europeans talk to each other in English. It’s so strange and kind of off-putting. But I guess that's why I was hired to teach English in Thailand for a year. So being in Cambodia for the first time, we opted to try Cambodian BBQ. It’s pretty much a Korean BBQ/hot pot kind of deal. There is a raised grill to cook the meat, above a moat of broth to boil the vegetables and noodles. It’s served with a side of rice and was pretty tasty except for the gross Italian dressing they supplied on the side. Yuck. I don’t know how authentically Cambodian that really was. If it is authentic, I don’t think I care for Cambodian food. I missed Thailand already.

The next day was our introduction to the city of Angkor. It’s hard to really describe the amazingness of the ruins, and though the pictures don’t do it much justice either, it’s probably better than me trying to explain how beautiful it all is. Basically, Angkor Thom, or the Great City, was the last capital city during the Khmer empire. Established in the 12th century, Angkor Thom is now a city of ruins, having been abandoned sometime in the 1600’s. The city is most known for Angkor Wat, or the Temple of Angkor, though the entire city is an endless spectacle. We started with Banteay Kdei and Sra Srang. Kayleigh, Jillian and I adopted an unspoken ritual of exploring the temple at our own pace, finding our own way around, and somehow finding each other in the end. Our system worked surprisingly well, as we found out with this first temple. We split up almost instantly, and reconvened at the end, telling each other what we saw. Kayleigh bought some beautiful artwork, Jillian ate some yams with an old man and his son, and I had hired a tour guide to tell me about the temple. I didn’t really hire Sao. He just started following me around telling me different details about the temple, like all of the Buddha’s heads are missing because they were taken by the Khmer Rouge, he showed me the dancing halls where the Upsara would perform their political dances, pointed out a huge, grotesque spider, and showed me where the French had tried to restore some of the structure with cement. The coolest thing was the types of rocks used (you know I love my geology). They had used two types of rock: sandstone for carving, and volcanic rock for building blocks since volcanic rock is much harder to carve than sandstone. Sao told me he was in school for engineering and wanted to continue his studies in either history or engineering. He was adorable. Jillian said he probably made those things up, which he probably did, but I liked his little facts and I’ll pretend that they’re true. Who really knows if they’re accurate or not, they may as well be truth.

Exiting the temple we got bombarded with little kids trying to sell us shirts, sodas, artwork, anything. They were adorable, but sometimes a little evil. Each one greeted us saying, hello, where are you from? When we answered America, the typical response would be: "America. Capital Washington DC. President Barack Obama. He has two daughters and one dog named Bobo." And this was their routine for any tourist that passed their way. They could also count to ten in more languages than I could name. I saw a little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, trying to sell postcards in Japanese. And they were relentless. We got swarmed at this temple and had to disappoint every single one of them by not purchasing anything. The little girl that bugged me, Tanika, got really upset with me, and gave me this dark look saying, you’re a bad tourist. You didn’t buy anything from my store. Her voice was scary enough to give me nightmares.

After Sra Srong, we explored Pre Rup, Eastern Baray and Eastern Mebon before stopping for lunch. We invited Tull to have lunch with us, which I couldn’t really tell if he wanted to do. But we asked him to help us with the menu, and he was delighted to do so. Without really asking, he ordered Amok for me, curry for Jillian, soup for Kayleigh and fried chicken for himself. It was actually delicious. My Amok was served in a coconut, and is almost like a light curry, with a ton of dark leafy greens. Yum yum. After lunch we went to the coolest ruin we had seen all day, Preah Khan. The grounds were huge, with endless halls to explore, rubble to climb and pictures to take. We walked in different directions, from one end to another, and all came back with stories of where this wild flower garden was, getting lost in halls, climbing on top of the rubble, it was really a huge maze. I think we could have spent an entire day there. But that was the last stop of the day, and we were quite temple’d out.

That evening we headed back out to the center of the Siem Reap night life. Jillian and Kayleigh were craving pizza, and the international food in Siem Reap is supposed to be quite good, so we scouted a place in our guide book called Happy Herb Pizza. The description was hilarious, saying something about the pizza being great, and the questionably legal ingredients will be sure to have guests leaving happy. So we found the restaurant, and when you order you pizza, they ask if you want it “happy”, and of course we said yes. I think their secret ingredient was really just oregano. Didn't feel a thing. After happy pizza, we headed to the night market. It is exactly what you would expect of a night market in Siem Reap. A lot of Angkor Wat shirts, some "I love Cambodia" shirts, wood carvings, Cambodian silk scarfs, and other great souvenirs. I bought a hammock for my house in Sukothai.

Day two in Cambodia, Tull picked us up at 5 in the morning to see the sunrise in Angkor Wat. Since we were in Cambodia during their wet season, it was really no surprise that the sky was covered with clouds and all of the sunrise we could see was the changing light in the sky. But we took our time exploring the famous temple with less crowds than we would encounter later in the day. It is still amazing though that there were still maybe a hundred tourists at Angkor Wat at 5 in the morning during their wet season. The actual temple was actually not that amazing, compared to all of the other amazing sites the city of Angkor has to offer. I think because it is the most famous, it is the most well preserved and restored temple of the lot. The unkempt ruins, in my opinion, have more character and authenticity.

After some coffee and breakfast at one of the many food stalls nearby, we explored the rest of Angkor Thom, starting with Bayon, which marks the center of the city. The rest of Angkor Thom that we wandered through included Baphuon, Phimeanakas, South and North Kleang, Preah Pithu, Tep Pranam and Preah Palitay. We took a break from temple hopping, and headed outside of the Angkor city back to Siem Reap for lunch in a butterfly garden. The food was crap, but the ambiance made it worth it. The tables are spread through a garden, with butterflies all over. When we returned to Angkor, we visited the last temple on our agenda, Ta Prohm, where parts of Tomb Raider was filmed. Jillian had the genius idea of us all French braiding our hair so we could take a picture, Laura Croft style, at Ta Prohm. That was possibly the best picture we have of the whole trip, except for maybe the picture I took of Joe with a flower in his hair. Ta Prohm was another really cool temple that I liked more than Angkor Wat. This temple has been left to nature for the most part, with some restoration happening, but its mostly been left for the jungle to take over. There are huge trees growing on top or on the sides of walls, their roots now reaching to the ground, tearing down the sides of the temples. It’s really an amazing thing to see how nature just demolishes these carefully orchestrated structures. We took too long in Ta Prohm, that we nearly missed the sunset. Tull sped us over to the hill across from Angkor Wat that we had to hike up to see sunset. By then the clouds had rolled in, so it was okay that we were late to miss the sunset we wouldn’t have been able to see.

For dinner that evening, we went to explore a quieter street behind the hubbub of Siem Reap. We found this adorable Khmer food restaurant with the goofiest staff, which was an anomaly to the serious service we had been getting. The waiters were kind of spastic, and joked with us, making sure we knew that cocktails were buy one get one free. The best part is that they serve you free popcorn when you sit down. That’s really what won me over, and their Amok was pretty good too. Following dinner, we had to try drinks at the bar named “Angkor What?” The bar was totally goofy, and attracted us not because of the 50 cent draft, but because of the name. Towards the end of the night though, the bar turned into a total tourist party scene, and it was time to get out.

Our last full day in Cambodia, we decided to skip the city of Angkor, and try something different. The problem with trying something different, of course, is money. We wanted to see Tonle Sap, SE Asia’s largest lake, but to do so was going to cost us a fortune thanks to Cambodia’s lovely monopoly on tourism. Tonle Sap, as I had learned under the great instruction of Dr. Robert Mason, fluctuates massively in size throughout the year. During the dry season, there are roads and forests that are covered by the lake or tributaries during the wet season (now), as it expands to about four times it’s size. The forest and villages around Tonle Sap morph into the “Floating Village” and the “Flooded Forest” during their high season. I talked to the staff at our hostel about getting a ride to one of the tributaries to the lake, Kong Gneash. He said one of his drivers could take us there for 6$ round way, but it would be hard because it’s flooded. In my head, I said yeah duh it’s flooded, that’s why we want to go! Thinking he was talking about the flooded village. Well we came to find out he was talking about the road to Kong Gneash being flooded. It was a mess! This was a fairly busy road in Siem Reap, and must get flooded often, because some shops and homes were set up for the flood either by putting their store on stilts, or blocking the river-road off with rice bags. It was insane. Several times our tuk-tuk driver got stuck, and we would have to get out and wade through the knee-deep water until he could carry us again on the tuk-tuk. By the time we got to the port of Kong Gneash, this mean tourism police guy told us it would cost us $150 to take a boat to Tonle Sap! Lies. It should really have only cost us 80$, max. We walked away, and tried to find another port. Our tuk-tuk driver kept saying no, no, the police will stop you, to which I replied, good. This is a scam and I want to talk to the police. Well the police did stop us and told us we had to pay the mean guy at the port if we wanted to get to Tonle Sap. Bummer. So our poor little tuk-tuk driver led us stupide tourists back through the flooded streets to another port about an hour away so we could pay the stupid tourism authority half price, and our tuk-tuk driver double, to take a smaller boat half the distance to Tonle Sap. At least we know the money goes straight to the tuk-tuk driver. Who knows where our money to the tourism authority go. When we got there, luckily our tuk-tuk driver told the police how much he had told us we would have to pay, meanwhile the Australians ahead of us paid double cause the tourism authority just make up prices, won’t barter, and there’s nothing you can do about it except watch the boat drivers not get paid their fair share. Cambodia is wacky.

All in all though, the trip to Tonle Sap was really cool, flooded street included. Our little boat driver didn’t say a single word, but he took us along this river that would have been a street during the dry season. Our tuk-tuk driver, who came along for the ride, tried to explain some things to me in his broken English, like how much the boat driver gets paid (less than half), that there’s snakes in the river, and that during the dry season, you can drive to the village on this river. We passed rice paddies, the floating village that was constructed entirely on stilts, and the mangroves. Finally we made it out to Tonle Sap, that looked as big as an ocean. We sat on the lake as we watched the sky change from perfectly sunny to incredibly ominous as a huge storm approached. We started heading back up the river, but barely made it off the lake when the sheet of rain reached us. The storm was intense. We stopped at a floating restaurant for cover, where we met a boy, younger than us, who was a radio DJ in Siem Reap. He gave us his facebook information, and hoped that we’d tell our friends about him. He also showed us his catfish farm, which many homes along the river have to sell to Siem Reap merchants. Once the rain subsided, we made our way back to the port, shivering all the way back to Siem Reap.

That night, our last night in Siem Reap, we went out in style. We decided to treat ourselves to really fancy BBQ at a cute restaurant with linen napkins. With two mojitos each, meat skewers, noodles and some BBQ squid, we left with very happy tummies with a whopping balance of $23 total for the three of us. We headed down to pub street to sit at a bar and play cards. I had spent some time with the Cambodians at the hostel learning their card game that was supposedly very difficult (it was really just Gin Rummi), and we rotated between that, Thai Rummi, Gop Don Gop Dang (Thai Ten) and Kang. We were probably there for quite a while, and left once we realized we were the last ones there around 12:30. But, just across the street, Angkor What?! was just getting started, so he hopped over for some dancing with a bunch of European tourists. They really do party a lot, those tourists.

In the morning, Kayleigh and I were not feeling great, though Jillian was somehow not a pinch hungover. And we had a full day of bussing back to Bangkok. Great. Even though we weren’t too crazy about our hostel at first, the little place had grown on me, and I was kind of sad to leave those guys. The owner set us up on the minivan, while everyone got on the bus, insisting the mini-van would get there quicker. How much quicker? Someone asked. About 10 minutes was his response. One of the guys helped me put my bags on the bus, and said I should stay here for a year, and he would find me a job at a hostel, so I could come play cards with them. Tempting, if Cambodia wasn’t a wacky country. We got to the border before the bus, crossed over into Aranyaprathet, and waited for the rest of our ride to Bangkok with only white stickers on our shirts as evidence of our bus tickets. Well, we beat the bus from Siem Reap alright, by over an hour, then had to wait for them! We waited and waited, seeing people with purple stickers, green stickers, red stickers, pass us by and get on buses to Bangkok. I asked a guy leading green stickers around why we still had to wait, and he just looked at my shirt and said, white sticker, you wait over there! I can never tell if they’re making these things up, or if they are really that organized. I guess I shouldn’t doubt them, because as soon as the rest of the white stickers showed up, so did our bus to take us to Bangkok.

We found a hostel for the night on the infamous Kaosan road, otherwise known as backpackers road. It’s a total mess. It’s pretty close to central Bangkok which is nice, and there is a plethora of hostels to stay in, though compared to what we’ve been paying they were quite pricey. I really don’t know why it’s backpackers road. It’s so trashy! There’s a bunch of stores that line the streets, selling a variety of tee shirts, jewelry, fake diplomas, and other odds and ends. There is also plenty of food vendors to compete with the Subway, McDonalds and KFC that populate the street, but all the carts were pretty much only selling Pad Thai. It was an interesting scene. When we met up with A-Dtaw and A-Fung that night, A-Fung’s eyes went wide when I told him we were staying at a hostel behind the Subway on Kaosan street. He said, you know that Kaosan never sleeps! But A-Dtaw was excited for us, saying we need to experience it. I think he wanted to join us. We had an amazing dinner with crab curry, roasted duck, tom yam pla and shrimp. A-Fung kept us amused with stories of his friends winning tons of money in Las Vegas. When he told us his one friend lost 35 million US dollars, Kayleigh said what a waste! He could have given that to me to take back to America! And A-Fung said no, no no…that’d be too heavy! You wouldn’t be able to carry that all! Then A-Dtaw and A-Fung spent the next 5 minutes discussing in Thai how many suitcases that would fill up. They decided on ten. As we got to the end of our meal (seemed like an eternity with all that food!) A-Fung was trying to make us eat the last few pieces of shrimp and vegetables, telling us that the person who takes the last piece of food will have good fortune finding a boyfriend (but I think he was just saying that to get us to eat more). Jillian took the last shrimp, and A-Fung pointed to the last vegetable and said, Kayleigh, this is your last chance! So she took the last vegetable. Funny little A-Fung. We caught a cab back to Kaosan street, and hit the street for last minute souvenirs. After scanning all of Kaosan, we headed to a reggae bar. Of course it was packed with drunk Europeans, and had the most expensive drinks I’ve ever seen in Thailand. I really don’t understand why Kaosan is supposed to be for backpackers, they must be quite posh backpackers. Surprisingly the bar closed at 1, but as we made our way back to our hostel behind Subway, we saw a whole new set of vendors set up on the street. Luckily our room was tucked away from the party scene, so we could sleep soundly through our last night in Thailand.