Only My Third Time Hitchhiking On A School Bus

After a few days in Kep, I decided to move on. I didn’t know where I would go, but I would stay on the coast. The management at my lodge wanted to call a tuk-tuk to transport me to wherever I needed to go, as all the other travelers seem to do, but I wanted to hitchhike out.

When I got to the end of the dirt road that met with the main road, I set my bags down and waited for a car. Unfortunately, I could see an excited tuk-tuk driver approaching in the distance. When he got to me, he assumed I needed a ride. I tried waved him along, but he stopped anyway. “Where are you going?” he asked, looking at my bag next to me. “Nowhere, just keep going,” I responded. He did not want to take no for an answer. Just then, I saw a van approaching. I picked up my bag and tried to walk away from him, but he followed. He was totally obstructing justice of the hitchhiker! It’s not the first time I’ve had this happen, but it is especially obnoxious when you are on a road with so little traffic. I waved my arm wildly at the van, while the tuk-tuk driver yelled at me saying it’s not a bus and they won’t stop for me. I just kept moving and waving my arms. The van whizzed past me, which I had expected. Then, it slammed on its breaks and I ran running towards it, missing the chance to make an “I told-you-so” comment to the tuk-tuk driver. They opened the window and I saw it was a van full of students. The driver asked where I was going, and I said Kampot, the nearest sizable town. He said I could come along and they opened the sliding door. I hesitated, seeing that it was jam packed with kids in their early teens. Just to be clear, I hesitated about how crowded it was, not that it was teenagers. My pack was huge and dirty, but the driver instructed them to make room for me.

The kids were pretty shy, but I made small talk with the driver. It turned out that he was actually their teacher and he was taking his students out on a field trip to Kep and they were just heading back to their school in Kampot. An hour or so later, we arrived in the town, and he dropped me off near the bridge in the middle of town. Kampot has a good reputation among travelers as a relaxing and quaint town set upon a large river that flows into the ocean. It did look interesting, and I was tempted to hang around and check it out, but for some reason, I decided to press forward. I walked across the long bridge and continued on west through the smaller half of town. I stopped for a bowl of noodles since I had skipped breakfast, and continued on my way. When I got to the edge of town, I put my arm out and waited for a ride. After an hour or two I still hadn’t gotten a ride. I ended up settling for a passing shared van that would take me to the main highway an hour away, where I could get transportation on to where I was heading. I have to say, it is a lot more difficult to be a persistent hitchhiker if you are alone (or have enough in your wallet for a ride).

At the junction, I got into a big old beater of a car. It was a sort of shared taxi that they crammed about ten people into. My bag was on top, and I was in the middle row. After a while, we dropped off some people that were sitting in the hatchback area with the gate open. I moved into that spot, which seemed less desired, but to me, it was more comfortable. I sat on top of a load of cargo, but had the whole space, plenty of legroom, open air, and a great view of all the people that were about to pass us our crawling vehicle.

We were going to Sihanoukville, one of Cambodia’s larger cities and a significant port town. It is also one of Cambodia’s biggest tourist attractions. People on a two-week style vacation will usually spend half of it seeing the temples of Angkor Wat and the other half on the beaches of Sihanoukville, avoiding Phnom Penh as much as possible. It has a reputation of being as close to spring break as it gets in Cambodia. I had met a couple of Swedish girls back in Kep who had passed through and spoke of it with disdain, saying it was obnoxiously touristy and not even worth going to. I had seen the worst kind of tourists around Siem Reap that wore t-shirts claiming that they had been to Sihanoukville. I had read about it and it seemed almost like Cancun, but more lawless. So why would I come here in the first place? I still don’t really know. I have a long history of avoiding places that are touristy for tourism’s sake. Yes, Angkor Wat and other major ruins or monuments, are touristy, but sometimes you have to grin and bear it, while you learn and immerse yourself in the history behind the significance of the place. Sihanoukville is not one of these places. It is a place you go to for white sand beaches, island tours, lots and lots of cheap beer, and, for the less considerate, jetskiing. Maybe it was my curiosity that brought me here. Perhaps I saw it as simply a different cultural phenomenon that I had always steered clear of. Or maybe I was just a little lonely already. I had spent the past year in the company of people that I knew well. Now I was on my own and, having a few days to kill, figured I would go and meet some other travelers. It was a pretty youthful place and maybe, as touristy as it was, I would meet some good people. I had spent so much of the last year avoiding tourists, or at least away from them by chance, to the point where I was curious what other people were like. Whatever the reason, I was on my way, and I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive. I halfway assumed that I would go crawling back to Phnom Penh the next morning.

When the taxi dropped us off, I assumed we were somewhere near the market that I saw on the map. After all, it seemed that it was a bit of a transport hub. It was a long walk, maybe 3 km to the beach spot that I had decided to go to. This part of town could have been any mid-sized town in the developing world and it was in no way the touristy beach paradise it was billed as. With my increasingly heavy pack, it took me nearly an hour to get to the beach. The closer I got, the more people were offering me tuk-tuk rides, hotels, and occasionally drugs. I was planning to go to a place called “Chivas Shack”. It was a beach front bar that supposedly had $2 rooms that were sure to be on the grimy side of basic. It would be on the far end of the beach, so I walked all the way to the end without finding it. In fact, there were almost no hotels directly on the beach. It was mostly a strip of fairly similar and modest beach bars and seafood joints. I was getting extremely exhausted, but I kept searching. At the end of the beach, I turned around and walked all the way back. Still didn’t find it. I tried to ask around, but the only people who were around were the people stalking me to sell me a hotel room. I didn’t want to tell them what I was looking for because there was a good chance of scamming. Finally, I gave up and checked into a place off the beach, Utopia, that offered $2 dorm beds. I would later find out that Chivas Shack had been closed down after a late night shooting incident. Apparently this place was a victim of its own success. One of the other local bar owners was unhappy that this place had become the top spot to party. Word on the street was that somebody well-connected, who had the law on their side (and government connections as well), arranged for somebody to “sort out” Chiva and his shack. There had been a shooting months before, and this time, it was the same shooter. He started firing his gun in the air outside the bar when security wouldn’t let him in with it. Then Chiva, the owner, showed up and put two bullets in him. Although the police at first called this self-defense and said it was justified, he was later arrested and charged with attempted murder. Anyway, it sounded like an unfortunate story for old Chiva, and I was sorry I missed it.

So now I was at Utopia, a place that seemed like it was picking up the slack from Chivas Shack. It was the kind of big hostelly complex that had everything. Dorms, rooms, bar, coffee bar, pool, hot tub, noodle shop, sandwich shop, wifi, dance floor, dance club, etc. If someone here didn’t feel like going to the beach, there was no real reason to leave. It fit in nicely to the kind of place I would normally never go to. I mean, it had a pool! Why in God’s green earth would I need a pool when the ocean is two blocks away? It was owned by a Kiwi and most of the staff were travelers. I generally try to support places that at least are locally owned and staffed. In the end, though, I was keeping myself to such a tight budget and this was probably one of the cheapest places for me to stay in the entire country. So how was it all? I guess I will come back on the next blog with some anecdotes from my time in “Snookie” as some have come to call the town.

I spent a couple of nights there, but soon had to return to Phnom Penh to, hopefully pick up my Thai visa. Unfortunately, I arrived too late in the day (the bus ride is about five or six hours) and wasn’t able to get it in the same day. This time, back in Phnom Penh, I decided to stay in a different part of town, known as Boeng Kak. It is also know to some as “lakeside”, since it sits, or once sat, next to the lake known as Boeng Kak. I was expecting a lake, but now it is more of a mucky puddle. The city has been filling it in to make room for new development. It was a pretty slummy area, and still is, but they are also evicting the people that live along the lake and demolishing their homes. I could actually see the machines carrying out their destruction through the night from the window in my room.

Compared to the rest of Southeast Asia, drugs are widely tolerated and it really showed in this neighborhood. I couldn’t walk down the street without being offered a variety of drugs by the sketchiest of all dealers. One time I was even offered a gun. I returned to stay in this neighborhood several times, but always had mixed feelings about it. It was more humble and ragged than the other places to stay, and the price matched. I liked this. It was also one of the only areas that I went to in Cambodia where I didn’t feel entirely safe. I had a couple of awkward encounters at night in the neighborhood that I think could have easily been near attempts at robbing me. My favorite part of this neighborhood, and Phnom Penh itself, was the ability to rent a bike for the day for $1. To explore the city by motodup would have added up quickly. On a bicycle, though, I was able to move across the flat city quickly and go wherever I wanted. I also never had to bother with getting lost. It must be the most navigable city I have ever been to (after Phoenix) and I felt like I had a strong grasp on it within a couple days. The moto drivers, on the other hand, still didn’t seem to have it figured out. The problem with this, though, was that they wouldn’t let on that they didn’t know where they were going. Even if they didn’t understand where you told them to go, they would either expect you to guide them, or sometimes just take you to the neighborhood that tourists were most likely to go to. I had several occasions where I had explained where I was going, and suddenly realized he was taking me to the quay, where most tourist activity is centered.

So my main purpose for coming back to Phnom Penh was to pick up my visa for Thailand. I was still

planning on spending the next few months volunteering with refugees near the border with Burma. I took the long ride across town to the embassy, and hoped that my forged bank statement and letter to explain why I didn’t have an onward flight would work out. Sure enough, I secured my shiny blue 60-day Thailand tourist visa and was on my way. Nothing was in between me and Thailand except waiting for my references to get back to the volunteer recruiter.

I spent the rest of the day riding my bike around the city. I found a dirt road that ran parallel to some old train tracks, and decided to just follow this all the way out of town. This turned out to be a pretty interesting little slice of town. In most places, the property hugging train tracks is not the most valuable or desirable, and this is no exception. Some of the shanties were just feet from the train tracks, making me wonder how long trains actually come here. The country no longer has any operating passenger trains, but there is the occasional cargo train. Whether they even use this particular track, I do not know. It didn’t look like there was much respect for the potential danger though. The atmosphere was much more like a friendly village than a capitol city. Eventually the dirt road turned into a rocky, occasionally muddy, path that criss-crossed over the berm that the tracks sat on. After another thirty minutes, I realized I could probably just follow this for hours and eventually I would actually be in a rural village built next to the train tracks. I turned around and headed back to town.

I went back to Sihanoukville the next day. The best part of that bus ride was I discovered something magical. Duck eggs. There were a couple of kids selling hard-boiled duck eggs at a rest stop. I wondered why they looked weird. They were a little longer and bigger. The white had a different texture and didn’t seem as opaque. The yolk was almost creamy. Absolutely delicious. I would make a point of getting a couple of these eggs from them every time I passed through this rest stop.

In Sihanoukville, I waited anxiously for a few days for my references to respond to the volunteer coordinator. When I finally got word of my acceptance, I was informed that the next orientation for new volunteers wasn’t for a couple more weeks. This would mean that if I wanted to make it home for Christmas, I would not be able to fulfill the organization’s three-month requirement. I responded, asking if there could be an exception for me. They told me that they are very strict about their three-month policy, which is completely understandable, and that if I couldn’t commit, I would not be able to volunteer.

This new development put me in a very tough spot. I had enough money to get home, but not much more. I wasn’t quite ready to go though. I considered working at the hostel in Sihanoukville. They would pretty much take anyone to do a variety of jobs. Basically an employee works 4 hours a day in exchange for a dorm bed, $5 towards food, and free drinks at the bar while you are on the clock. Yes, that’s right, free drinks DURING your shift. It seemed like something I could pull off for a few days, maybe even a few weeks, but a couple of months? No, no. The thought of that scared me.

Go It Alone

September 2, 2011

Although I was feeling a bit lost and alone in Cambodia, I actually did have a little bit of a plan worked up for my coming months. Before leaving for the trip, Lise and I had been considering volunteering opportunities in various countries. I had come across a program that gave opportunities to volunteers to work with Burmese refugees on the Thai-Burma border. Now that I was on my own, and feeling a little burnt out on traveling, I thought this could be a good opportunity. Also, I really only had enough money for a flight back to Seattle with only a little left over to live on, and this organization provides accommodation and at least some food. Therefore, I would be able to stay in the region for a few more months on the little money that I have. I had submitted my application to the organization a couple weeks prior to Lise leaving, and although they sounded like they would accept me, I was waiting for my references to respond to the volunteer coordinator.

In the meantime, I would need to get a visa for Thailand. I had gone to the embassy a few days before Lise left, but in order to get a two-month visa, I would need to provide my most recent bank statement with proof of “sufficient funds” for the duration of my visa and an onward flight ticket. I felt at least a little clever that I had had my mom send me a bank statement back in May, as they are good to have in this scenario. Unfortunately, it was not the most recent one, nor was it showing “sufficient funds”. I also did not have an onward flight ticket because if I would be volunteering with this organization, I would be there for longer than two months, so it would be pointless to buy a flight during the time specified. Also, I would not be able to honestly explain my circumstances because it is not legal to volunteer on a tourist visa. All these relatively new circumstances (things changed with the new government that was elected in the summer) that I was fairly surprised about. I had no way of getting a new bank statement, so before going to the embassy in the morning, I found an internet café with a scanner. I scanned my bank statement, took it into photo shop and changed all the dates and amount of money in the account. After printing it out, I had to figure something out for my flight situation. I figured I had three options: 1) buy a $90 flight to some nearby city such as Kuala Lumpur or Kolkata, 2) Use one of my previous flight tickets on a regional airline as a template and Photoshop it into one that looked like it was going from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur, or 3) Write a letter explaining my desperate circumstances and asking for an exception to be made. I decided to go with the third. I explained how I was traveling all over Southeast Asia and that I was planning to travel overland from Thailand to Laos and on to China and had no need to use a plane to exit the country. This was not true of course, but it seemed believable enough. I also talked about how amazing Thailand is and I have been looking oh so forward to it for the last five years. I didn’t know if it would work, but if it didn’t, I would have to try one of the other two options.

I woke up early enough to get all this done, while still getting to the embassy with enough time to apply. The bonus of getting up that early was that I got to walk through the city as people were just starting to rise and the monks were going out to collect their alms. Every block or so, a couple of monks would be collecting food or money from residents or shop owners as prayers were said and blessings were bestowed upon the donor. After getting my paperwork done, I found a motodup to take me to the Thai embassy and I waited in line with my application form, passport, passport photocopies, 2 passport photos, fake bank statement and letter of excuse. There were a couple of West Africans in there, one from Cameroon, the other, I believe, from Nigeria. They didn’t look like they were in there to make friends, but I was extremely curious what they were doing in here, and what kind of visa they were getting for Thailand and why. When it was my turn, the official looked over my documents, gave me a couple passing glasses, asked for my $35 fee, and told me to come back on the 7^th (in five days!). I confirmed that all the paperwork looked good, and she told me it was fine. I knew I couldn’t celebrate yet, but at least this was the first hurdle.

Now I had five days to kill, and figured that if I was going to use it, I better leave immediately. I hustled back to the room, packed my bag and checked out. I caught a motodup to one of the many bus stations and asked about a bus leaving for Kep, a small beach town. Luckily there was one passing through there in just a few minutes. As I went to find my bus, I walked past a young blonde backpacker complaining to a cop or security officer that he had just had his bag stolen. He looked panicked because he was starting to realize he wouldn’t get it back.

I bought my ticket, hopped on my bus, and settled in for the ride. I felt lucky because all the people that had bought their ticket in advance were packed into the front of the bus. I, on the other hand, had the entire back third of the bus to myself, letting me stretch out and take two or three seats at a time. Unfortunately, though, I was a little too comfortable, and after a few hours, I had started to nod off. I was half asleep when we slowed down through a junction in a small town by a beach. We turned inland, and I wondered if we had passed through my destination already. I waited for us to turn back towards the sea, but it never happened. After about thirty minutes, I asked somebody if we had passed Kep, and yes indeed we had. I called to the driver to let me off. I jumped off, grabbed my bag from under the bus and started walking back the other direction. The normal reaction to having gone thirty km out of the way of your destination would usually be frustration, or even panic. I mean, we were on a battered rural road with cars passing through...occasionally. I ended up pretty content and excited though. The scenery was beautiful, I was surrounded by slow-paced village life. As I walked back south, I passed a few people who seemed a little surprised to see me. I greeted them and they would just smile back. I noticed the women were covering their heads, and not with kramas, the local style of scarf, but with hijabs, the head covering of Muslim women. Eventually I walked past a mosque, confirming that this was indeed a Muslim village. Some of the older men wore Muslim hats, beards and a couple even wore sarongs. It turned out to be a pretty interesting wrong turn.

As I walked, I would look out for any approaching vehicles. For the most part, the only vehicles were motorbikes with enormous bags sitting on the bag, quite often with a women perched on top of the incredible load. Eventually, though a car stopped for me and invited me in. He spoke a bit of English, and I was able to explain why I was there and where I wanted to go. He asked if I needed a place to stay in Kep. I waffled, because I didn’t know if he was trying to sell me a place or was just curious. Eventually he took out a laminated paper that was advertising a lodge. I told him I was looking for something cheap and he said they had $5 rooms. While this is entirely reasonable, I had been sharing rooms with Lise for the same price or less, so I was hoping to do better. He was going to the place right now, and it was actually outside of the main part of town a km. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have a look, and this guy totally did just rescue me.

The place was not what I typically look for, as it was pandering a little too much to nature-oriented hippy travelers, but it was undeniably beautiful with a relaxed atmosphere. I already knew the scam at these places though. They give you reasonably priced accommodation, but since you are so far from town, you are almost forced to eat there, and they jack up the prices. The room was basically a hut with thatched roof and bamboo walls. It was sure to have plenty of roommates, most notably spiders. Best of all, there was a hammock in front and since we were up in the hill it had a great view all the way to the ocean. Yes, I had no more desire to go room shopping to maybe save a dollar.

And indeed I had roommates. Most notable was the big lumpy bullish frog that would emerge from under my door in the evenings. There were plenty of geckos, some mosquitoes, and the bathroom had a couple of big spiders that kept me from showering. I found myself incredibly relaxed in this place. I had little ambition beyond the hammock. Unfortunately, there was a pretty interesting town with a beach to see, so I would need to get out at least a little bit.

Before the Khmer Rouge took over the country, Kep used to be a popular place for French colonial types. After everyone fled, though, the town was basically abandoned. There are quite a few ragged shells of colonial homes around town. Some of them have started to be completely reclaimed by the surrounding foliage. Some might say how sad it is to have lost this piece of history or the homes themselves, but I thought it made the town atmospheric, and served as a grim reminder of the destruction and devastation that the Khmer Rouge unleashed on the country.

Nowadays, Kep has reemerged as a popular weekend destination for Cambodian families. I happened to be there on the weekend, and the beach was packed. The beach was by no means the most atmospheric or pretty that I have seen, but there was sand and there was ocean, which is the most important part. Families were coming in droves. Some rented little cabanas with hammocks for the day and had picnics. I have to say I was jealous of them. Food vendors walked up and down the road selling sandwiches, crabs, fish ball kebabs, fried chicken, and noodles. I had rented a bike for the day, and when I got to the beach, my first inclination was to go and do what most westerners would do. That means finding a sunny spot on the sand, laying out the towel, taking off as much clothing as is socially acceptable, and then getting your tan on. So I went and laid out a sarong, took my shirt off and laid down. I started to notice something that I should have anticipated. First of all, nobody was voluntarily sitting in the sun. All the Cambodians were sheltered in the shade of trees or their cabanas. I was obviously a bit of a spectacle because of this. Also, people here dress very conservatively, even when they go into the water. The women were fully clothed, and most of the men were also wearing shirts into the water, then putting them back on when they got out. I really realized how foolish I was being, though, when two teenage girls walked past me and took a photo of me with their cell phone. Maybe I should have felt flattered, but it wasn’t that kind of situation. I decided to go for a swim, and when I got out, I put my clothes back on and rested in the shade. I spent most of the day wandering around the beach or riding around the town. I went to the other side of town for a nice sunset dinner. There is a market and a strip of seafood restaurants. Kep is famous for its crab, but since I had recently slashed my budget due to uncertain circumstances in my future, I had to settle for whatever was cheapest on the menu. Probably some sort of fried noodles or soup. I also walked around the market a bit and found some black pepper. Kampot a town an hour away from Kep, is famous for is pepper. Before the Khmer Rouge, Kampot pepper was the most common pepper to be found in Paris’s finer eating establishments. It is still around and making a comeback, but does not have the fame and distribution as it once did. I bought a small bag and sure enough, it was delicious. I didn’t have a grinder or food to put it on, so I just tried a couple whole kernels. Yeah, that was potent. I later found that the hotel I was staying at had some gardens, including one growing pepper.

Other than all that, Kampot was pretty uneventful. But that’s exactly how I wanted it. It felt awkward to just sit in a hammock for more than half a day. I spent more time there than I had expected and part of me felt guilty. I would ask myself, shouldn’t you be trying harder to really get out there? Don’t you want to find something that will surprise or shock you? Well, yeah, I did, but it seemed like a while since I had really just sat around and done nothing. I love traveling and it’s great, but some people think it’s just an easy, relaxing time. Yeah, it’s no 9-5, but it’s not always a day at the beach either.

Phnom Penh: This Town, is a Make You Town

We had a few days to kill in Phnom Penh before Lise was set to go back home to France. The city itself is not immediately striking, but there are things underneath that are charming, interesting, and at times downright depressing. There is a lot of opportunity feel something or be touched by this city.

One of the most notable, and definitely emotional, things to see in the city is the Tuol Sleng museum. This is a museum at the infamous “S-21” prison set up at a former high school by Khmer Rouge security forces during the genocide in the mid-1970’s. It was the main center of torture of the regime, and the place that more than 17,000 people were held before being executed at the infamous killing fields. It was not a huge complex, but it showed that most prisoners did not linger there for long. Several of the classrooms that were converted into holding cells were still intact, showing more or less what it looked like 35 years ago. Some rooms even had large photos on display of prisoners that had died in the same room that you were standing in. Whether it was real or not, it felt that there was a stale and faintly rancid stench to the room that added a bit of horror to the scene. Further on, there were large classrooms that had been crudely converted into individual holding cells by dividing it up with dozens of brick partitions. People were starved and tortured in these rooms, and now we were up close and personal with their horrendous living conditions. Some of the rooms were filled with portraits of the detainees. The Khmer Rouge was meticulous about its record keeping and every one of the prisoners had had a photo taken of them upon checking in. It was horrific to come face to face with those that had been starved and tortured for suspicion of being spies or having some sort of connection to the previous government. From women to children to the elderly and foreigners, nobody was spared the paranoid wrath of the Khmer Rouge. There was an exhibit to illustrate and explain the various types of torture that many of the prisoners endured that was almost too much to even read about. There was an artist who had survived the ordeal and had painted pictures that depicted the conditions inside S-21. He was one of the infamous seven that survived in the prison. Although there were a few others that made it out alive, he, like the other six, had been spared due to some skill that was deemed valuable to the regime. He had been asked, like several artists before him, to paint a picture of Pol Pot. Unlike the previous artists, his life was spared because the quality of the portrait was deemed to be of a high enough standard. He remained a prisoner, but had the benefit of stability with his new profession of resident artist. The photographer that had taken all the portraits of prisoners was also among the lucky seven.

Witnessing the museum was sickening and it seemed to be relief to see the exit. As we walked out, there were horrifically maimed victims of war (one can only assume) standing outside of the museum, begging for money from museum visitors. Most were missing limbs, but one man had such serious burns on his head that there was nothing distinguishable as a face. Looking back on it, I feel remorse for not being generous to them with my money. In reality, I am extremely sensitive to people preying on emotion for monetary gain, and, regardless of the situation, I was urged to just avert my eyes and scoot past them quickly. It was not easy, but it was my gut reaction.

The rest of our time in Phnom Penh was spent doing some general exploring. Yes, there are a few sights, but it is not the kind of city with dramatic must-see monuments or attractions that you check off a list. It is something to take in slowly, and discover without expectation. We visited a couple markets, some unique and interesting, others filled with trinket stalls. One of our meals was a unique soup that Lise said tasted like crab’s brain and featured half a pig snout. We usually got around with a motodup or moto-taxi. tourists seemed to take tuk-tuks, but they were usually more expensive. I loved taking the motodups, but with three of us on the bike, I have to admit, it was a little bit nerve-wracking and not as comfortable. On the occasion that we would take a tuk-tuk, it was a slower, but more relaxing ride.

It is not the most overwhelming city in the world, but it is not too relaxed either. There were the occasional parks and open spaces, and one of the more enjoyable was the “quay” next to the river. Although this is the neighborhood where most tourists monopolize their time, it still had a regular locals feel. There were kids playing soccer, families coming to enjoy the river view and street performers that were pandering more to Khmers than tourists. It was sitting down for a meal in this neighborhood where I realized where Cambodia got its strong reputation for depressing and desperate children. If the scrappy, disheveled prebubescents weren’t coming simply to ask for money, they had books or postcards to sell. They were usually extremely charming, but I had to stick to my guns to not give them anything. It would be interesting to see what would happen to these children if this neighborhood did not attract droves of tourists. Perhaps some of them would be worse off, but among the people in the know, it seems understood that the children are robbed of better opportunities when they can eek out a living on the streets. Every time a kid comes home with a few dollars from hustling on the street, it creates less incentive for them to be in school. I know it is a little more complex than this, but it is a lot harder to feel good about giving to them when you know it probably isn’t really for the best.

After a few days in Phnom Penh, it was time for Lise to leave. We had been traveling together for two months, but she needed to get back to real life at home in France. I, on the other hand, would stay behind, unsure of my future plans. I would have stayed in France for the summer, but I had already used my three month European Union visa, and couldn’t return for another three months. Even if I waited a month, I was so short on cash that the only place I could go after this was back home.

It was a difficult goodbye. We had been through so much in the two months. We had met in Singapore, hitchhiked across Borneo, repeatedly destroyed our voices doing karaoke, taken about a thousand boats, traveled the length of the Philippines, “escaped” a highway robbery at gunpoint, camped on beaches and climbed ancient temples. It was a damn good trip and I couldn’t have had a better partner for it. For the first time in a long while, I was facing being alone and making my own decisions about traveling and life itself. Although it was something to look forward to, it also made me nervous to be solo for the first time in a year.

Because Lise had a bag, although modest in size, we took a tuk-tuk to the airport to make things a bit easier and more comfortable. Traffic was bad and it took a while. When we got there, the line was long, although there wasn’t an incredible amount of urgency. Then, when we got to the ticket counter, they claimed that she did not have a ticket. You see, her dad works for Air France, and she can fly at epic discounts as long as she has reserved her standby ticket in advance. Now they were telling us that they had no record of her ticket and we would have to do something online to get it figured out. Unlike most people at the airport, we did not have the luxury of smart phones, nor did we even have cell phones at all. Lise ended up borrowing a phone from a (generous) guy in line to call her dad in France. It was a tense hour at the ticket counter as we waited to find out whether she would be able to get on the plane. Her dad was trying to figure it out online, but it was not working. Somehow, though, at the last minute, after everyone else had checked their bags and the airport was empty, something happened and she was allowed to go through. It was stressful for a while, but really, the worst thing that would happen is that she stayed in Cambodia for a few extra days, which I don’t think we were about to complain about. We said a last goodbye and she ran up the stairs to the terminal.

I walked out of the empty airport, feeling a little lost and a little lonely. I walked out to find some transportation back to town. It took a little bit of haggling, fake walking away (as if I was going to walk to town?) but eventually I got my original asking price. In fact the $2 fare (cheaper than what the going price supposedly was three years ago) that I got was so good for the 40 minute ride, that I felt bad and gave the kind and friendly drive a generous tip. That is a RARE thing for me to do in countries that don’t expect tips.

Then, I got a nom pang (Cambodian version of what we know as a Vietnamese sandwich) and went to bed, wondering what the hell I was going to do tomorrow.

Cambodian Aerobics

8-28-2011

Our last day in Siem Reap was spent with Julie showing us around town. We started by looking around one of the markets. Lise was in search of a “krama”, a type of scarf that is widely worn by women in Cambodia. The market was interesting, but pretty typical and nothing struck me as extremely unique. It was fun, though, to watch Julie communicate with the vendors in Khmer. Interestingly, though, she didn’t seem to have super bartering powers. She still had to fight for her prices, but she also has an incredibly kind heart, and didn’t mind paying extra because she knew she could afford it.

After the market, we walked back to the center of town and sat down on a bench by the river. As we waited, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, an adult man with a small child coming down the sidewalk. I noticed them because all of a sudden the toddler tripped and fell. I made a sympathetic face to the child, and I soon made eye contact with the man I presumed to be the father. He smiled and walked over to us and said hello. Lise and Julie hadn’t noticed him until now. He seemed friendly and started by asking us what country we were from and then asked what we were doing in town. Although Lise and I were typical tourists, Julie lived here and spoke Khmer. I became skeptical of him, and sure enough, he started telling us about a school that he ran for poor children. He showed us pictures of the kids and told some stories about them. I wanted to ignore him, but Julie seemed interested. I assumed she knew about the scams like this and just wanted to hear where he was going with it. Eventually asked if we could make a donation and pulled out some papers with records of previous donors. There were names of people from all over the world with the extremely generous amounts of money they had given. Julie explained that her mom ran an NGO that also had schools and various other projects. She asked more about the school and where it was. We repeatedly said we couldn’t give him any money, and he eventually left. Julie later asked her mom about this school and where it was. As suspected, it did not exist. Her mom told us that there are lots of scams like this in Siem Reap, as well as plenty of informal schools run on tourist donations that are extremely corrupt and ineffective. I feel bad highlighting this unfortunate situation, as it reflects negatively on the country and the people of Cambodia. During my month in the country, though, any cynicism about the people early on was completely diminished. The typical Cambodian was almost always kind, friendly and hospitable, without having any ulterior motives.

Later in the day, we met up with one of Julie’s local friends and went to park for aerobics. Yes, aerobics. Apparently it has become a very popular form of exercise in Cambodia. In the capital’s Olympic Stadium they have free nightly aerobics classes that attract hundreds. Ours was a little more modest with a couple dozen in attendance. It was fun to do the aerobics, but I was mostly interested in the history behind this. Why in Cambodia, of all places, did aerobics become so popular?

After the aerobics, we decided to go get some dinner. We wanted them to take us somewhere special, you know, something we wouldn’t have found on our own. We were going to get on Julie’s friend’s motorbike, but there was not room for the four of us. We hired a “motodup”, which is basically a motorbike taxi. I got on it, and he was supposed to know where the restaurant was. After fifteen minutes, though, I could tell he seemed lost, or at least that we were in a place where there were no restaurants. Eventually we were in a dark side street. I was getting a little nervous, but then he asked a pedestrian for directions. Soon enough I was in the restaurant with the girls. We were there to eat baan chav, which could be seen as a Cambodian crepe. Of course, it is much different than this. It is a thin, but slightly spongy pancake made from rice flour, and then stuffed with meat and sprouts. It is served with a big platter of leafy greens (lettuce, parsley, mint, endive, and basil) and cucumber. The idea is to take a leaf and stuff it with the baan chav, meat and other leaves. Once you have a nice little taco going on, you dip it into a sweet and sour sauce. For such a healthy dish it was really good, and, of course, fun to eat.

After dinner, we were ambitious with the motorbike, and Julie’s friend decided she could fit us all on. The four of us squeezed onto the long, flat seat and headed back to town. We ended up the more touristy part of town, which we hadn’t seen before. It was surprising how it had a Khao San Road vibe. Lots of restaurants catering to foreigners, young tourists getting their party on and plenty of tuk-tuk drivers trying to exploit them. We wanted to go to the night market to see the shop ran by Julie’s mom’s NGO. One of the organization’s projects is training people how to make handicrafts, quite often made from recycled materials such as rice sacks, food tins and tire tubes, which are sold in tourist shops. Unfortunately it was closed, so after a small exploration of the tourist-oriented market, we made our way back home.

In the morning, we headed to the bus station. We had made reservations for the ticket over the phone, which we had never done before, and barely made it in time. Contrary to most places I’ve traveled, it seems common to make reservations for bus tickets here in Cambodia. It turned out that it wouldn’t have mattered much, since the bus was about half full. We had considered going to one of the smaller towns on the way, but changed our minds and went all the way to the capital, Phnom Penh.

We passed through mile after mile of chartreuse tinted rice paddies, with the occasional village or small town along the way. In one area, near Kampong Cham, we noticed a few mosques. It was just more evidence of the way religious leanings around the world are constantly in flux rather than static, and simply defined by regions and borders as we always assume. Although Buddhism is the predominant religion of Cambodia, it has had moments in its history of being Hindu as well as Muslim. There is still frequent evidence of this history throughout the country.

We hugged the Mekong River as we approached the sprawl of Phnom Penh. We passed an area that seemed to have a lot of Vietnamese influence, evidenced by the stalls selling pho and banh mi, as well as the Roman based Vietnamese script. Then we passed the French embassy, which was the last holdout for all the foreigners when the Khmer Rouge took over the city in 1973. As we got closer to town it was clear that this was no Bangkok. Nor was it resembling Manila or Kuala Lumpur. No, there were no high rise buildings, mega malls or ultra modern sky trains or light rails. Hell, there didn’t even seem to be local buses. Phnom Penh has progressed leaps and bounds since the civil war and unrest that continued into the 90’s, but in comparison to most other Southeast Asian capitals, it resembles something of a backwater. Our bus pushed through the sea of motorbikes and bicycles in the non-distinct center of town. There was no central bus station as every transport company has their own lot in various parts of town. As we pulled in, we saw a gaggle of tuk-tuk drivers, moto drivers and hotel touts crowding around the bus, peering into the windows. One of them caught a glimpse of us, the “farango” as foreigners are known here, he got extra excited, motioning for us to come to him. It felt a bit silly to be summoned so enthusiastically when we were still moving. When we got off, the Cambodians were also getting coaxed into various modes of transport, but they were a little more aggressive with us as we were worth a lot more. I had studied the map before coming into town though, and knew that we were only a mile from a cheap hotel. We were hassled for a while as we continued in the right direction, but after a couple blocks, the last hotel tout gave up on getting us a room. After our walk, though, we found that our hotel was closed. We checked a few others and could not find anything for the price we were hoping for. We settled for the cheapest option, which, after negotiating, was quite reasonable at $6/night, but still a far cry from the incredible deal we had gotten in Siem Reap.

During our search for dinner, we found ourselves a bit disappointed. We trekked back to where we had seen some street stalls, but now that it was dark, everything was closed. Most of the restaurants were large, fancy Chinese, or sometimes Korean, joints. There was one that billed itself as a North Korean restaurant. That made me a bit curious, but mostly I just thought the potential of making jokes about a North Korean restaurant in Cambodia was near limitless. We ducked into some dark side streets and alleyways, where rowdy children and old men drinking beer and whisky lurked in the shadows. It got more sketchy, and less likely to have something to eat. We came across some sort of bbq restaurant that had cheap pitchers of beer. We sat down, wondering how the food worked. Nothing was in English, and it looked like another communal style of eating that we would have to figure out the protocol to on the fly. We were informed that they were out of pitchers of beer and only had the more expensive cans. We were not feeling ambitious enough to try to navigate this eating style without at least the benefit of cheap beer. After another twenty minutes of walking we finally found our gem. This small, family run place looked like they would be closed, but they seemed open to one last customer. And mostly, they had cheap pitchers of beer. It had been a long, somewhat stressful day, but our great meal, the beer, and most of all the homey atmosphere reminded me of why the drudgery of travel is worth it.

Exploring the Temples of Angkor

Some people spend three days, or even a week exploring all the temples of Angkor, the ancient Khmer kingdom. At $20/day, though, we tried to wrap it all up in one. There are several major complexes of ruins that can be quite far apart. Most tourists hired tuk-tuk drivers for the day, while some rented cars and a few rented motorbikes. I was surprised, though, how few people chose to explore on bicycle. Although some distances were far and it was hot out, the terrain was flat, and the riding itself was so peaceful.

It was about a five or six mile ride to the ancient walled city of Angkor Thom, constructed by Jayavarman VII, Angkor’s greatest king. At its peak, the city is thought to have supported over a million people. We arrived at the main gate, where large stone heads stared down at you ominously. From our vantage point, the 8-meter high walls extended as far as we could see through the encroaching jungle.

Entrance to Angkor Thom

We rode our bikes into the walled city, being passed by puttering tuk-tuks and a few cars. Monkeys played in the grass and trees on either side of the narrow, crumbling road. We soon arrived at Bayon, Angkor Thom’s central temple. Although it is large and one of the area’s most famous temples, quite a bit of it was decrepit and unrestored. We were surprisingly free to explore the piles of ancient stone and climb to the top of the multi-tiered structure. Although the tourists were mostly camera-wielding westerners like us, there were also pilgrims of sorts from India and Southeast Asia, making offerings of incense and coins to Buddhist shrines.

Inside Bayon

We continued along through Angkor Thom, seeing a few other temples, and monuments. One of the more obscure ones, Preah Pilalay, had a terrifyingly steep set of stairs that made me procrastinate going back down for fear of tumbling to an embarrassing death. For lunch, we had some over-priced “nom pang” (sp?), a type of local sandwich, and a couple of coconuts. It was getting uncomfortably hot, but we soldiered on.

The last major temple that we visited was Ta Phrom, which, after Angkor Wat, is probably the most photographed and one of the iconic symbols of atmospheric Cambodia. And yes, it is the one that is apparently featured in Tomb Raider and, by some, is simply referred to as “the Tomb Raider temple”. Anyway, on the way to it, I told Lise we should go left off the main road and explore a random dirt road. She was ok with it at first, but it just got muddier and puddlier as we continued. I was excited about it, though, because we were descending into some thick foliage where we could make out bits of crumbling ancient wall to our right. Riding through the mud in our ancient, steel-framed bikes was no easy task, and Lise was got annoyed with my decision to continue. Perhaps I was a bit pushy. We eventually reached an entrance that led through the wall. We were far from any other tourists and it gave me that tiny, but exhilarating, taste of adventure and exploration.

We went in and continued through a few of the jungle’s winding paths. We wondered if there was a chance of getting lost, but I just pushed that to the back of my mind. Plus, we weren’t really that far away everything. One of the paths eventually led to a back entrance of Ta Phrom. It was weird to have felt briefly like we were in remote jungle, only to be dumped out in a clearing filled with trinket sellers, khaki-clad tourists and officials inspecting tickets.

Ta Phrom is notable partly due to its lack of restoration, and the fact that the jungle has done a lot of work to re-claim the space in the past several centuries. Thick tree roots creep and crawl around stone hallways and through windows. You can see that the canopy of leaves above is completely anchored in the temples below. As moody as it is (or should be), it has lost a lot of its allure with the throng of tourists taking turns getting photographed on wooden platforms in front of the temple’s more dramatic sections, as well as the couple of trinket vendors that have been allowed to work inside the temple. Still, though, after a bit of exploring and crawling through random windows, Lise and I managed to find our selves alone, and away from the steady din of tour groups. The complex actually turned out to be much larger than we had expected and felt like we were as likely to get lost here as if we had kept wandering in the jungle. Some of the dark hallways were downright creepy, and our path was blocked at least once by a four-foot spider web with a (probably deadly) 7-inch spider chilling right in the middle. Another curiosity we stumbled upon was a couple of Japanese men (professor and student I presumed) who appeared to be doing some sort of surveying or research.

By the time we had our fill of temples, it was getting close to dark. We stopped by a roadside market, had a beer, and then headed back towards home. We were about 12 or 13 km from Siem Reap, but the road was flat and the jungle scenery around us was pleasant. After about five minutes of riding we heard a sharp crack. I think both of us thought back for the most split of seconds to our highway robbery in the Philippines and considered the possibility of gunshots. But no, it was my tire exploding. Having both of us walk to town wouldn’t be practical, but splitting up wasn’t ideal either. Luckily, the next vehicle to come by us (the traffic was less than a car a minute) was a big truck. We flagged it down and found a young, wealthy Cambodian couple from the capital inside. They offered to take us into town, but the back of the truck had a big cover on it, so I didn’t know if our bikes would fit. They did though, and we hopped into the cab with air conditioning and leather seats. This is one of the strange benefits of traveling in poor countries with huge disparities between rich and poor.

I figured that it would not be hard to find a tire repair shop. In Ghana they seemed to be everywhere, since so many people rode bikes on those terrible roads. Fortunately, our rescuers offered to find one for us, but unfortunately, it took a while to find. The repairmen could see our wealth and desparation, and I felt that this was factoring into my price quote. First they said they could fix the tube, but then changed their mind, saying it was too bad of a rip. I looked at it, and sure enough, it was a complete blowout. Then they said they would have to replace the tire as well as the tube, since there was a hole in it. I argued because it wasn’t my crappy tire that had caused this explosion and I didn’t care if it led to another puncture after I was done using it. I convinced them to sell me a used tire, but they said they had no used tubes to sell. In the meantime, Lise and I were late for dinner with Julie’s family. We decided Lise would go back, while I stayed to fix my tire. Ten minutes after she left, while they were out searching for a used tire to sell me, the rains came out of nowhere, and pummeled Siem Reap. The streets filled with water, and although we were under a shelter, the winds pushed it inside onto us. By the time my bike was ready to go, there was four inches of water in some streets, more in others. It was warm rain though, and the 20 minute ride back to Julie’s was actually really enjoyable and fun. I had wrapped my belongings in a plastic bag, so as wet as I could get was fine with me.

I found Lise back at home, soaking wet as well. I thought she might have beaten the storm, but ten minutes in the rain had drenched her. She agreed that the night time rain ride was pretty fun.

Cambodian BBQ

After hopping out of the pick-up truck, we made our way to the eastern side of the river to Siem Reap’s less touristy, but still somewhat touristy neighborhoods. With our conspicuous backpacks, we were constantly approached with offers of “cheap room”. We obviously looked like budget was our main concern rather than comfort. We were looking for a particular place, but didn’t want to look lost either. It’s tough to walk with purpose in confidence when in reality you really are lost. We never found the place, as it probably has shut down, but we found something that was probably even better. Siem Reap has such a wealth of hotels that among those not listed in the Lonely Planet, there is serious competition, making it a luxurious buyer’s market.

This room will probably go down in my travel history as possibly the greatest bargain of all time. After a little bit of negotiation, we got a price of $4 for the room ($2 each!). Not only did it have a private bathroom with hot water, it was clean and well presented. It felt on par with a midrange hotel in America. I had rarely, if ever, stayed in a third world hotel of this quality, and it was such a bargain. Later, of course, we would find out that the fan was too weak to be refreshing, the water pressure too poor for a decent shower, and that the definition of “hot water” is pretty flexible. But still, it looked nice!

Our first mission in town was to go out in search of some lunch. We needed to get away from the touristy area and find something cheap and local. When we felt sufficiently departed from the area advertising their “continental breakfasts”, banana pancakes and “western food”, we started to look at some menus. The food still seemed far pricier than we would have expected, and we started to become skeptical that they were set up with “foreigner menus” in English. At a certain point in our walk, we had reached an area that seemed a world away from the quaint and relatively developed area we had come from. Instead of the river having grassy, park-lined banks, there were stilt houses made from scraps of wood and corrugated metal, built with entrances facing the road, back doors hanging over the river, which was exceptionally filthy at this point. Opposite the river, we found a casual-looking place that served some soup. It had a rich curry flavor, with noodles, vegetables, bits of pork organs, and some mysterious purplish cubes. The cubes had the texture of soft, raw tofu…but they were a brownish purple. Tofu wouldn’t have been surprising in Malaysia, but we hadn’t seen any in Cambodia. Purple tofu would have been exceptionally surprising anywhere though. We considered it could be some sort of organ, but we couldn’t think of an animal with an organ that appeared so uniformly. It was bizarre to eat something that you couldn’t tell whether it was an animal product or not. Over our weeks in Cambodia, this cube would turn up in our soup from time to time. We would always eat it apprehensively, wondering what it was. Eventually I just went ahead and did some google searching, to find out that it was blood cake. Congealed pork blood formed into big slabs that were then cut up into cubes for certain dishes. I think I would probably enjoy them more having known what they were, rather than getting through them with such mystery in our mouths.

The rains came heavily that night as we were on the prowl for our dinner. We had found the food in Cambodia to be more expensive than in Thailand, which seemed interesting since everything else was cheaper in Cambodia. We figured it had something to do with adjusting prices for foreigners and this also being such a touristy place. While this is still a possibility, I later came to learn why food prices in Cambodia are generally much higher than elsewhere in the region. First of all, the country is still recovering from civil war, and this has led to huge areas of the country with under-utilized farm land. Their farming technology and techniques are worlds behind neighbors Vietnam and Thailand. In fact, they import a lot of their staples since they don’t grow enough domestically to support themselves. Even rice, the country’s largest staple and biggest area of agriculture is imported. Because Cambodia does not have enough (perhaps any) processing plants for rice, the raw product is usually exported to Thailand, processed, and then re-sold at higher prices in Cambodia. It is an unfortunate situation for a country that is already struggling.

At some point during the day, we stopped at a bar that advertised pitchers of beer for 5,800 Riel ($1.40). We shared a couple of pitchers, but when the bill came, they charged us 6,000 Riel per pitcher, a difference of a total of 20 cents. We asked why we were being charged more than the advertised price, but the server couldn’t answer us. She went and got the manager, a well-dressed, but a little too slick-looking, dude. After a bit of cordial arguing, he admitted that the price was different for foreigners. We are against this in principle, and tried to argue against the policy. He seemed apologetic, and seemed to feel bad, but he still would not relent. True, we came off as stingy, but 20 cents or 20 dollars, we don’t like to get ripped off, and if something is advertised for a certain price, we expect to pay that price regardless of nationality or race. We vowed to boycott this place, even though they had cheaper beer (foreigner or otherwise) than anywhere else we could find. Our boycott lasted only two days, and when we went in there, tail between legs, the manager reminded us we had to pay the foreigner prices, and we agreed to. He was still an extremely kind and friendly man, who deep down felt at least a little bit bad about this double standard pricing scheme.

Because of the high food prices, we decided to just splurge on something that was a little more expensive than we were used to, but seemed worth it for the experience. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it is a Cambodian style of eating, similar to Korean bbq, or some of those grill your own food restaurants. Basically, for $3 each, we got a small bbq at our table and free reign over the buffet tables of raw meat, seafood, noodles, salad, soup, and a world of condiments. We weren’t really sure about the proper protocol of the grilling. The grill was a circular piece of metal with a dome. It seemed that maybe we should put some soup broth in the flat part along the edges to cook the noodles, while the meat would sit on top of the dome. We only saw one other foreigner in the place and he was sitting at a table full of Cambodians. As we brought our plates of cookables to the table, we saw that everyone in the restaurant was staring at us. We already felt out of place with this new style of eating, but now everyone wanted to see how we approached it. I saw a documentary once about Sudanese refugees moving to America. On the plane one of them, confused about the ketchup packet with his in-flight meal, opened it and squeezed it into his mouth. Later, they were seen pounding potato chips in a bowl with a thick wooden rod, like they might pound some of their staple foods back home. These instances were funny to me, and I imagined we were about to provide similar entertainment to the local Cambodians. I have no idea how far off we were from how the rest of the people were preparing their food, but we carried on nonetheless, as the stares continued.

Although we had scored a great room, we had to check out in the morning. We had included Siem Reap, actually Cambodia, in our trip to visit, Julie a friend of Lise from her university in Paris. She had given us rough directions to her house, which was a few miles out of town. We took some time to negotiate our fare with one of the dozens of tuk-tuk drivers hanging out on the strip next to the river. The price was slightly higher than Julie said it would be, but not too bad. Although he acted like he knew where we were going, he wasn’t quite sure. We got to a local school, our first landmark, but he was lost from there. We asked around and eventually got set back on our way. We continued down a rough, pot-holed and puddled dirt road. We passed by a cow, with its ankle tied to a post. Somehow we ran over the rope, cutting it. The cow didn’t seem to notice, and we hoped we hadn’t lost some man his cow. The ride turned out to be farther than the driver had anticipated, so we were surprised that he didn’t ask for more money when we arrived. We appreciated his kindness, and give him a tip.

Julie lives in a large, beautiful house in a gorgeously green setting that gave it a rural feel, without being too far from town. Her parents are NGO workers who have lived in Cambodia for years. Although Julie spent the first few years of her life in Burkina Faso, where her parents worked at the time, she spent a good portion of the rest of her life in Cambodia. When I had talked to her about it in France, she seemed modest about her ability to speak Khmer (the language spoken in Cambodia), I quickly found out that she was pretty fluent. They were renting this house from a Cambodian man who was now living out of the country. As part of the rental agreement, they were to employ the previous maid and her husband, who worked as a gardener. They had a second maid, as well, who spoke French. Julie spoke to all of them in Khmer, while Lise and I could speak to the one in French.

We spent some time hanging out with Julie, but they were having some friends over for dinner, so we decided we didn’t want to get in the way and decided to go to visit the temples of Angkor for a while. Julie helped us negotiate prices for bike rental from a nearby hotel. Before we parted ways, though, Julie bought us a bag of fresh-squeezed sugar cane juice, one of her favorite local treats.

Angkor Wat, one of the world’s most impressive historical sites, is just a few km from Siem Reap. Although it costs $20/day, if you go at 5 PM, your ticket will work for the next day as well. This was our game plan.

We got about an hour to explore Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous temple of the area. I probably shouldn’t try too hard to do justice in explaining how impressive these old structures are. So just a few basics. It was built after the death of Suyavarman II, one of the kings of the ancient city of Angkor, who died in 1152 AD. It honors the Hindu deity (the Khmers used to be Hindu, not Buddhist) Vishnu, and it is the world’s largest religious structure.

I didn’t bring my camera for a few reasons, but mostly I wanted to experience the temples without distraction. I wanted to be in the moment, without feeling like I had to capture the memories. This place has been photographed enough, and I didn’t feel like I had much to add in my hour there. Upon crossing the bridge that went over the moat around the temple, it seemed, as predicted, incredibly touristy. We wandered among the groups of tourists, trying to drown out the noise and focus on this incredible structure. Within ten minutes of wandering, though, we had left behind the masses and gotten lost in the obscure corners of the temple. It was surprising how easy it was to find spots within that left us completely alone. The temple is still in the process of restoration, so certain parts were off limits, and a big portion of the front was obscured by an unsightly green tarp. Regardless, the insides were atmospheric and peaceful, and we wished we could have just sat in there longer and soaked it all in for hours. Unfortunately, it was closing at sunset, so we had to be on our way before we were ready.

On the bicycle ride back to town, as the evening descended into darkness, we kept hearing a loud noise coming from the adjacent forest that sounded like a buzz saw. We were confused about what could be making that loud noise. We were sure it wasn’t a buzz saw, but it seemed far too loud to be an animal. We found out later that it was actually some sort of bug. It was the second most impressive thing all day.

Later in the evening, we went to buy a snack from a local shop. One of the guys hanging out at a table in front of the next shop called out to us. It was the tuk-tuk driver from earlier in the day. He invited us to sit down with him and his friends. They were casually knocking back beers and shots of rice liquor. He offered us a drink of some pinkish-red “wine” from hell. It was rough brew, but they were delighted that we appeared to like it. Next he poured us shots of the rice liquor, which we subdued our grimaces for as it seared our throats. We hung out with this group of jolly, and slightly boisterous tuk-tuk drivers, enjoying pretty interesting conversation. As I’m sure I’ve said before, taxi/tuk-tuk/rickshaw/etc. drivers are some of my least favorite people to deal with while traveling. These men, however, just seemed like kind, fun people, who happened to drive around tourists during the day. I had expected Cambodia to be dodgy and full of hustlers, based on some of the stories that I’ve heard. So far, though, it was turning out to be disarmingly pleasant. In some places I would have expected these men to only be interested in talking to us because they thought they could benefit from it somehow, but they never mentioned tuk-tuk rides, tours, or selling any sort of trinkets or artifacts. I was quickly starting to warm up to this country.

Later in the evening, after Julie’s family’s friends left, Julie, Lise and I decided to take a dip in their pool. It was a luxury we didn’t think we would utilize, but we were glad when we did. The night was calm, but warm, and the pool was pleasantly refreshing.

How to Get to Siem Reap

Crossing from Thailand into Cambodia at the O Smach-Chong Jom border was one of the more drastic changes I have ever seen. On the Thai side there were well-paved roads, nice cars and, well, people. The Cambodian side seemed desolate. A narrow dirt track led away from the border checkpoint, and a few beat up vehicles and motorcycles were littered haphazardly around the area with their drivers hanging around nearby. There was no semblance of a border town of any sort, just a couple of shops and one seemingly abandoned hotel.

We walked from the Thai immigration booth, past the imposing casino resorts that made the contrast that much deeper, to the Cambodia immigration office. As usual at borders, my guard was up. I had heard plenty of horror stories of elaborate scams on the Thai-Cambodia border of Poipet, which was the most heavily used border for tourists coming on short visits to Angkor Wat. Fortunately for us, this border doesn’t seem to attract any tourists at all, and we could tell our presence caught people by surprise. It didn’t stop the official from trying the typical shenanigans with us. The cost of a 30-day visa for Cambodia is $20. Although Cambodia has its own currency, the riel, the US dollar is almost universally accepted. Interestingly, at the border, the official quoted the price in Thai Baht. They insisted on a price of 1000 Thai Baht, which is $33. I claimed that we had no Thai Baht (a lie), and gave him two crisp $20 bills for our two visas. He tried to call my bluff by saying he didn’t accept US dollars. I casually told him that he does accept US dollars as I continued to fill out the paperwork. For a while the $20s just sat there between us, neither of us wanting to admit our respective lies. Foreigners had obviously made a name for themselves on this border as suckers who would passively buy into the border official’s scams. When I handed over the paperwork, with no sign of paying in any way other than $20 bills, he accepted, gave us our full-page emerald green and holographic visas.

Although we had read that there is no public transit leaving the border town on the Cambodian side, we had decided to take our chances with the possibility of a bus or just hitchhiking. Several taxi drivers aggressively approached us, demanding to know where we were going. “Siem Reap? Siem Reap?” they asked. We tried to ignore them. They said there were no buses, and we said it was ok. We walked down the dirt road, and waited for a vehicle to pass through the border. In the distance we could see the affluent Thais pouring through to make merry at the casinos, but none of them were crossing into Cambodia. Every once in a while one of the taxi drivers or moto-taxi drivers would come and re-state their pitch to us, perhaps throwing out inflated fares to Siem Reap. Quite often it would be when these guys were parked next to us that a car would finally cross the border and make its way down the dirt road. I would stay with the taxi and our bags, while Lise would move and try to wave down the car to get a ride. These taxi drivers were really cramping our style as they got in our way. We walked farther down the road to avoid them. Over the next couple of hours, a car would pass by every ten or twenty minutes. Most of the drivers seemed too surprised by us to realize we were in need of a ride. A couple cars stopped, and we told them that we wanted to go to the nearest town, 40 km south of us. They all refused us a ride either because they weren’t going all the way to the town, their vehicle was too full, or they wanted a large sum of money.

We eventually admitted to ourselves that no bus would ever come and it would be unlikely to get a ride without paying. Paying a taxi to go 40 km would obviously be very expensive, so we hoped to at least negotiate with a private vehicle. Eventually a man offered us a ride in his car and we bartered the price down to something reasonable. Dark clouds were accumulating in the southern skies and we were worried about monsoon rains destroying the road before we could reach the town. This region of the country has notoriously bad roads that just turn to sludge during the rains.

After about twenty minutes in the car, we stopped by a tiny roadside settlement among endless rice paddies. A woman and four children approached the car and the driver got out to meet them. It appeared that this was the man’s family. He piled two of the kids into the back seat with us and the other two shared the front seat. It got cramped, but the kids were too adorable to be annoyed with.

The rains did indeed come, and they came hard. Massive puddles formed, and long ruts were filled. I was worried that it could get ugly, especially since the car was an old beater. Somehow, though, the rains let up after ten minutes, and turned into a drizzle. We made our way through the mushy, but intact road, among neon green rice paddies and the occasional wooden, stilted house. An hour later, we rolled into the sopping town of Samraong. It was small, quiet, and the single dirt road that ran through the town was riddled with deep puddles, some resembling lakes. This area of the country has been a bit of a backwater for decades, as it was a longtime Khmer Rouge stronghold during and after the peak of the civil war. The area is still riddled with land mines and unexploded ordinance, which, in recent years, has killed more people than anywhere else in Cambodia.

The rain picked up again as we arrived. We had no idea where to find a hotel, or local currency, so we just ducked into the first restaurant we could find, so we could have a bite and figure out our next move. It was covered, but open air. We knew not a single word in Khmer, nor did we know much about the protocol of going into a restaurant. Surprisingly, there was a young boy who spoke a smidgen of English. It was just enough for us to get our meal. There was no menu, and the boy didn’t really know many words to describe what was available. As usual, we didn’t arrive during normal meal time, so there was not much available. He said there was chicken, so we jumped on board with whatever that would be. In contrast with the broken down nature of this town, the restaurant seemed just a touch classier than its surroundings. The large table was made from a heavy hardwood, and the flatware did not seem cheap. The food came with an emphasis on presentation. The barbecued chicken sat on a big plate on a bed of fresh greens and vegetables, with a side of rice. The chicken was absolutely delicious, far surpassing any expectation I had for this tiny town of hardship. The teenage boy who was serving us was kind and enthusiastic. It was obvious that he was enjoying this rare moment of power, since he probably was normally low on the ladder here. When the bill came, I realized that I needed to find an ATM, to get some of the local currency. The presumably only ATM in town was right next to the restaurant. Given the large fee they wanted to charge for withdrawal, I took out as much as I could. To my surprise, it all came out in US dollars, rather than Cambodian riel. I sheepishly went back to the restaurant and offered them a $20 bill, hoping that they might be able to give me change. They didn’t hesitate for a second, and I quickly realized how widely accepted US currency is here. They handed me back change in riel, and I did some quick math in my head, confirming that we had indeed received the right amount of money back. I shouldn’t have bothered, as everyone here had seemed so genuine.

As Lise relaxed in the restaurant, I went out in search of a place for the night. Hopping over puddles, I found a place that looked surprisingly nice. Their price was a little high, so I went next door. It didn’t look too bad either, so I asked to see the room. It was nothing to tweet home about, but it was functional and only $3.50. I went and got Lise and we checked in as it started to get dark. The hotel doubled as a restaurant (which seemed to be its more lucrative venture) and one of the young, slender waitresses, took us to our room. It was filled with mosquitoes, so she returned with some sort of bug spray. She returned soon after and had us change rooms. We could only assume it was because of the mosquitoes, but she could not explain it. This room seemed to have about the same amount of mosquitoes, but in addition, the bathroom smelled oppressively gag-worthy. It was a room to use when absolutely necessary, not one to relax in.

We immediately went out to the restaurant area to relax with a beer. Next to us, there was a table with a large Cambodian family, or perhaps just a group of friends of varying ages, no kids, enjoying a large, extravagant meal with wine and beer. The plate was covered in a variety of dishes, and they ate and chat enthusiastically throughout the night. When When Lise had stepped away for a moment, something happened at the table. I don’t know what it was, but voices were raised and eventually a few of the people were up and in each other’s faces. It looked like one of the men was trying to fight one of the other men, while a women in the middle was trying to hold them apart. It was a small space, and things got intense for a moment with punches flying, and the table was nearly knocked over. It ended as quickly as it started after the main aggressor threw a plastic chair, which landed on the table, and he was forced to leave. One of the women ran after him tearfully. One of the other women rearranged chairs and put the table back together as she gave me embarrassed apologies.

The next day we wanted to leave town, and head to Siem Reap, about 150 km southeast of Samraong. It was a sunny morning, but the road still had plenty of puddles left in it. We expected to find some sort of shared truck or bus going to Siem Reap, but after looking around a bit and waiting near the center of town, there seemed to be no movement. A friendly employee from the bank invited us to sit in the shade of the bank while we waited, and he even brought us bottles of water. When we gave up and decided that hitchhiking would be easier, we weren’t even sure which way we needed to walk. We disagreed on which way it was, so we asked around. This was also inconclusive. We chose a direction, walked for half an hour, then met some young girls who spoke enough English to tell us we were going the wrong way.

Back on the other side of town, we got a ride from a truck driver. He had a big smile and a good nature to him. He took us for about 30 km. before he turned off the main road. Before we got out, he gave me his white hat to keep the sun off my face. I felt bad, because I am used to going without any sun protection and he might not have another hat, but it would have been wrong to do anything but accept it with a big smile. And I was excited to have it. It was a typical adjustable trucker hat and it said “Komatsu” in big blue letters on it. I still don’t know what Komatsu, but I have seen this company’s hats a few times in Cambodia since then.

We sat in the blistering sun on the side of the red dirt road for a while, with hardly any cars passing by. At least it was still early in the day, we thought. Eventually a big white pickup truck that said “Vehicle donated by Unicef” on the side pulled up to us. Several middle-aged Cambodians sat inside. They offered us a ride all the way to Siem Reap and said we could cram into the back seat. We asked if it would be ok if we sat in the bed. They thought it a little odd, but said it was fine. We wanted to be social, but sitting in the bed is just that much more comfortable.

About halfway to Siem Reap the road started coming under repair in patches. Some sections remained dirt, while others were fully paved. In between, people worked hard with basic tools to prepare the road for pavement. Bicycles, motorbikes and tractors with trailers carried people between villages or work sites. We barreled through a few villages, swerving around people and livestock.

Rural Transport in Cambodia

We arrived in Siem Reap in the early afternoon. After just 30 hours in poor and rural Cambodia, this second city of Cambodia was shocking. The road into town was lined with luxurious hotels. Some small, some huge, but all nicer than anything we had expected. Since the end of Cambodia’s civil war, this town has been exploding in its tourism industry. Siem Reap is right next to the temples of Angkor Wat, almost undeniably the most impressive attraction (historical or otherwise) in Southeast Asia. For a few decades it had been nearly inaccessible, but for the last ten or fifteen years it was wide open for business. And business it was doing. The town seemed utterly pristine, especially compared to most anywhere else I would go to in Cambodia during my month-long stay.

When we arrived to the part of town where we thought we could find hotels that were affordable to us, we banged on the side of the truck, and they stopped for us. They offered to take us exactly to where we wanted to go, but since we didn’t know exactly where we were going, we said we could be left here. We talked for a few minutes, and we learned that they worked for a government health clinic that serves the poorer communities in the area. This explained why their vehicle had been donated by Unicef. As we chatted, one of the women went to a nearby food cart and bought us some barbecued mini bananas, and sticky rice cooked inside banana leaves with a delicious mashed banana filling. It was such a kind gesture, and it gave me a (probably undeserved) feeling of superiority over all the other tourists in this town. Since a large contingent of tourists in Cambodia only see the city of Siem Reap and Angkor Wat (either flying in directly or busing directly from Bangkok), they might get the impression that the country is a bit of a tourist trap and full of trinket sellers and hustlers. We had the privilege of getting a ride into town with locals in the back of their truck and then they bought us snacks! I felt like we were truly arriving in style and I wouldn’t want it any other way.