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.
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