Cambodia

3 January, 2016
You may (or may not) remember that, on Christmas Day, we had booked a private car to take us to Cambodia. We had heard and read about many scams at the Thai-Cambodian Border and were happy to pay a little extra for this seemingly hassle-free option. The tour operator where we made this booking had told us how our itinerary would work:

- We would be picked up at 7 am
- We would be driven in a comfortable car (just the 2 of us), straight to the Thai side of the border (Aranyaprathet) and to their tour office there (about 5 hrs including the ferry from Koh Chang to the mainland).
- We would be taken by their staff to the Cambodian side (Poipet), where our passports would be stamped and their Cambodian driver would be waiting to take us, in another private car, to our hotel in Siem Reap.
- We were to pay 50% (or thereabouts) deposit and the balance was to be paid to the driver when we arrived at our Siem Reap hotel.

At least that was how we understood it, and the guy's English wasn't too bad...

In actual fact, this is how it went down:

- The driver, named 'Blacks' (and he was), showed up around 7.30am. We had to call the tour operator to remind him about our pickup. On the way to Centrepoint Pier to catch the ferry to the mainland, our driver chatted to us in an unintelligible language. Every so often he would point to, and say out loud, the name of a resort or a supermarket by reading the English signs (example: Macro Foods Supermarket). I guess he thought he was showing us the sights. Then we would read the signs too and nod (our contribution to the conversation).

- Shortly after the ferry dropped us off at the mainland, he drove off the main road and stopped to make a phone call. We asked him why we had left the 'highway', but didn't understand his answer, so we were none the wiser and starting to get a little concerned. He went down a tree-lined side road, past what looked like a military base and stopped in front of a large, covered market-like stall standing on it's own. 'Blacks' told us it was his tour company. We went in, hoping that someone in there could speak English and explain to us what was going on. We saw other tourists paying more than they should, for Cambodian Visas and realised that this was 'Phase 1 in separating the dumb tourists from their money'. Luckily, we had already applied for our Cambodian visas online and had even glued a copy of them to our passports. When the lady behind the counter saw them, she said "You ok" and told Blacks something in Thai which we hoped meant that he could take us on our way. It seemed so, and we set off again.

- The drive was long and bumpy with the car swaying and jolting as Blacks weaved in and out of traffic at breakneck speed. I was soooo car sick!

- About 5 hours later we arrived at Aranyaprathet and he dropped us and our luggage off at another, similar, covered market stall where we thought we would be transferred into a waiting car and taken to the border.....NOT!! We were greeted by a smiling, English-speaking Thai who told us that our transport would be there shortly and in the meantime to please sit down and wait. We were offered food and drink which we politely refused (I had made sandwiches for our trip). We waited for about an hour, during which time we watched as two young men went from table to table selling tours, visas and God knows what else, to all the other tourists who were dropped off by their respective drivers. 'Phase 2 in separating the dumb tourists from their money'.

We were starting to get impatient, and when they realised they weren't going to make any money off us, one of the guys sat down and told us that we would be taken by minibus with a bunch of other people to the border. There, we would go through passport control and then be taken by free shuttle to the bus station where our Cambodian driver would be waiting for us. We were then asked to pay the balance of our bill to them instead of at our final destination. I guess in some measure they did manage to get some money off us (dumb tourists) after all.

- We were bundled into the shared minibus and taken to the border where we were unceremoniously dropped off. We then had to lug our suitcases, daypacks, guitar, bags and left-over picnic lunch (now I know why they call it lug-gage :) across busy roads, up stairs (no elevators), through Thai passport control and then back down, across more busy roads and long sidewalks towards the Cambodian checkpoint.

If I am making it sound easy, I apologise....it wasn't! It was hot, badly-signed, nobody spoke more than a couple of words of English and half the time we had no idea where we were going. Anyway, we figured it out by following some straggling (and struggling) tourists, and found the Cambodian checkpoint which was a long, narrow, covered hallway with never-ending queues of tourists in front of us. As we waited (interminably it seemed) and inched forward towards the windows where unsmiling Cambodian officials shuffled paperwork and stamped passports, I fleetingly wondered how our Cambodian private driver would know when to expect us, as we were way behind schedule....

As soon as we came out of passport control, we were shown where to wait for the free shuttle, which then took us to the bus-station where our driver was supposed to be waiting. We were greeted by the Cambodian version of our Thai guy in the 'Phase 2' location, who told us to wait for our transport. We told him we had booked and paid for (we showed him our receipts) a private driver and he seemed surprised. I suddenly realised that there was no dedicated Cambodian private driver who had patiently been waiting for David and Jo to arrive at, God only knows, what time. Instead, this guy still had to find us a driver who would take us to our hotel which was over 2 hours away!

There were a bunch of cars parked in front of us with the drivers standing around, but he seemed to be having trouble finding someone who would take us to Siem Reap. Finally he spoke to someone who nodded and he told us to put our stuff in his car. There was an English tourist already in the front seat of the car and we were told that he was also going to Siem Reap. So much for our private transfer, but we were too tired to argue although we did insist that we be dropped off first. By this time it was past 3pm and we had been on the road for about 8 hours.

The drive to Siem Reap was fairly uneventful, past flat landscape which looked slightly Mediterranean, unlike the lush tropical rain forests of Thailand. I privately nicknamed our driver 'Horatio Hornblower', because he blew/honked his horn every time he came close to a bicycle, scooter, tuk-tuk or any other vehicle which had the misfortune to be in front of him. He was also on his 'blower' (mobile phone) quite a bit and his ring tone was a kitten mewing. So, we had to put up with either hearing his horn blasting or his phone meowing, almost constantly, for over two hours...

We finally got to our accommodation in Siem Reap at around 6pm and following a quick dinner at the closest place to our hotel , were asleep before 9pm.

The morals of this story: 1) Don't waste your money on 'Private' transport from Koh Chang to Cambodia bought from a lying tour operator. 2) Take a motion sickness pill BEFORE you start the drive.

4 January 2016
This morning we got a Tuk Tuk to Siem Reap centre (about 15 minutes from our hotel), so we could get our bearings and some cash. The ATMs give out US$ here...very weird!

Siem Reap is dusty, dirty, noisy, crowded and terrifying if you're in a Tuk Tuk with scooters, bicycles, cars and other Tuk Tuks of all shapes and sizes coming at you from every direction (or so it seems). Above all it was hot, so very hot (about 34C or 93F) - much hotter than Thailand. After rescuing David's card from a hungry ATM machine and getting our cash, we sought refuge in Pub Street in the French Quarter. Cool, narrow streets were lined with French style architecture and bursting with shops, restaurants, cafes and bars offering anything and everything a tourist could possibly desire. We had our first Cambodian meal here with no idea of what we were ordering, save for the English description in bad grammar and spelling, written below the Cambodian name. After Thailand, my first instinct was to tell the waitress "Not spicy" with my order, but apparently the traditional Amok which we ordered (a fish stew in coconut sauce with Khmer spices) was not. YAY!! I'd also like to add that it was absolutely delicious. All the flavour of a green curry without the 'hot', and in my case, the closed throat, streaming eyes and dripping nose which usually accompany it.

After lunch, David decided to try out a Foot Spa, Asian Style, where you sit with your feet in a tank full of fish and let them nibble on the dead skin of your feet. I had seen the movie 'Piranha' a long time ago and it was pretty much etched in my memory for ever, so when I saw all those fish going for his feet, the worst scenes from that movie came flooding back and I cringed. David, on the other hand, enjoyed the experience and said the fish tickled and made him laugh, which was relaxing in itself. There were two tanks, one with many small fish and the other with fewer, larger fish. As a 'beginner', he was advised to go in with the smaller fish but afterwards,

he tried the second tank which, he said, wasn't as nice because these fish, being larger, were not quite as ticklish and he could feel little bites as opposed to nibbles...Ugh!!

5 January 2016
We had hired a private, driver guide for three days (like we had in Chiang Mai) and today was Day 1. Ratanak our Cambodian driver/guide picked us up at our hotel. A very nice young man with a great sense of humour, whose English was good enough to understand, without too much effort. We did the Small Circuit of Angkor Archeological Park. The park encompasses a total of 400 square kms, so too big to do all at once. Today we visited Angkor Wat, the world famous 'main event', a magnificent and impressive temple surrounded by a moat. Then, on to Bayon Temple with its giant faces carved into the stone, and Elephant Terrace in Angkor Thom with it's impressive gates. We also visited Ta Phrom where the film 'Lara Croft: Tombraider' was filmed. I loved this one, which, although not as impressive as the other temples, is overgrown by giant strangler fig trees weaving in and out of the temple ruins. It was mysterious and kind of eerie, to see how nature swallowed up the work of man... or at least it would have been, if there weren't so many tourists crawling all over it, posing to take pictures

(myself and David included).

Before going back to our hotel, we went up in a tethered helium balloon to a height of 200 metres and got to see aerial views of Angkor Wat...stunning!

6 January 2016
Today was spent ‘resting’ from the ‘temple-traipsing’ of yesterday. We wandered around the Old French Quarter of Siem Reap, had a great foot massage, a nice meal and towards dusk,

caught a Tuk Tuk to the Royal Gardens, where hundreds of fruit bats the size of cats, filled the trees. We were hoping to see them all fly off in an impressive ‘swarm’ but instead they fluttered their wings occasionally, and just hung there, swaying, as we watched for about 15 minutes. I had my zoom lens focused on the trees, hoping to get a ‘cool’ shot, but nothing really happened and we were starting to get bored, so we got back into our Tuk Tuk and headed for our hotel.

7 January 2016
Day 2 with Ratanak. He took us on the Grand Circuit of Angkor today and we visited the outer temples: Preah Khan, Neak Pean (hospital/temple surrounded by water), Ta Som (more jungle temple ruins choked by strangler fig trees), Banteay Srei (exquisite, pink temple with intricate carvings) and Pre Rup. All different and all beautiful in their own way.

8 January 2016
Day 3 with Ratanak. Only one temple today - Beng Mealea, another jungle temple (my

favourite kind). The rest of the day was dedicated to visiting a floating fishing village called Kompong Phluk on Tonle Sap lake which is huge. These floating villages are usually just that (floating) in November, but in January, when the waters have receded, the village shacks stand on high stilts above ground. The villages get around by boat for part of the year and scooter or pickup for the rest. The word ‘amphibious’ comes to mind but forgot to check if they had webbed feet :).

We took a river boat down the Tahas river until we came to the village, which is on the edge of the lake. Because of the low water, the village was perched on the banks on either side of the estuary. It looked like a mass of sticks with rooms on top of them. After cruising down the river and onto Lake Tonle Sap, we turned back and walked through the village leaving our boat on the river. On the main street of the village, outside some of the houses, there were large straw mats with shrimp drying out in the sun. We were told that these would then be sold to make shrimp paste. We passed a school where little children were learning English so that

they can get jobs in the tourist industry when they are older.

9 January 2016
Our last day in Cambodia. David decided to take a 2 hour Cambodian cookery class first thing in the morning while I took it easy and then met him downtown a little later. He brought back samples of what he had cooked and which we ate later that evening (yummy). We had another massage and lunch then walked around for a while before going back to the hotel.