Hoof Hearted in Cambodia

At 4:30am the taxi is at my front door and the journey begins. Off to the the train station for the 6am ride to the border. The only train is 3rd class with no A/C but its only 48 baht (about $1.50) for foreigners and free for Thai people.  I think normally the train isn't too crazy but this is the Friday before the holiday week of Songkran (Thai new year) and many Thai's will travel from the city out to the country to be with family for the week. The train is packed and the seats are terrible. Train conductors forced 2 person bench seats to become 3 person seats. Every stop, more and more people packed into the isles. Tons of Cambodians traveling back to their country for the new year, all bringing their families everything from live animals to small appliances. There was a constant game of musical chairs with the Cambodians as the Immigration police came aboard three times and hauled people off. "Coyotes" were constantly moving their people from seat to seat all the while giving and taking identification cards to their pack of illegals. It was almost comical, but it was too damn hot to laugh about anything. The seat back was partially broken and every time someone on  my side or the opposite side of the bench seat moved the backing would push back and forth like a diving board turned sideways.  The five hour train ride turned into eight hours of sweat and back pain hell. The huge mob let out of the train and everyone raced for the cab stand as its still a 10 minute drive from the station to the border.Travelling alone I knew all I needed was a motorcycle taxi. Although I left the train mid mob, a few minutes down the road I was easily ahead of everyone as my driver started weaving through the traffic.

The border between Aranya Prathet Thailand and Poipet Cambodia is a strange little grey zone.  I'm not sure to which side it really belongs to. You stamp out of the border from Thailand and there is a five minute walk to stamp in to the border at Cambodia.  Between the two border check points are vendors selling everything under the sun, child pickpockets everywhere, beggars and thieves and mutilated survivors of landmines. There are stores and booths trying to push cigarettes and whisky and at least a half a dozen big casinos. Nothing has a price tag on it of course. Its like three blocks of sin city. No one here is to be trusted. Men in uniform herding people towards visa on arrival services, all fake. A uniformed government looking guy wanted to look at my passport. I said no. He told me that I would need a visa, 1000 baht. I found the visa office with out him and it was only 800 baht.  I saw him again and told him "800 baht dickweed." He laughed and waved, I laughed and walked.

Passing the casino, thief/beggar zone and stamping into Cambodia I immediately haggled down the price for my first beer and sat for a moment to take in my surroundings. I see tourists in a hurry to get out of this little shit hole and I don't blame them. but I prefer to look and listen before I tread. From here travelers are trying to get several hours in to the country to destination sites such as Siem Reap.  I see the free shuttle to the travel station is a scam, it drops you off at a private bus company not the government bus service. I see the tourists are getting herded into the free minivan shuttles, they have air conditioning and look pretty nice. I have done my homework however and read many stories of private companies driving for an hour then demanding more money or some other shenanigans.  I find the sign post for the government free shuttle and get on a filthy little shuttle for the 10 minute ride to the bus station. Cost me about 300 baht for a ticket to Siem Reap and the three hour ride only took about five hours.  Fortunately I remembered to buy beer for the road.  We made a stop for gas at this station.  The diesel fuel is in the containers.

There was motorcycle fuel as well.

Out the window I could see the various different types of dirt. Red dirt, brown dirt, sandy yellowish dirt, dirt with garbage, dirt with trash, and of course mud. Dirt is the number one product of Cambodia and you can find it virtually everywhere.  We passed miles and miles of dirt clod farms on the way to Siem Reap.

 

Dirt from these farms is harvested and used for materials such as streets, beds, snack food, sunscreen and much more.  Here you can see a dirt driveway blends nicely with the street and a well maintained front lawn, also made from dirt.

Finally after the three hour ride we pull into the small town and everyone on the bus is happy to be in Siem Reap. Except we are not in Siem Reap, this is just a toilet break, we would continue on for another two hours in the "three hour travel time" to Siem Reap. I was starting to worry that I may have been herded onto the wrong bus. I was very relieved to finally get to the town right around sunset.

I was lucky and got a really cool taxi driver at the bus station named "Tee", he spoke good English, had a good attitude and would become my driver for the next two days.  He drove a motorcycle tuk tuk, which is a little different then the tuk tuk's I'm accustomed to in Thai. In Cambodia the tuk tuk is a motorbike hauling a carriage type sled, it looks like this.

My pad the next two nights was a place called the Parklane Hotel. Its a two star joint with no pool but the staff was very good to me and the room was clean. I didn't expect much as this is Cambodia but I had no problems there. I doubt I will go back to that town but if I ever do, I have no problem staying at the Parklane.  One feature I found interesting was the bathtub. Standing in the tub and looking down you can see that any water that hits the side wall or back wall will be channeled around the back of the tub and straight to the floor, which has no drain.  As a habit I always point the shower head at the sidewall when I turn on the shower until it is at a good and constant temperature. All that water immediately runs down the wall into this little channel feature where by some Cambodian magic the volume is multiplied three fold before pouring off onto the bathroom floor.

The bathroom had a single orangish color light bulb that makes anyone look incredibly tan. I think this is probably one of the main selling points of this two star hotel.

The room was bare of any pictures or art. There were a few places on the wall where lighting had been installed to showcase artwork. Maybe that is a plan still in progress, or possibly someone has already liberated the artwork from the room, I'm not sure.

Lucky I had a room toward the front of the hotel so I had this view of the quiet little street and not the slum behind the building.

Sticks may be the second largest product of Cambodia, followed closely by opium.

After a long hot shower its time to hit the streets for some dinner and nightlife. It only took about 2 hours of being in Siem Reap before my wallet disappeared. The city uses the American dollar for any regular spending and uses its own currency the "Riel" for small change. I had about 500 Thai baht and $60 dollars American in my wallet before it grew legs. Normally I am a bit smarter then this.  I travel with two wallets, one is my dummy wallet in case I get robbed. I know to keep my wallet in my front pocket. I often wrap a rubber band or two around my wallet when I travel so that it grabs the inside of my pocket and is not so easily drug out by pick pockets.  I use twist ties to connect the zippers on my backpack so that they can not be opened in a hurry. I have cargo pants that I travel in that have small hidden pockets sewn into the inside of the waist line to hide my cash.  This trip I slipped up, its my own fault. I forgot my decoy wallet. I paid my taxi driver and stuck my wallet in my back pocket, no rubber band. I walked about a block and stopped to look at a dinner menu, seeing the prices reminded me that my wallet was in my back pocket and I should put it in my front pocket. I reached for it, it was gone already. Fortunately I had already removed all of my big money and hid it securely in the hotel room. Unfortunately I had a couple pieces of plastic in there. I now have no money for cab fare back to the hotel and really had no bearing yet as to hiking back (this is my first venture out and its night time). I convince a motorcycle taxi to take me to the hotel for free and get some wi-fi message off to Bangkok so that my better half can start calling and cancelling my cards.  That taken care of I feel better. Except that I still have not eaten for 13 hours and now all I have is Thai currency and no place to change it till morning.  If I had been robbed and beaten, I would be bitter and vengeful, but I guess I can not get all crazy about the situation. I'm in a country where the majority of people live in a harsh poverty. I'm sure someone watched me leave that taxi, put my wallet in my back pocket and started salivating. People do what they have to do to survive.  Not like I have never stolen just to get food in my belly before. The difference is that I always knew one day I would be better again. These people can not have that type of certainty and I'd wager most of them don't feel that kind of hope. They try and try but they are still at the bottom digging deeper and deeper.

Going to bed I had nothing else but to think that I never wanted to come back to this hell hole again.

Yes of course I feel empathy, I do feel pity for people of Cambodia. But I'm just here to drink some beer, not save the world. I'm sorry if I sound like an asshole but what can I do? I mean, they already have my wallet. 

The next day my driver picks me and hauls me around for a day at Angkor Wat, a huge complex of ancient temples.  You may remember some of them from scenes of the "Tomb Raider" movie with Angelina Jolie.  It was a great day and it changed my attitude a lot.  I'm going to save that for the next blog post as I took many pictures while I was there.  If the next blog post on Angkor is good, then this blog post must be the bad and the ugly. 

After a exhausting day exploring the temples of Angkor I went to the Siem Reap night market and practiced my haggling skills.  I have gotten pretty good at it and with lightning and bits of thunder in the sky I knew as well as the vendors that customers would be leaving the market as soon as the rain starts. I drove for bargains everywhere I went and if I met a tough cookie I would just remind them that its starting to rain and that I didn't want to get stuck at the market while all the tourists rushed to get the taxi's.  Vendors knew they had to take a discount deal now or gamble that there would be any sales at all later.

I ventured over to Pub St. for dinner and I must say I had the best Mexican food there then I've had in about 9 months, which has been none. Regardless the food was great and I drank several Angkor Beers.  The spot was called Viva! and if your in the neighborhood, give it a shot. Total cost for 3 steak tacos and 3 draft beers on special: $4.50 American.

Angkor Beer  "My Country, My Beer"

 

While I am always looking to drink new and different beers when I travel, I wasn't blown away by Angkor beer. Its alright. Its not bad. I didn't bother to bring any home with me as I had planned to do. I had read somewhere that I could find Beer Lao in this neighboring country of Cambodia. That was not the case.  I did however notice there were many types of food.

On Pub street theres lots of good food and drink, its a bit spendy compared to the rest of Siem Reap but for most visitors it is still considered cheap. I actually found the beer specials to be cheaper on Pub street then at the local 6-11 store. (open 24 hours of course)

 

It time to wrap up the evening and hit the sack. I was tempted to buy a fish foot massage for two dollars just because my feet were so black and filthy it would be great to put those dirty dogs in for a soak.  They have this Dr. Fish foot massage all over the place. You stick your feet in the tank and the fish eat away all the dead skin. I already had about 30 mosquito bites on the top of my feet, all rubbed raw, open and infected from these cheap ass sandals I have been in. I decided sticking my wounds in that water might not be the best idea.

I grabbed a tuk tuk and headed back to the room just before the rain started to hit. The driver offered me every drug and service under the sun along the way. I just joked and would answer "no, i just had some of that" and we would laugh while he thought of something else illegal and immoral to offer me.

 

So that's Siem Reap in a nutshell. I'm glad that I went and now I can say that I have been. For the record I would advise you not to go to Cambodia, its a shit hole. If you do go to see its beautiful temples and history, stay in Siem Reap. The other hot spot towns in the country are Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville (affectionately called PP town and Shitsville by many SE Asia expats) are much more dangerous then Siem Reap to the point where using an atm machine after dark may cost you your life.

That said, I have to say that my next blog entry is entirely about the Angkor Wat Temples and rich and wondrous history to be found within. Angkor Wat gave peace to my soul, its truly an amazing work of architecture, and is filled with culture and wonder. Going to Angkor Wat is like checking something off my bucket list that I hadn't yet known to put on the list yet.  I know I am a cynical, sarcastic person, but I have nothing but positivity for this next blog post (coming soon) on the Ancient Angkor Wat.

Walking to the store near my hotel to grab some late night beers for the room I see some local guys sitting around inside polishing a huge hand gun, large enough to be a U.S. desert eagle or something. I decided to just go back to the hotel.  About 2:am I heard gunfire not far away and had to wonder if it was those same guys. Maybe, maybe not.

 

So that's it for me, I'm up the next morning and off to the first transport out of this rat hole town. The bus out was much faster this trip due to the fact the bus driver was out of his mind on some type of speed or methamphetamine. For the next three hours he gave the horn a workout about every 30 to 60 seconds and passed every vehicle that dared to enter his line of sight.  There was one time I thought we might die as the bus executed a high speed skid and every single passenger (your truly included)  flew out of their seats into the isles or the seats in front of them. Loose baggage and comfortably discarded shoes and slippers rained towards the front of the bus. Apparently a small motorbike with passengers, going the same direction as we were, had pulled out from across the road in front of us, not looking for traffic behind him at all, and not bothering to come up to speed. I could see his passengers look of terror as the bus came within feet of killing them.   I made it back across the borders with little hassle and managed to get back to Bangkok before dinner.  Thanks for the memories Cambodia, your temples and lost culture have affected me and are forever burned into my mind, but in the future, don't call me - I'll call you.

Final note - Of all the poverty, crime, and violence in Cambodia, I wish to think of the children. Its not fair that they were brought into a world like this. If I could make a difference, I would do it for those children. Those children who are taught to steal and kill. Those children that are bought and sold. Those children who are supposed to be the future of a developing nation, not a sexual attraction to pedophiles world wide at a dime a dozen rate.  It saddens me that these children know no different. This is normal life for them.  I usually don't sound this soft and sappy, but damn I wish I could do something for those kids to make a difference, I really do.