Cambodia

I awoke stupidly early in Bangkok to head to the bus station bound for Cambodia. The border crossing I was heading to is notorious for all sorts of scams, so I was on guard. The bus was reasonable and dropped us right at the border, right next door to the first scam.. the Cambodian visa office. Most people (including me) intended to get a visa on arrival. The official place to do this is after you have exited Thailand and are crossing to Cambodia. The visa office they dropped us at was a scam, and charges twice as much for the visa, which may or may not be legit. Scam 1 avoided.

Next, they had a few motorbikes offering to drop us to the border for about $5. That’s nice of them, but the border was no more than a 2 minute walk away (which some people weren’t aware of). Scam 2 avoided. After getting through Thai/Cambodian customs, I shared a taxi with 3 other people to Siam Reap. The taxi drops you off roughly on the edge of town, but really in the middle of nowhere. Of course, there is tuk-tuks waiting to scam you there. If you’ve already booked a hostel, like I had, you’re safe, but if you haven’t, like the American guy I was with, they will try to screw you. The American guy decided he wanted to go to the same hostel as me, so we shared a tuk-tuk. The tuk-tuk took us to a hostel of some sort with no name on it. It’s a well-known trick for tuk-tuk drivers to take you to a hostel they get commission for, if you haven’t got a booking already. I told the American guy that I was very suspicious about this being the correct hostel, but he was one of those naïve Americans that just ignore other people’s advice (sorry Americans I know it’s not all of you). They got him to check-in, while another guy talked to me to distract me. Once he had paid, they said that there was two hostels with the same name, and I was staying at the other one (yeah right). I was taken to the correct hostel without incident. Scams avoided! To be honest, I was strangely disappointed at how easy the process was. I had heard about all sorts of other scams that just never happened.

The hostel I was staying at was fantastic. There was an infinity pool, some deck chairirs, a bar with bar stools all around. It was a neat setup. I headed down to the bar for happy hour, where I met Josh, who can only be described as insane. We had some ridiculously cheap Angkor draught beers ($0.50), met some other people at the bar and a whole group of us headed out to the appropriately named ‘Pub Street’. Just incase you can’t find it::

On the street is the infamous ‘Angkor What?’ bar that most tourists head to. Like many places in South East Asia, it takes responsible service of alcohol seriously:

This is quite a fun bar and this would certainly not be the last time we would be here. Josh had decided that he wanted to go to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise, and since was drinking to sunrise, he didn’t bother sleeping and just went straight there. The next day I saw him at the bar again with a beer in hand. I asked him if he had slept. He said no, but he had a shower, and according to him, that’s as good as a sleep.

That night we headed out to a Cambodian BBQ place. The idea is they bring you raw meat of your choosing and you cook it yourself on a mini BBQ. You can get all sorts of meat here, like crocodile, snake, goat, ostrich etc. I chose to try ostrich:

It was pretty tasteless. I tried someone else’s goat though, which was delicious. From here, we went to our favourite hangout, the Angkor What? Bar. Another night of partying ensued. Once again, Josh was the last to come home.

Finally, on my last day in Siam Reap, I went to the one and only place people go to in Siam Reap.. Angkor Wat. It is the largest Hindu temple complex in the world, situated at Angkor, Cambodia, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. Yes I copied all of that from Wikipedia.. I was just going to say it’s a whole crapton of bigass temples. This is Angkor Wat

There are a couple of temples nearby, which are smaller, but equally impressive.

The Chinese primeminister happened to be touring Angkor Wat on the same day as me, complete with his massive entourage of mean-looking, heavily armed Cambodian security guards. I tried not to put my hands in my pocket, incase they thought I was reaching for a handgun to assassinate the Chinese prime-minister. At one point, the prime-minster came out where the tourists were gathered. The Chinese people went freakin nuts. They literally fell over each other trying to get a picture of their primeminster. They were gasping and cheering and generally going nutso, like they had just seen a rockstar.

I couldn’t help thinking if it had of being Julia Gillard (Australian prime-minster) there, I don’t think I would have cared enough to so much as unzip my bag, retrieve my camera and take a photo.

I took the bus from Siam Reap south to Phnom Penh, the capital and largest city of Cambodia. There’s really nothing too special about this place, although it surprised me just how well they had done up the area around the river. At night, the place is covered with colourful lights.. it actually looks quite good. Phnom Penh’s tourist attractions are all depressive. Basically, most people go to a prison museum, detailing how people were detained and executed by the Khmer Rough regime (their own government). Then you go the killing fields, where the people were actually executed. Although morbid, it is interesting history.

Phnom Penh was also the location for my first experience with bed bugs. I was sleeping one night in my hotel room, only to wake up with little bugs all over me. I sprayed a crapton (my new favourite word it seems) of insect repellent on me, went back to sleep and woke up in the morning to a host of bites.

After all this stress, I decided I should try a Cambodian masassage. Here I am with the clothes they providede:

For the record, Thai massages are much better than Cambodian massages.

Next, it was off to Sihanoukville. It’s Cambodia’s most popular beach destination. Firstly, I couldn’t and still can’t pronounce this place. It’s not pronounced anything like it looks. This place really didn’t impress me. There are so many beggars, cripples and hawkers that approach you, either trying to sell something, or just wanting money. Plus every restaurant and bar hires people to get in your way as you try and walk past and try and convince you to go to their bar/restaurant. It’s really freakin annoying.

I managed to run into crazy Josh again, who was still managing to contntinue his drinking streak. Liane had followed me Sihanoukville (she would say I followed her) as well, so we all went out. We tried a bucket, although it looked more like a sprite bottle cut in half:

This night ended badly though. I was sharing a drink with Liane. She put it down. I picked it up a little while later and I’m almost certain someone had spiked it, because I went from being relatively sober to crazy in no time. Anyway, Josh and Liane somehow got me back to the hotel and I learned the importance of holding on to your drink at all times.

Summary

Awesome:

Angkor Wat (the ruins)

Angkor What? (the bar)

Neon lights telling you where the pubs are

Craptacular:

Bed bugs

Buckets that aren't buckets

Sihanoukaville (both the people and the name itself)

What's Next

Laos for some drink-tubing adventures!

Thailand: Bangkok

Arriving in Bangkok, I decided to spend the first two nights in a hostel in Silom, which is in the city. Conveniently, this was just a short stroll from my hostel (no I did not get one).

American Liane (who I met in Chiang Mai) was passing through Bangkok on the way home, so we met up for a drink on St Paddy’s Day. American Liane is an English teacher living in Thailand. She bestowed on me the following wisdom to get me through my time in Bangkok:

The sentence ‘My ow krap’ (no idea how it’s actually spelled).

This loosely translates to: ‘I don’t want this useless junk you’re shoving in my face. But thanks for coming to show me. Also, I’m a man.’

The awesomess of 7/11 in Thailand.

7/11 in Australia is just normal stuff overpriced. But 7/11 here is the shiz. Let's look at some reasons why.

* Firstly, if you buy a frozen meal, they can heat it up for you in store, give you a fork/spoon and you can eat it right there and then.

But wait there’s more.

* They have these hotdogs in a warmer just ready to put on a bun and boom.. you have a meal.

OK, still doesn’t sound that exciting.

* They have slushies. Sure they do in Australia too. But I'm pretty sure these slushies have illicit substances in them, because I totally lost the plot when I had one.

And most importantly of all.

* You can get alcohol instore.

Which leads to the concept that I would give Liane a nobel prize in awesomeness for (if such a nobel prize existed).. the 7/11 pub crawl. So beers in 7/11 are significantly cheaper then they are in bars, especially in Bangkok. And 7/11s are freakin everywhere here. And you're generally allowed to carry alcohol with you anywhere.

So...

What you can do is buy your beer from 7/11, take it into the nearest bar and drink it there. So you still hang out at bars all night, just on the cheap. Well this works in most bars anyway. We went into an Irish bar (seriously overpriced Irish bar) and a lady approached us and said we needed to either eat or buy an exorbitant drink from the bar (she did not use the word exorbitant, as it would be contradictary to her cause. Also her English was not that advanced. Also, I only learnt this word recently myself). We said we would look at a menu and decide. So we continued to drink merrily whilst occasionally glancing at the menu like we were actually going to eat there. After we had done sufficient drinking, we declared that we didn’t like the menu and left. For once it was the Westeners screwing over the Thai people.

Free Tuk-tuk?

After this night, I changed hostels to one closer to the temples, cos man do I freakin love temples. Through some freak conincidence, it also happened to be close to the drunken debauchery that is Khao San Rd.

As I arrived before check-in to the hostel, I had to kill a few hours, so I hopped into a tuk-tuk and asked the driver how much it would be to go to a few temples. He said only 40 baht (just over $1) and he would take me to three temples and wait for me outside each one. For Bangkok, this is way to cheap, so I knew I was in for a scam, but through a combination of boredom and curiosity I went with it.

Firstly, he took me to a Thai clothing factory and insisted that I go inside and have a look. I figured this was the scam that allowed him to offer me such a cheap fare, so I obliged, went inside for a minute, then walked out. He gave me a disgusted look and then drove me to the first and second temples. Before going to the third temple, I found myself in another Thai clothing factory, which I walked straight in and out of again. He looked even more disgusted now, as I made it clear that I had no intention of buying anything from anywhere. It did not in the slightest surprise me when he dropped me off at the third temple and just drove away.

After having a look at the third temple, I realised that I needed a new tuk-tuk to get me back to the hostel. One guy said he was offering a special promotion, only 10 baht ($0.30) to drive half and hour or so to get me back. I just started laughing and told him I wanted to go straight back with no stops. He said that would cost me 200 baht. Given I had time to kill, I said I would go to more stores, but I made it clear I would not buy anything. He said ‘no buy, just look’. He took me first to a jewellery store and I was hounded by all these Thai girls trying to make me buy jewellery. Noticing they didn’t have watches, I said I only wanted a watch and put on my best disappointed look when they said they didn’t have any.. and then walked out. The tuk-tuk driver told me I didn’t stay in the store long enough.

At this point I asked him to just explain what he needed me to do, so that he would get commission from the store. All he needed was for me to be in a store for 10 minutes and he would be given a coupon for 5 litres of gasoline. In Thailand, that’s worth about 200 baht. I said I would be happy to help him out by standing in another store for 10 minutes. So he took me to a Thai clothing factory (third one of the day). I walked in, pretended I wanted a suit. Looked through the catalog. Made idle chit chat. Tried on a suit. Made idle chit chat. Asked for a price and then, in another piece of acting brilliance, did my best shocked look and said it was too expensive and walked out. I could tell from the smile on my tuk-tuk driver’s face, that he had got his coupon, and he was all happy now. He took me home and didn’t charge me at all. So in total I did a good 2 hours in tuk-tuks for free!

That night, I contacted the Germans Marvin and Marcus I met from Koh Samui who were staying on Khao San Rd. We decided it was time for one last partying adventure. First of course, we had to drink some cheap and nasty Thai vodka (Gilbeys), play a few drinking games and then we were ready to hit Khao San Road. While we were drinking, we ran into American Keith (also met at Koh Samui), who also joined us. After some solid partying, we all got separated as usual and then all went home.

The temples are closed.. except the ones far away

The next day I headed to the most well known temples with Chinese Sonya. The main one we were looking for was Wat Po (temple of the reclining Buddha). We walked there around 1pm, only for a Thai guy to approach us to tell us that the temple was closed until 3pm, whilst pointing at a padlocked set of gates. He offered to take us to the far way temples that were open. I told him he was a liar. He insisted he wasn’t. After saying ‘Scam.. Liar’ to him enough times, he realised I wasn’t going to fall for his scam. I didn’t actually know where the main entrance was, and strangely he actually walked us to where you could see the main entrance. I didn’t know whether to hate or like this guy. He blatantly tried to screw me and then seconds later he’s going out of his way to help me.

Anyway, this is a what the reclining Buddha looks like:

That night, Sonya and I went to the State Tower, the building where they filmed parts of Hangover 2. It was free to go up, but they required a certain dress standard. Sonya was only wearing flip-flops, so she couldn’t go up. Through certainly no coincidence though, a lady had set up a shoe shop nearby, so Sonya was able to get a new pair of shoes, so we could go up to the top. There’s a bar on top, overlooking Bangkok. It’s quite nice, but a single drink here starts from around 450 baht ($15), so we didn’t drink anything. Here's a pic:

Never have dinner with the British

By my final night in Bangkok, I had accrued a solid sober streak, and was looking to continue this before heading to Koh Samet the next day. I met Brits Emma and Cheryl when they checked into my room and headed out to dinner with them, at a place near Khao San Road. I ordered a whole fish (red snapper).

Which was totally awesome way to present the dish. Not so sure about the rice though:

After dinner, we decided we would sample a local delicacy.. locust! I went first and proceeded to convince the girls that it actually tasted pretty good (which is somewhat true). Emma didn’t seem to mind it either, although Cheryl looked like she’d been given poison. Then we decided we should get one drink before going back to the hostel. Well, needless to say, that drink went down pretty good. An innocent looking Thai lady approached us with so not so innocent wrist bands:

I bought one (can’t actually remember which one now). Then another lady approached us with these sweet hats you could buy. Emma couldn’t resist:

And before long we found ourselves here:

No false advertising here.. they were very strong. At some point I kicked my toe, which didn’t hurt at the time, but would prove to be annoying in the future (yes I have the ability to see into the future). We all eventually made it back to the hostel, but none of us were too pleased about waking up early the next day to go our separate ways.

Now technically at this point I went to Koh Samet for a few days, but I’m too lazy to blog about it. Read any of my other blogs about islands in Thailand for a general idea of what happened.

After Koh Samet I was back in Bangkok again for a couple days. I had left my passport with the Vietnamese embassy while I was in Koh Samet and was happy to see that they still had it when I went back. I decided to do some shopping. For whatever reason, the three biggest shopping centres in Bangkok are right next to each other. It’s fair to say I’ve done absolutely no research to confirm they’re the three biggest, but they are all pretty big. I decided to go to MBK. Here is a picture of MBK (also possibly the only good picture I've ever taken with my camera):

MBK is a mixture of a few stores and tons of little indoor markets. My mission was to obtain a USB cable and a towel. There were no less than 50 electronics stores there (an entire floor) and yet it took me an enternity to find one with a USB cable. Also, I had to wander the whole of MBK to find a towel. I think the problem with Thailand is everyone competes with each other selling the same things. All 50 electronics stores had phone cases, but no one seemed to have a USB cable. Hell given how hard my towel was to find, you’d probably get rich if you opened up a towel store in Bangkok.

I was lucky enough that they had Muai Thai boxing happening outside MBK that night, so I went and watched it for a while:

Pretty entertaining I must say. I went back to the hostel and started researching how I was going to get to Cambodia the next day.

Summary

Awesome:

7/11

Partying on Khao San Road

Muai Thai

Craptacular:

Taxi drivers
Not a power walk friendly city

Everyone trying to screw you over

Too difficult to obtain a towel

Thailand Summary

So this is the end of my time in Thailand. I ended up doing 28 days in total here, which is far more than I expected. I really love Thailand overall.  Westerners have come here and made in a fun place, whilst still being cheap. It is certainly very touristy now and the major cities and beaches are all well developed now, which I consider a plus.

For the most part, Thai people are very nice to Westerners, although anyone who stands to make money from you will inevitably try and screw you.. especially the prostitutes (pun intended). Thai girls have the worst accent I have ever heard I will be quite ecstatic to not hear 'Maasssaaaaaggee?' again.

What's Next

Time to go where the beers are even cheaper.. Cambodia!

Thailand: Chiang Mai

So after much partying I decided to head to Chiang Mai for some culture. The first day I hired a scooter and drove to Doi Suthep (a buddhist temple). This is part of said temple:

I think the best part of the temple was the ride there. You have to work your way up a hill on a very windy road.. good fun!

Suicidal elephants

As there is so much to do in Chiang Mai and I’m lazy, I did an everything tour the next day. It included trekking, elephant riding, white water rafting, bamboo rafting etc. We starting with the elephant riding. I was pretty disappointed when they provided a guy to drive the elephant, and we just sat on the back. I think the Thai guy overheard me express my disappointment, so he offered to let me drive the elephant, and I happily accepted! I remembered when my friend Glenn told me that you just kick the back of their ear, and the elephant would turn the opposite way.. so I went with that. Only my elephant was seriously suicidal and kept slowly heading towards cliff faces. So I kept frantically kicking at its ear to let it know that I wasn’t interested in joining the exclusive list of elephant fatalities. Anyway, with a bit of encouragement the elephant successfully got me to my destination:

The white water rafting was pretty fun too, although I think either of my grandmas would be able to handle the ‘rapids’ that we were rafting down.

Now content that I had done enough cultural stuff, it was time to party. And I was told the place to be was Reggae Bar. Incidentally, Thailand has a lot of bars called Reggae Bar, and none of them ever play Reggae. Anyway, drink, drink, drink, drink, sleep. Description over.

Hmmm these blogs are getting shorter and shorter.  Possibly because this happened 3 weeks ago and I kinda barely remember what I was doing.

Summary

Awesome:

Elephant when not suicidal

Craptacular:

Elephant when suicidal

What's Next

Time to hit the big city... Bangkok!