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!