::Still in progress. Pictures coming soon!::
From Singapore, we flew into Siem Reap. I was desperately trying to sleep on the plane, but a bunch of college girls sitting near me would not shut up. I was finally able to drift off to sleep for the second half of the flight with the help of Enya in my iPod.
We followed the other passengers through customs, where we had to apply for a visa on arrival. We filled out the application and waited in line. It was $20 USD, and when I didn’t have any US dollars on me, they seemed shocked. They said, “What do you have?” and I said, “Thai baht, Singapore dollars, Malaysian ringgit, Taiwanese dollars, and Japanese yen.” They said, “Which do you want to use?” I said, “Which is your favorite?” and they said Thai baht, so that’s how I paid. I waited in line, and saw my passport being passed down a line of men behind a desk, each one examining papers and stamping and writing things where appropriate. At the end of the line, my name was called, and I got my passport back with a full page Cambodian visa.
Our next stop was currency exchange. I had read that it is better to use USD in Cambodia. Their own currency isn’t worth so much, so they prefer tourists to not use it. However, we asked the guy at the exchange desk if we should get USD, just to make sure, and he said Cambodian riel was okay. We shouldn’t have listened to him, but we did, and got 10s of 1,000s of riel (I think it was about 4,000 riel for $1USD).
We went outside the airport to find a taxi to take us to our hostel. We found one for $7, and put our bags in the trunk and headed to the hostel. The guy was extremely talkative, and kept telling us random stories about everything. He kept asking James all the questions, so I kind of assumed he didn’t want to talk to me. I was fine with that, because I was exhausted and did not want to pretend to be interested in small talk.
We had some trouble finding the hostel. It wasn’t extremely well marked from the street, and when we called the number we had, no one was picking up the phone. We drove up and down the street looking for it, and the taxi driver kept trying to convince us to go somewhere else. He kept calling the number with his cell and every time it didn’t pick up he kept saying “If you don’t believe me, you try!” and I got really sick of him telling me I didn’t believe him and I was starting NOT to believe him. We said we wanted to go to a net café and try to check the website again and email the owner again to get some better directions. The guy said he wanted another $7, and I didn’t want to because I knew that was a lot of money, but before I could say anything, James agreed to it. I didn’t argue 1) because I was exhausted and didn’t care anymore 2) I was worried the guy would drive away and leave us there and I had no idea where we were and I was exhausted 3) even though I knew we were getting ripped off, it was $7 and I was exhausted and just didn’t care. The guy proceeded to magically pull a lap top out of his trunk that he had portable internet for. I guess when he said he would drive us to a net café, he forgot he had one in his car. We checked the site again, and sent an email. While waiting, we decided to drive back to one place that looked promising before and as we drove past, the gates that had been closed before were now open. We walked in, and found out that the owner didn’t know that we were coming and there had been a mix up on the Hostelworld website. The taxi driver looked around and said “You’re staying HERE? I can take you some place better” but the place we were at was run by an English guy named John and we were happy to be in a place with somebody that wouldn’t rip us off, and to get rid of the shady taxi guy, who had only known us 30 minutes and had already ripped us off and was trying to rip us off again by offering his services to take us around the next day.
The place we were staying had a pool, and during the day John charged a $2 entry for people to hang out at the pool and drink at the bar. Most of the people were expats, and really nice to talk to. When we first got there, no one had arrived yet, as it was still pretty early in the morning. John offered us some tea and we sat at the bar and drank it while we talked to him about a whole bunch of stuff. He was a really chatty guy, but not in the annoying I-just-want-your-money way like the other guy. He had been in Cambodia awhile, and had been having trouble finding business partners for his hostel, which was in the process of being renovated. He said he had tried to hire Cambodian men in the past, but they usually ended up disappearing after awhile. The only people left on his staff were 2 really nice ladies, one of whom spoke English pretty well and was sort of the bar tender during the day when everyone came to the pool. It turns out he had been sort of accidentally married to another Khmer woman from a nearby village. She came to the hostel the following day, and she was really nice.
After talking for awhile, we were exhausted and decided to take a nap before going into town. There was no hot water, but there was no air conditioning either, and it turns out taking a freezing cold shower makes going outside in the mid-afternoon Cambodian heat bearable.
We got some advice from John before we went into town. We learned to only pay $1 for a tuk-tuk into town, and only pay about a quarter of what people originally ask you when you’re bartering. Also, expect to be ripped off constantly.
John helped us get a ride from the hostel. We rode in a tuk-tuk, which is a guy on a motorbike that pulls a covered trailer with two benches for passengers. It was my first time in a tuk-tuk, and I think I liked it. We were in town for no more than 10 seconds before people started to offer us stuff. No, we do not want another tuk-tuk, we just got here. No, seriously, we just want to walk. No, we do not want to stick our feet in a bit tank of fish so they can nibble away the dead skin. No, no Dr. Fish. No fish massage. No regular massage, either. No, we don’t want to buy whatever miscellaneous article of clothing you are selling. No. No. No. No. No.
We did want some water, though, so we went into a nearby food store and bought some water for the night, and some other snacks and more water for breakfast and the next day, when we would be going to Angkor Wat.
We found a street with a bunch of restaurants. There are actually a lot of streets with restaurants, but we found a specific one called Pub Street that is popular with expats and tourists. John had told us that not too long ago, there were very few nice bars and restaurants, but Cambodia has recently become quite popular, and now there are many places to choose from.
We walked up and down Pub Street trying to decide where to eat. We decided to be silly tourists again and eat at the Red Piano, a restaurant/bar famous because Angelina Jolie had a drink there while she was filming tomb raider. We sat on the 2nd floor and could see the whole street from where we were. We watched a huge group of Japanese tourists yell “sugoii!” and point and take pictures as they walked by. As we finished dinner, we discovered that I had left the majority of my money in the hostel and didn’t have enough for dinner, so I ordered something random while James ran back to the hostel to get money, and change some of our riel into dollars.
After dinner, we did a little more shopping for our trip to Angkor Wat the next day. I bought a cute floppy sun hat, and on impulse bought a dress. James bought a silly hat as well. We decided to head back a little earlier, because we had hired a tuk-tuk guy to pick us up at 4am and take us to Angkor Wat the next day. We got back to the hostel, and John was cleaning up in the bar area with the disco lights on, so we decided to talk to him for a little bit. He left after a bit to go to sleep because he was waking up at 4 am as well, only he was waking up to watch a soccer game.
Fast forward to 4am. The water decided to not work so we had to brush our teeth and wash our faces with the bottled water we had bought for the day. Probably for the best.
The driver had clearly slept in the backseat of his vehicle, because we had to wake him up when we came out of the gates. It was actually kind of chilly out without the sun, and I had dressed for the heat of the day, but brought my sarong with me to use as a light blanket. I needed it on the tuk-tuk ride, which was FREEZING. Even James, the Canadian, was getting chilly. It took a little while to get to the entrance to the park. We had to wait until it officially opened (around 5am or so) to pay our entrance fees and get our passes, but we didn’t have to wait too long. After we got our passes, we went in and our driver dropped us off in a parking area. We had no idea where to go, but he pointed us in a general direction and made sure we recognized his hat so we could find him again when we were ready.
We followed a small group of people off into the dark. We hadn’t thought to bring flashlights, which would have been smart, because it was pitch dark. There were no lights anywhere, but we could see all kinds of stars, which were very beautiful. The road was paved in stones, which were very uneven, and James used the light from his camera to keep us from falling on our faces. We walked through some kind of building. At the time it was basically a big shadow with really high ceilings. Walking through it felt like being in the middle of some horror/adventure movie. After walking for a little while, we came to the edge of a small body of water. I couldn’t see at the time, but I knew from seeing pictures that Angkor Wat, the most famous temple in the park, was probably opposite us, and that was where we were going to see the sunrise. We had gotten there quite early, and were able to get a decent spot right on the water with no one standing in front of us. A couple guys who came later tried to set up tripods right in front of us, but some other guy who had gotten there earlier and set up his tripod yelled at them and kept the area in front of us clear. Thank you to that guy, wherever you are.
So we waited. And waited. And waited and waited. And at least three different guys tried to sell us coffee. Eventually the sky started to lighten and we could see the silhouette of the temple and I took about a billion pictures as the sky became brighter and brighter and we were gradually able to see the temple and the surroundings. It was amazingly beautiful, and certainly worth waking up so early and waiting forever in the cold. We were lucky that the weather was so beautiful that day, and there were just enough clouds in the sky.
Gradually, people began to wander off in other directions, and after taking a few more pictures as the sun itself came up over the temple, we followed. We wanted to go into the temple, but I wanted to find a bathroom first. The journey to the restroom was a slightly epic one. There were multiple signs reading, “Bathroom this way à” or “Bathroom not this way” or “This is not a toilet”. The last one was my favorite, because it was written in both English and Korean on the side of a dirty, rundown shed. That they had to explicitly say that such a place is not a bathroom is a clue to what the actual one looked like. I had to pay to use the horrendous facilities, which were very similar to the hole in the floor ones from Thailand, only these had broken down doors that didn’t close all the way, and a back window that overlooked a bunch of monks hanging out in the woods.
After that mini adventure, I was ready to enter Angkor Wat.
::pictures::
After looking around for awhile, we found our guy in the checkered hat and went to the next temple. It was not one of the more famous ones, but it was my favorite because of all the levels and all the faces carved into the sides that made it look like it came straight out of the old Nickelodeon network show “Legends of the Hidden Temple.” It was also where both James’ and my cameras started to die because we had already taken an ungodly amount of pictures that day.
::pictures::
The next place on our list was another famous place, where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed. The majority of the temple is in ruins, and there are these huge trees with roots twice as tall and as big around as a full grown adult.
::pictures::
We went to a few lesser known places, which were equally as beautiful and not as crowded. They were also equally full of people trying to sell us stuff. By that time, we were starting to get a little templed-out, and it was around noon so we had already had an 8-hour day and we were getting kind of tired. We both decided we were happy with the amount of stuff we had seen and we went back to the hostel. We paid our awesome tuk-tuk guy, who it turns out is in school studying tourism and hospitality, said hello to John, and had every intention of going into town to get lunch, but only made it as far as “laying down for a couple minutes.” Several hours later, I woke up from my nap and wandered out to the pool to find James and he and I sat around for a little bit, talking to some of the people who live in the area.
It was dinner time by the time we finally made it out, and we went to Pub Street again, and had dinner. It was our last night in Siem Reap, so we wandered around to some of the shops in a slightly nicer part of town. We found a bar called Picasso that had a special on sangria, so we sat there for a little while. While we were there, the water stopped working in the restaurant just like it did at the hostel, so that seems to be a common problem in that area. After a little more shopping and a little more bar hopping, we went back. It was the first time we had trouble finding someone to take us back for $1. I kind of felt dumb arguing for only a dollar, but the drivers kept telling us it was so far and the roads were so bad and blah blah blah, but we had no trouble finding someone to agree before so I thought it was silly that no one would do it this time. One guy even tried to rip me off. I told him I only had riel on me (I was trying to get rid of what I had left) and he said okay, “$8000 riel is $1, I’ll take you.” I told him I just exchanged money yesterday, so I know what the rates are, and he just said, “oh”. We eventually got someone to agree, and we got our $1 tuk-tuk.
The next morning was our trip across the Thai border. We had to catch a bus around 7 am, which proved difficult due to a combination of not sleeping very much for several days, and staying up late the night before and having a bit too much sangria. We took a tuk-tuk from the hostel and he dropped us off behind the bus, which left just as we started walking toward it. Our driver took us to the next stop, and we caught it there. Luckily, the bus wasn’t full, so James and I each had a row of seats to ourselves and slept for the entire 4-hour ride to the border.
Crossing the border consisted of a lot of waiting in lines and following people from our bus into buildings and filling out things they told us to fill out and waiting in more lines and getting stamps and waiting in more lines and being sleepy.
After everyone from our group had gone through, some Thai guy from the bus company led us to the parking area where we would catch our next bus, and by bus it turns out they meant van, which of course needs to be filled to capacity. James and I got lucky and were in seats toward the front with leg room, and spent most of that 4-hour bus ride to Bangkok sleeping.
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