Wait a Ho Chi Minh-ute

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

I thought Cambodia was going to kill us. The scamming, the food poisoning, the beggars, the moto mafias, the dengue fever, all started to overwhelm the good aspects of the country. So boarding the bus for Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, became one of the few times Gage and I were excited to take a long haul bus ride. Traveling from Phnom Penh to Saigon is an easy and popular journey, but it also served as another one of those examples of how weird and confusing it can be to travel in a country that doesn’t speak your language. For instance, Gage and I were a bit confused when our bus pulled up to the edge of the Mekong River. Confusion turned to panic as our bus rolled down the ramp and onto a ferry boat in order to cross the river. A little later the bus ticket boy made it clear to us that part of the border procedure involved him holding onto our passports. Not something any traveler wants to hear. Thirty minutes later we pulled up to a checkpoint and everyone was told to exit the bus…in the middle of the road. A Vietnamese soldier held our passports and read off names, which was our cue to get back on the bus. Of course, no one tells us what is happening, we just have to follow the pack. When we actually got to the passport processing center we had to stand with all of our bags in a large crowd of people, while straining our ears to hear a Vietnamese kid attempt to shout out English names. Nothing makes you feel more vulnerable than standing at the border between an overtly corrupt country and a strict socialist country and wondering who the heck has your passport. Not all travelers are religious, but we all have to have faith.

Kampot Evac

Kampot, Cambodia

Since the coast of Cambodia appeared to be more our style than the rest of the country, we decided to just keep sliding down the coast until our visa ran out. The next stop down the line was Kampot, a lovely little town on the banks of the Teuk Chhou River. Our minibus dropped us on the outskirts of town and I called our guesthouse owner Thary, a sweet Cambodian woman who spent the last several years with her husband in Belgium and Switzerland, before returning with him and their adorable son to run a guesthouse in her hometown. We tromped off to the local taxi stand where we were set to rendezvous with Thary. We fended off the regular shouted offers from moto drivers and tuk tuks as we walked. Getting closer to the taxi stand, cars started pulling over and shouting at us from their windows, “Phnom Penh?” “Sihanouk?” It slowly dawned on me that these regular looking cars were supposed to be the local taxis and they were assuming that the two white kids with packs on were looking for a ride. Just as three taxi drivers were literally running for us, Thary pulled up in her pickup truck like a knight in shining red steel, and drove us to her little oasis, the Hang Guesthouse. Hang is just a few meters off the map of Kampot, but years in Belgium have given the hoteliers a healthy respect for bicycles which they lend to guests for free, making everything in Kampot easy to reach. Being off the map just means that Hang guests can enjoy quiet seclusion.

Culture Shock :: Cambodia

Remember when I said that in Thailand everything was different? Well scratch that. I was wrong. We’ve now been to Cambodia. During our month here I’ve come up with many metaphors and stories that could help you understand what it’s like in this country, but in the end I don’t feel right using any of them, because the more I learn about Cambodia, the more I realize I’ll never understand it. Thailand is as familiar as Europe compared to the land of the Khmer people.

Below are some of the quirky things we’ve noticed. If you want to get a deeper knowledge of Cambodia, you’ll have to read some books and visit the country, because they’re still figuring it out themselves.

Seeing Sihanouk

Sihanouk Ville, Cambodia

Perhaps this is going to be a controversial statement, but if you only plan to spend a week in Cambodia, forget Siem Reap and head down to the coast in Sihanouk Ville. Yes, I know, I’m encouraging people to ignore a world heritage sight and one of the wonders of the world and that just doesn’t seem logical. There are plenty of people who will not be deterred by stories of hordes of tourists and endless scams and those people will flock to Siem Reap and have a lovely time. But if you want to be just a little bit different and see a part of Cambodia that plenty of people miss, head to the short but glorious coastline of Sihanouk Ville.

Phnom-enal Crisis

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

We showed up in Phnom Penh with little idea of what we were going to do in town. After doing all of the temple touring in Siem Reap, we were all toured out. We would have probably spent a lot of time lazing about in our room at the Grandview Guesthouse if it weren’t for the fact that it was more like a closet than a room. The place had only room for one big bed and a 3’x6′ walking space, so it induced more feelings of claustrophobia than comfort. I couldn’t even get a picture to capture the size of the place. Of course at $4 a night we hardly had room to complain (or move).

Ancient Angkor: Part 2

Siem Reap, Cambodia

First thing in the morning (aka 8am) we drove out to Banteay Kdei, a short, cleaned temple with a few different sections to wander through. Gage chafed at the various fallen stones that had been stacked back up and placed in the middle of a courtyard, making the ruins look more like a colorblind kid had attempted to stack some Legos. There was an awesomely gigantic tree in one courtyard that consumed one temple wall and dwarfed everything around it. The only other noticeable feature of Banteay Kdei were the various kids wandering about trying to sell postcards, scarves, table clothes, and drinks. Although we would soon find that that was at every temple.

Ancient Angkor: Part 1

Siem Reap, Cambodia

The fun started as soon as we pulled into the harbor. Gage and I looked up to the riverside and saw a horde of tuk-tuk drivers hauling in the direction of the dock. Before the boat was even tied off, drivers were jumping on board and quizzing people down about who needed a ride. Having made reservations we were unintimidated and safe. Or so we thought. Due to a slight miscommunication our hotel had failed to arrange a pickup at the docks. We looked for our name on a sign board but saw nothing. After a few minutes of pushing the drivers away and saying that we had arrangements for a ride with Mandalay Inn, a young driver magically appeared with a Mandalay business card saying he was there for us. Yeah right. Where is the sign with our name on it? Oh, he was late and decided to forgo the sign in order to get to us quicker. Being the scam-hardened travels we are, I plucked the business card from the boy’s hand and called Mandalay. No, that kid was not associated with him, but the manager of the hotel spoke with the kid and arranged for him to take us. When the kid got off the phone, he explained that he would take us to Mandalay…if we used him to take us around the temples. We told him we’d think about it. He said he didn’t believe us. The kid was surprisingly ashamed when we pointed out that he was the liar. A little more chatting with the manager and chastising from us and we were on our way. Welcome to Siem Reap, the heart of Cambodia.

Slow Boat to Siem Reap

Sangker River, Cambodia

Despite what you may think, we didn’t really have any desire to go to Siem Reap. We knew that the temples of Angkor were supposed to be one of the most amazing sites on earth, but whenever we thought of those temples the images always included hordes of tourists. After traveling for so long we have become strongly averse to hordes of tourists and generally try to avoid them. So when we decided that we wanted to go to Cambodia, our plan specifically excluded Siem Reap. Another reason that I didn’t want to go there is because I heard that the 4+ hour bus ride was full of bone-jarringly bad roads and that the only alternative route was by boat. A boat that safely holds 50 people and was routinely packed with 75. But one day we were chatting with our hotel owner in Battambang and he was saying that Cambodia and specifically the temples in Angkor were losing thousands of tourists a day due to the Bangkok airport being closed. He said that last week the boat to Siem Reap had only 25 people on it. When I expressed my apprehension about boats in Southeast Asia having a bad reputation when it came to floating, he laughed and said that the water was only about 5 ft deep and the most I would have to worry about would be water quality. And so we changed our plans.

Intro to Cambodia: Battambang

Battambang, Cambodia

So after all of the fun at the border, Gage and I were pretty excited to get to our hotel in Battambang. We had chosen to stay in Battambang because our guidebook had said that despite being Cambodia’s second largest city, it was really laid back. They were 100% correct. This place is more like a sleepy town than a second city. Once we were able to see past the ever-present dust clouds, we were greeted with two story buildings with faded pastel paint and quaint French balconies. Quite a change from the ramshackle buildings of Thailand.

Crossing Over: The Aranyaprathet-Poipet Border

Poipet, Cambodia

Corruption is everywhere. It’s in governments, organizations, businesses, and average people. I know this. Almost all of us know this. This never really stops any of us from being appalled and infuriated by it, though. It also didn’t stop Gage and me from attempting to cross the border from Thailand into Cambodia. For a person who was angry for three days after the woman at the local bakery blatantly overcharged her a dollar for a bag of cookies, this was just asking for trouble.