Thailand Fall

Matt and I at Bantay Srey

Thailand Fall, according to a Mr. Fish massage worker, is the English translation of Siem Reap. Apparently Cambodia and Thailand (or Siem) are always fighting and Cambodia crushed them in a fairly large battle way back when and named this city Siem Reap.

It is a small, dusty city. The main roads are paved, but side roads are dirt. It has the feeling of a Western boom town, built quickly to hold the influx of tourists. It is a city made up of hotels and restaurants (yep you guessed it, all competing for happy hours). Yet, the town has it's charm. It is full of activity no matter the time of day and into the night, especially on the famous "Pub Street." It even has a Korean street, where many of the shops are Korean and even Korean food.

Our hotel in Phenom Penh recommended a hotel in Siem Reap, so we arranged for a pickup to at least check out the hotel. The one room available the worst room we had seen the entire trip. The ceiling tiles were hanging by corners, dust in the corners of the rooms, the bed was stained with lord knows what, and the bathroom was a tiny, dark little four by five closet. No hot water, and it was right off of the common room where people were drinking, smoking, and playing video games and loud music. I believe the cost of the room was between $15 and $20 a night. Ridiculous for what we had been getting for $15 else where.  We moved on, finding that every hotel we inquired at was completely booked.

A tuk tuk driver by the name of Batman (he drove a Bat-mobile tuk tuk)  hailed us over and said he'd find us a room, even if we had to sleep in his house. So that nice man drove us all over Siem Reap trying to find us a hotel. He finally found a guest house used mainly by Cambodians and the people running it didn't speak any English. But the price was fair and the accommodations were passable, much cleaner than the other rooms we had seen. We only had to kill one tiny cockroach in the bathroom when we first arrived.

Our quest the first morning was to find a different hotel (closer to town because we kept getting lost at this hotel) and to get tours booked for the wats. As luck had it we were carted off to a hotel that was so clean, so airy, hot water, nice workers, a pool down the road, and slightly closer to town. We took it and suddenly we had our own tuk tuk driver to take us around Siem Reap and the wats.

Our first trip was called "the small circle" a circle that included Bayon, Angkor Thom, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei, and of course Angkor Wat. I don't remember much of that day as I was quite sick and the day just seemed to trudge on forever. Day two we did the sunrise at Angkor Wat (it really isn't all that specatular until the sun actually rises behind Angkor Wat). Then we went the 37 km north to Banteay Srey (beautiful trip and beautiful temple grounds), stopped at Banteay Smare, then back to the main park to visit a few of the other temples.

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

The temples were amazing. The size (Angkor Wat is about 1 km square) and detail of the temples as well as how the jungle takes over the temples so quickly. Even the amount of tourists amazes me. However, the tourists and the temples started to look the same after a while. I couldn't tell Shiva from Buddha and I didn't care any more. I am so happy I finally got to see the place that would have have it any other way! We got back to Siem Reap, showered, and got back on the tuk tuk to head to the airport.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a hard city to describe. It is a large city and people are constantly trying to get you to buy motorcycle taxis, rickshaws, tuk tuks or give them food, water, and money. Tourist wander the streets and it sounds like social hour at a UN meeting with all the varieties of languages being spoken. Bars line the streets all competing for happy hour and you can make your choice between Mexican, Turkish, American, French, and Indian foods. If you are brave, you can wander down a side street and try frog, cat, or dog (we only saw frogs and dogs). Still with this hustle and bustle, the city is eerily quiet at the same time. The fact that some thing tragic happened to these people not too long ago is very evident in the vibe of the city.

We had to look a bit to find a hotel at a reasonable price for what was being offered. And many of the clientele were those types where you cannot tell if they are suffering from heat stroke or have been indulging in the drugs that are sold all around you. Also, many of the hotels have signs at the entrance warning people of their policies on sex tourism and children prostitutes  (though apparently most of the molesters are native Cambodians). Tuk Tuks advertise that orphanages are not tourist spots. And I might add that like in Thailand and Vietnam, it is common to see a young twenty-something native woman with a white man in his sixties.

The city is not beautiful. The temples are beautiful with their statues and fine gardens, as well as the gold and jeweled buildings. But it becomes ugly along side the beggars standing in its courtyards or in the garbage piled up outside. Children swarm you and beg for money, food, and water. I remember one group of children sitting with their mother, as soon as they saw us the children swarmed us. Later that day we returned to the spot and their mother was talking on a fairly new cell phone.

We stayed only two full days, escaping by bus to Siem Reap. We didn't even make it to the killing fields, we decided we just didn't want to see them. The bus was another seven-hour journey, this time in an ancient bus with an ancient cooling system. As we sweated into giant puddles, we drove by mansions surrounded by mountains of garbage and streams lapping at the walls of garbage.

Goodbye Vietnam, Hello Cambodia!

We wound up flying from DaNang to Saigon. The flight was delayed an hour because of engine trouble (they were working on the engine just outside the gate so we had a perfect view of the mechanics' puzzled faces). We boarded the plane and had a very nice flight, until landing.  The plane was swaying side to side and when the plane touched ground the plane lurched to one side, then to the other and then to the other before straightening out and slowing down. That was a Boeing 777 by the way, gee thanks Boeing.

So we entered Saigon with a small scare and a great relief to be alive. We then took a taxi to the backpacking area. The taxi driver stopped the meter and tried to overcharge us and refused to stop the taxi. It wasn't until Matt opened the car door at a traffic light as I threatened to report the driver that the taxi driver agreed to negotiate. Then he was a perfect teddy bear.

We stayed in this small guest house on the fifth floor in an attic room. It wasn't bad, but the toilet was outside of the room and the spray hose moved every time someone used water in the house (really scary the first time it happened, thought for sure there was a rat), also the wall between the two rooms in the attic was separated by a short wall, allowing us to hear everything in the other room. That man liked to take showers all night and had a woman and a kid with him on and off all night. And our visit was put to an end with a cockroach running around the bathroom.

We got a bus the next day to Chau Doc, seven hours to the west of Saigon. The highlight of the trip was to watch our giant bus load onto a ferry. Once in Chau Doc we took motorcycles into the main part of the city (three km from the bus station) and got a nice hotel close to the docks. Unfortunately, close to the docks also means rats meandering in and out of the hotel lobby (needless to say, we passed on breakfast that morning). Because of the late hour and it being Lunar New Year's Eve (Tet), we had to eat street food. It was quite tasty, we ate pork fried rice and drank nuoc mia (a drink where sugar cane, lime, and pineapple are squeezed together) while watching the fireworks rise over the pagoda.

We boarded the speed boat at seven in the morning and we were on the Mekong River by seven thirty. The boat ride was more relaxing than a bus would have been. We sat outside, so we got lots of fresh air. It was a great way to see the delta. Houses were dotted along the river, sitting on stilts. In some areas an entire floating village could be seen. We arrived at the Cambodian border around ten in the morning and got our visas. The houses in Cambodia looked very much the same, but the poverty was immediately evident. By 1:30 we were in Phnom Penh.