The Road to Siam Reap May 11, 2006
Posted by Martin in : Overseas Travel , trackbackI woke about 4:00 today after getting to bed only a couple of hours earlier. Tik, rather sensibly had a few hours more rest than me although neither of us had made much progress packing before the alarm woke us up.
We travelled light, with only a 5 litre backpack between us. This trip was Tik’s first experience as a backpacker and she wanted to get used to the idea before we head round Europe later this year. I always love to think of myself as a confident backpacker yet this time my sleep deprivation cost me the mental acument to pack any t-shirts.
There are a number of Casino buses which run from U Chu Liang Building (on Rama IV, opposite Lumpini park) which ferry passengers from Bangkok centre to the archaic casinos in no-mans-land between Thailand and Cambodia. The cost is merely 100 baht per person however it is necessary to buy a return ticket for 200.
The coach was comfortable although the staff had the misguided assumption that at 5am all of us would delight in having Thai TV piped through the bus as loud as possible. It made catching up on sleep a little tough but we managed it and arrived at Aranyapratet about 8:30.
I quite sincerely refere to Aranyapratet as the worst place on earth. This dusty border town has traditionaly been full of pickpockets, beggars, land-mine victims, child prostitutes and a quite obvious trade in children (live and dead!). The thought of making visa runs here always made my skin crawl and it’d feel itchy for days after visiting there with the psychological feel of having my skin polluted by this place.
Six month after my last visa run here it seems that Aranyapratet has had a huge cleanup. For the 90 minutes or so we were here we were left in relative peace. We saw no beggars, no children, no land-mine victims and actually met some genuinely helpful staff who worked at the visa services.
Neither myself nor Tik had pre-purchased a Cambodian visa in Bangkok. Visas are issuable on arrival and were straightforward for me as a westerner. Tik however had to endure a 45 minute queue for Thais because the Thai government are not so happy about all their citizens fleeing the country to gamble their hard-earnt money away. It seems like they try to make their departure from Thailand as arduous as possible. Tik tells me she overheard a Thai man remembering a 5-hour wait to leave Thailand once! It hardly seems worth the hassle to me but there were A LOT of Thais keen to get to the casinos today.
The offices and checkpoints have been reshuffled around, now some are mercifully shaded from the sun. The only touts we saw were offering VIP visa services to avoid the queues for 1,300 baht instead of the normal 1,000 baht. My defense comes up immediately when I am hassled for assistance as soon as I arrive so we didn’t use these people however they did usher us to the bus terminal to help us travel onward to Siam Reap.
Although I’ve done over a dozen Visa-runs via Aranyapratet, this was the first time I’d crossed fully through the border into Poi Pet, Cambodia. The town itself was again suprisingly quiet and although the immense amount of dust covered much of the effort the town had made to look nice, one could really see that they’d tried. PoiPet is a poor casino town supposedly full of cheap brothels and illegal activity but in the short minibus journey to the coach station we saw nothing which showed this.
The busses were not nearly as modern as in Thailand. In some ways we were lucky to find that there was a 4-hour wait for the next one so we chose to wait around to see if we could share a taxi ride between any other travelers. Speaking with the bus station staff reminded me just how strong many Cambodians are with their English language. It is not uncommon to hear a low-paid flunkey speak with a fluent American accent and use vocabulary many a native would envy.
Here we met a couple from the Netherlands called Ingrid and Nordin. They had been traveling together for about 5 months already and have about one more month around Asia before returning home. Both were about our age and it was lucky that we had such good company for the long journey to keep our mind from the terrible conditions of the road. Between the four of us the taxi cost us $50 and was comfortable and air-conditioned.
We filled up for gas (literally the gasy thing, not petrol) around the corner from the station. Rather than find a national chain service- station we parked the car in front of what looked like a person’s house. There were gas canisters strewn around the front and an attendent helped fill the car. It seems that anybody with the money to purchase gas canisters can open up as a service-station here although I’m not so sure how happy I’d feel to have my neighbour fill his yard with explosive liquid.
We continued on to Siam Reap (prononced as Ree-ap, rather than Reep) on the dustiest, bumpiest road known to man. Whoever had the audacity to label the route as a road was being overly-generous with his definitions. Ingrid explained that the infrastructure of the road was controlled heavily by the airlines and therefore it was well in their interest not to maintain it and to make traveling by any means other than by plane as uncomfortable as possible.
We passed a lot of open space and dusty brown fields. I commented that there’d probably be very little stopping somebody pulling over and building a house here without anybody noticing. the state of many constructions madde me wonder if that’s exactly what people did. Most likely the main deterrent would be the risk of still finding a land-mine in your garden.
We saw a disproportionate number of primary schools, although possibly we noticed them as their signs were in English. Many houses erected large placards at the front of their house announcing their political affiliations which gave me the mis-guided impression that there were many party headquarters per town.
I was facinated to see - what I’ll refer to as ‘Pig Men’. Basically live pigs were slung across the back of a motorbike sideways on to transport them presumably to the slaughterhouse. The pigs trotters stuck outwards into the road and the pig (or pigs) were laid on their backs. Sometimes we’d be passed by a pig man with one large pig on the back, other times three or more smaller pigs were carried.
We arrived in Siam Reap about 2:30 with plenty of time to relax.
Tik was keen to stay at a well-known guesthouse and restaurant called ‘Dead Fish Tower Inn’. It is run by a Thai owner and is so named because the place houses about ten live crocodiles which are served dead fish. Dead Fish is conveniently located in walking distance of Siam Reap’s old market, ‘pub street’ and all the amenities a tourist really needs. Dead Fish hosts live music and Cambodia dancing in the evening and their tiered wooden framework covering three floors makes the place a perfect set for a Jackie Chan fight scene.
Despite the friendly first impression we decided not to stay here today. The rooms were a little small and one in particular had no window. Quite enthusuastically however the owner offered to put a window in place for us which we assumed was harmless banter. It was only afterwards as we relaxed in their restaurant that we noticed a handyman with a sledgehammer eyeing up the wall and making plans for this inpromptu DIY job.
Instead we booked in to the neighbouring guesthouse called River Star Guesthouse. The rooms were a little nicer, we had a balcony overlooking the street, a bath and air-conditioning for $15 per night. This was also Ingrid and Nordin’s preferred guesthouse too.
Although we were tired we agreed to join with Ingrid and Nordin at the Dead Fish restaurant for lunch. I had eel steak which I enjoyed and Tik had a typical Cambodia dish called ‘Amok’. I’d best describe Amok as a seafood egg-custard. It was nice but a bit too gluenous to really convince me that this was a legitimate meal.
The owner of Dead Fish was extemely friendly and helpful, considering that we’d all shunned his accomodation for its neighbouring competitor he was delighted to spend time with us and to help us arrange a driver and tour guide for the next day. The four of us chose to organize a trip together to pool our costs. We relaxed at the restaurant until the driver arrived so that we could negotiate our needs.
For a total of $60 we organized that the driver collect us from the guesthouse at 5am with an English-speaking tour guide and stay with us until sunset. The tour guide charged $20, the mini-van $25, we had a $5 surcharge to pay for the early morning and an additional $10 for the 37 km detour (each way) to take us to a temple some distance from the others.
We returned to River Star shortly after for a much needed sleep.
About 8:30 we reluctantly crawled out of bed in search of dinner. We were located in Sivatha Boulevard which stretches though the length of the city and hosts many bars restaurants and tourist rewuirements. About 100 metres from our guesthouse we found an excellent French restaurant called “Carnets of Asia’. The roadfront hosted a small gallery of artifacts and powerful black-and-white photos from the days of the Kymer Rouge. Behind that we found the restauarant. The place was open air and hosted a rectangular pond running along its centre. It was lined with plants and trees and I was suprised yet delighted at the high standard the place despite it being located in one of the worlds poorest countries.
With so much to choose from the menu I ordered an excellent goats cheese and walnut salad, gazpacho and a perfectly coked steak. Tik ordered a tasty pineapple curry. Including drinks and serve the meal came to just over $25, not cheap by backpackers standards but excellent value for the quality for the food and the relaxing atmosphere we could enjoy it in.
Cambodian currency, the riel is practically valueless. 1,000 rial is worth merely 10 baht. In most tourist destinations Thai baht and US dollars are accepted currency. Cambodia now hosts ATM machines (although it looks like they are only available during a banks office hours) and the higher priced restaurants and hotels do accept Visa card.
We took a short walk around the area after the meal only to get accosted by children. I am always amazed by just how skilful these children are at eliciting money. We rarely encountered beggars here but the children were used to sell postcards which I consider merely a semantic difference. These children patrol the street in groups of between three and seven members. They begin by making smalltalk such as ‘where you from’, ‘whats your name’ etc. and they then move onto their pitches.
Anybody interested in sales simply must study these children. They are the most awesome sales people on earth with an answer for everything. Most often they begin by trying to elicit a friendly conversation which either establishes rapport or makes it quite difficult to break away from once you’ve exchanged pleasantries with them.
It is then that the children try to sell their postcards. No matter what you answer these children have a stock phrase to hit you back with.
- Where are you from?
- MOZAMBIQUE
- No you’re not, I know where you’re from, you’re from your mummy and daddy
- I DONT WANT A POSTCARD, I DONT HAVE ANY FRIENDS TO SEND THEM TO
- No problem, you can send a postcard to me
- I DON’T WANT TO CARRY THEM AROUND
- no problem, when we see you later will you buy some then? (and yes, they DO remember you!)
Much of the time the children are cute and smiling, most seem to be between seven and fourteen years old and they will rarely take no for an answer. It is a mistake to engage these kids in banter because it is nearly impossible to get rid of them. We tried walking near to other tourists in the hope that some kids would offload to them but they usually bounced back.
The old market closes at sunset but ‘Pub street’ was open and lively. Pub street, as the name suggests is a street full of evening attractions for tourists. The bars are clean, quite pricy and hassle-free. It is more upmarket than Khao Sarn road in Bangkok and there are no bar-girls or freelancers lurking anywhere nearby. We didn’t stop for drinks there as we were tired.
We took a detour back to the guesthouse to avoid meeting with the children again and stopped to buy a cheap t-shirt at dead fish before getting to sleep just after midnight.
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