Dave the Nomad

I took another overnight bus back to Bangkok, and hung out with a Thai friend I met in Madrid while waiting for my Chinese visa. Wasinee had to work during the days, but we caught up over a couple nights of dinner and wandering the streets. Getting my Chinese visa was virtually painless compared to my Indian visa adventures in Turkey. I simply handed my passport over without filling in a form, and picked it up two days later, and $200 poorer.

Ready for my trip, I boarded a bus for Siem Reap, which is the major town outside Angkor Wat. The plan is to get the Cambodian visa at the border, and take a mini-bus the rest of the way. After a brief stop for lunch where our guide tried to have us pay almost three times as much for our visa through his agency, we were back on the bus to the border town of Poipet. We arrived in a nice strip of shops and well kept roads, and started walking to the border. On the other side was a plume of dust rising from the road, and suddenly the people were not smiling anymore.

While walking to the customs office our guide offered to take care of our visas for only 1000 baht (it was 1400 baht at lunch), but the visa only costs 650 baht. I was happy to wait an hour in line to save the money and pressed onward. Our guide walked in before us, jabbered to the immigration officials, and sat us down to fill out papers. When it came time to pay, the officials wanted 1100 baht. I knew something was fishy, so I nonchalantly asked for a receipt with my passport. No one was willing to sign off on it. No one wanted to admit how much the visa cost.

Perturbed, I stood in line, got my visa stamped, and politely asked how much the visa cost. They said it was 650 baht. I asked if they could tell me why I paid the guy 40 feet away 1100 baht, and why he couldn’t just give me a receipt. They said it was for “fast process, no wait.” I was fine with that if someone could own up to signing a piece of paper. I walked out, looked at the guy in charge, who couldn’t hold eye contact, and told him to have a beer on me, and put his children in a good school.

Our guide agreed to get a taxi for myself and a nice Irish couple I had met so we wouldn’t have to take the 6 hr long non AC mini bus. Before we could do that we were put on a bus to listen to some guy talk about Cambodia, hyper-sweat for 10 minutes, and walked back off the bus which only went about 100 meters, and were ushered to the back of the taxi building to get a taxi. We asked why we were out back, and he said, “special priority, you skip all others.”

Our taxi driver took off, flying down the dust blown roads, honking so frequently, I wondered if he hadn’t just attached it to a CAM shaft on the engine. I was back in India.

In India, you could do anything for a price. The scam artists are God, and sometimes you have no other option. Trash was splayed like spring flowers, cows aimlessly roamed the streets, and our driver was driving on the left side of the road (you drive on the right side in Cambodia) as if we were fleeing for our lives. Unsurprisingly, we arrive in Siem Reap in record time, and were left at a tuk-tuk stand to go to our hotel.

My plan was to meet up with my friend from CWRU, Pat, and his fiancee, Mary, at a guest house, so I had a place to go. The tuk-tuk/rickshaw driver hates this. They always want to bring you to their buddy’s place. Wryly he asked which guest house as their were two of them very close. I said the cheaper, but I would just check at reception. We passed the ‘Popular Guest House,’ and turned into another place. I looked behind at the sign; a ploy. This wasn’t ‘Popular Guest House II,’ but another hotel. I told them to take me to the guest house, and that was final. Unhappily, he took us there, and we immediately ran into Pat and Mary.

The poverty level back up, the scam and buddy networks thriving, I am finding it hard not to compare this country to India. The stretch of road we had just traveled is infamous for scams, and I felt glad to make it out relatively unscathed. It is not all bad however, I missed the small children business selling you trinkets and pouting. I enjoy bartering with them, or tricking one of them into telling me their break-even point.. The difference here is they get upset when you buy from someone else, and they whine at you, “Why you no buy from me, I talk you first,” and every business advance is done in the most pathetically high pitched voice possible. I’ll go into more detail of the ruins, but when you arrive at one of the temples, the sound is very similar to the noon time tornado warning horn at home. A cacophony of women starting their attention getting, “helllllloooo, driiiinnnk, collllldddd drinnnkkk,” as they flap their menus in the air at you, and scoot their children off the hammock to sell you postcards.

Same, same, but different.