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.

After our short but fast-lived stop in Mumbai, Sam and I took another overnight train. We headed south to the beaches of Goa to decompress. Goa is a small beach-side state filled with a variety of beaches from deserted and tranquil, to hippie haven, and of course party central. We met a few travelers in Rajasthan who suggested we visit Arambol in the north, and Palolem in the south. Since we were limited on time we decided to check out Arambol for a day or two, then take a bus to Hampi for a few days, and then return to visit Palolem in the south.

Arambol is a bizarre little town of chilled out locals, gracefully aging hippies, and a smattering of tourists. We took a scenic two hour bus ride on back roads to reach the town. Everyone seemed to be very happy with a quiet scene and a healthy choice of beach-side restaurants. People were friendly, but tended to stick to their social circles and stay unimpressed with the two day tourists. We managed to hear some mediocre live music, and find some excellent food in between diving into the ocean and watching the locals use surf nets to catch fish. This was my first time in the Indian Ocean, and it was bathwater warm. I wish it was a bit cooler, as to be refreshing, but once you were in it was hard to get out. Happy with our short time in Arambol we boarded a night bus from Mapusa to Hampi.

There was a magic bus to India from London, but don’t fall into the disillusioned thought that buses in India are happy times. India’s past-time of installing speed bumps and growing potholes has left a symphony of oscillations ready to make souls dance as they sleep. The compartments on the bus would have been spacious if made for one person, but they were actually for two people. Sam and I crammed into our assigned sleeper compartment on the upper level, and mentally prepared for our next transportation saga.

Throughout the next twelve hours, we managed to attempt many things. Our sleeper flat was in the very back of the bus, when sitting up there were only a few inches of clearance. The catapulting bus managed to foil card playing, reading, typing, and steady eye contact. It succeeded in consistent head banging, sleeplessness, and aerial awakenings in which our bodies would be completely air borne from the constant bumps as we were on the brink of sleep. We laid down most of the trip out of sheer comfort, and on average were thrust into the air at least once every ten minutes.

As dawn brought scenery into view, we were graced by a playground of giant boulders and rice fields, occasionally passing an ancient ruin or tractor filled with locals. Our bus drove right into the ancient bazaar and unceremoniously left us there before taking off. We took a small ferry across the river to our hotel with breathtaking views of the rice paddies, river, and ever-present giant boulders.

We had two full days to explore Hampi, and immediately decided to rent bicycles to pedal around the ruins. There was little wildlife, but some great views of the countryside. We spent the day riding around the ancient and royal centers, exploring temples, walking through giant crevices in the boulders to nondescript temples, and fording the river with the help of some locals. Around sunset we visited the main temple, and I splurged on buying a 20 Rs armful of bananas to feed the temple elephant. Apparently he had eaten too many bananas by the time I was done, and left, so we hiked up to the flat rock to watch the sunset with a small family langurs in the trees below us.

At first we though it was a coincidence there were a lot of Israelis on our bus to Hampi, but after biking around, wading by the river, and hanging out on the patio of our hotel soon realized this was a hotspot for Israelis. Unfortunately, many were silent, elusive of meaningful conversation with non-Hebrew speakers, and overall protectors of their svelt club. We did manage to hear about a nice reservoir around the us.

The reservoir was in the hills a couple villages away, so we made a tentative plan to day-hike to it, and walk along the boulder strewn shore back to our hotel afterward. Laden only with the bare necessities in a water-proof bag, we hiked for several hours before finding the reservoir. Upon arrival we were greeted with a large sign warning us of crocodiles in the reservoir. We could see a handful of foreigners swimming and jumping from the rocks, but decided to not be as carefree. We eventually found a couple of Danish guys near the drainage point for the reservoir, along with a few locals with inner tubes. The locals told us the sign was to keep the residents from drowning since many didn’t know how to swim, and it was perfectly safe to swim around.

After cooling off, we took up the locals offer to rent the inner tubes to go down the reservoir release and pick us up with the Danes motorbikes. We proceeded to unceremoniously jump in backwards with the tubes and float through a small canyon before floating at a more relaxed “lazy river” pace for 20 minutes. We all had a blast, and decided it was time to head back to civilization.

This sounds like a normal task, but in reality it involved 6 guys, 4 inner tubes, and 2 motorbikes. The two Indian guys drove the bikes while myself and a Dane sat on the back of the bike holding an inner tube each off the side of the bike. If we were going faster than a crawl I would be worried, but as it was we had to get off the bikes each time we encountered a small uphill section, and after many laughs, were delighted to get back to our hotel.

In reality we weren’t staying at the hotel, but picking up our bags and boarding another sleeper bus back to Goa. Unexcited and hesitant we loaded onto another sleeper bus, and although we were located in the middle of the bus, the compartment managed to be a bit smaller with walls on the aisle side this time. We slept head to toe, and by 4 am I had managed to keep my eyes shut and become completely exhausted. Wondering why the bus was stopped, we found out it had broken down. We both slept in the stillness until the sun came up and started to get unbearable, at which point we flagged down a local bus with a few other passengers and managed to get to Palolem in Goa.

Thankfully, the train we were supposed to catch to Kerala stopped in Palolem, so we stowed our bags at a trustworthy looking shop, and promptly went to the beach. The warm water was delightful, and we both sat at a beach side restaurant to recover. I was nursing a bruised right side of my head from the bus ride, and it was a spectacularly lazy day. Palolem is a more party oriented town, and we managed to collect quite a few flyers about parties and silent discos. The silent discos are an innovative response to noise violations from locals and trendy club scenes. The basic premise is everyone wears headphones and listens to whatever music they want, if you take them off, its quiet. We sadly missed out on this, but were ecstatic at making our sleeper train, and getting some real rest.