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.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Brad and I were duped by some shoe polishers pretending to drop their brushes in hopes of shining your shoes for a price. After thinking it might be a ploy, Brad and I watched the plot unfold several times before confirming it was indeed a scam. They were pretty happy people about the whole ordeal, so we decided we would play a trick on them.

We decided next time this happened we would pick up the brush and run the opposite way until we reached the next corner. About a day later, not expecting it, and completely unready a shoe brush was dropped at our feet. I shockingly picked it up, tagging Brad on the shoulder as I ran by him. He quickly caught on and we ran around a corner. As we peeked around the corner we watched a portly man in his mid thrities drop his polishing tools and sprint after us. We waved the brush around the corner and started laughing. He knew he had been had, and played along well. His friend across the street was bent in half laughing at him, and ashamed he returned to his stuff after giving us some high five. We realized we would have to repeat this, and get it on film.

Since, the weather was not the best for shining shoes the following days, our vigilance proved unfruitful as most people didnt want their shoes shined in the rain.

After a slow breakfast, and attempt at fixing Venecia’s camera, we decided that since a lot of places would be closed and the weather was miraculously nice it was the perfect set-up for shoe polishers to be out and about. We had been scouting our street from before for sometime as it clearly was a prime target area, not directly by tourist attractions, but between several, and only a block or two from some hotels.

We walked by, camera ready, pretending to not pay attention to their ploys as oblivious as possible. The first pass was useless as the timing was all wrong. Feigning lost, we turned around, and he took the bait. He dropped the brush, we pulled the camera out and ran the other way. Ironically, this was an area Brad and I thought would be perfect as their was a small corner to hide around. We all ran there laughing hysterically, waiting for him to chase us down. One minute, two minutes. We realized he got him too good. He had no idea where we were.

Brad and I had wanted to make two videos, one stealing it, and then later quietly taking it, pretending we had no idea he dropped the brush, and when he approached us pretend to shine his shoes and use his ploys on him. Since, he didnt run after us, we returned to him. Again, camera ready, and Brad instead of giving the shoe brush back right away, starts shining his shoes, telling him about his bad knee, and sick sister at home. Asking for money. Our guy was laughing, and shamefully was a good sport about the whole deal. His friends refused to take a picture with him, but were almost crying from laughing so much.

It was the best birthday present I could’ve received, and a great way to spend my last few hours in Istanbul before heading off. I’ll let you know when I post the videos.

Until then here are some pictures: