Scambodia

I’ll start with the journey to Cambodia just so you can appreciate how the trip started badly and got worse. We were driven by minibus to the thai side of the border where we stopped at a restaurant where there were lots of other travellers also going to Cambodia. A man came round and handed out visa forms so we were thinking this is all well organised so we’re prepared when we get to the border. Then they explained that they would get our visas for us and it would cost $30, Ben asked why we had to pay that when it said in "the book" that the visa was $20, the guy laughed and said that was out of date and it only costs that if you get it in Bangkok blah blah blah then we heard another couple saying they didn’t want to pay it and would get their visas at the border – the man said this was fine but it would hold everyone else up and therefore they would have to pay an extra 1000 baht for their transport costs!!!!

So we paid – we didn’t really have any choice and the man said that they were only adding 100 baht to the price we would pay at the border just to make things quicker. It was all very irritating but the restaurant had moo glob so the food placated me at this stage.

Then we got to the border where it was clearly advertised that visas on arrival cost $20 – but of course by then we had been handed over to a different company (the Cambodian side of the operation) so there was nothing we could do. The Cambodian border crossing at Poipet is without compare the worst border crossing I have ever experienced. You leave Thailand then in the blistering heat have to wander across about a mile of no mans land – full of casinos and people and chaos – then you have to deal with entering Cambodia by queueing in a crappy little hut with no fans and then when you get to the front of the queue they close it so you have to join the back of another one!

Anyway we still managed to make it through about an hour before anyone else and three hours before our transport to Siam Reap arrived – this just proved to make me more angry about them saying we would have to pay more for transport costs if we held people up getting a visa at the border!!!! During our 3 hour wait there were lots of Cambodian guys around from the tour company we had been handed over too – they advised us to change our money to Cambodian Riel as dollars and baht aren’t really accepted any more, thankfully we only changed a little bit as that was complete bullshit and dollars and baht are accepted everywhere, also we found in many places we got a worse rate by paying in Riel!

The Cambodian guys also took this time to constantly see if anyone was fed up of waiting for the "bus" and wanted to get a taxi for $60 – I asked one of the guys if the bus was coming and he laughed and said it had broken down but it was being fixed they just didn’t know how long it would be. When they had waited long enough and managed to con enough people into paying crazy prices for a taxi they announced the bus was not coming and we would have to go in the back of a pick up – this helped to get a few more people to pay for taxis but a small group of 15 of us stood our ground and refused to pay extra. I was fuming by this point as it was soooooo obvious there was never any bus and they’d just kept us waiting to try and get people in taxis – I made a small scene suggesting they should give us money back as they had failed to provide a bus and their answer to it was to put me in the front seat of the truck which was apparently the best seat in the house, doors were slammed in faces and we left!

As it turns out I should have made even more of a stand and sat in the back with everyone else because even though I had a seat I also had a perfect view of the road – which im not sure has in any way improved in the last 3 years I just think they’ve realised their cars wont fall apart if they drive along it faster. So I had to watch as we crashed over pot holes at 60 miles an hour and swerved round trucks blowing up so much dust there was a minute where you couldn’t see anything whilst driving on the wrong side of the road (although it wasn’t quite wide enough to have two sides) and narrowly avoid toppling over the edge of the road (there were 3-6 foot drops on either side going down into rivers or paddy fields) whilst passing oncoming traffic. This was all bad enough for the first few hours but then it went dark and the driver turned on his lights and we had about 2 metres of visabilty. To say the least it was terrifying.

It was made that much worse by the fact that on the two occasions we stopped everyone got out the back laughing and joking and so blatantly enjoying their big adventure in the truck, also ben made a point of saying that it was better I was in the car as a probably wouldn’t be able to handle it in the truck cos of the dust and bugs – I managed to restrain myself from reminding him that I had done it when the road was worse and it had rained when we did it and I had loved every second of it just like they all were!!!!!!!! Needless to say I was on the edge and couldn’t wait to just get to Siam Reap to chill out.

Unfortuantely this never happened, Siam Reap is not the place I visited 3 years ago – I left thinking it was a lovely friendly chilled out town that I would be happy to revisit one day. Now I think its one of the worst places ive ever been, over priced, unfriendly, ugly and so over developed it’s scary. It’s changed beyond all recognition from the sleepy town me and kate spent a lovely four days in, to a huge city I couldn’t wait to get out of.

We stayed at the hotel the truck dropped us off at and in the morning organised with the motorbike drivers to go on a boat trip to see a floating village – it was really expensive and the floating village was accessible on a road!!! But the boat trip was still good as the driver stopped at a "fish farm" that had all these crocodiles in sort of wooden water cages and the scenery was beautiful. At 5pm we went to see Angkor Wat – as if you go in at that time your ticket is valid for the next day as well – and ben climbed up the central bit and I waited at the bottom as the steps are really small and very deep. On the way back to the hotel the guy driving me asked where we were going next and I said we were heading back to Bangkok, and he actually suggested I buy the tickets through the hotel with the same company that brought us!! For a moment I couldn’t believe it and I asked him if he was joking but he wasn’t so I explained that I would most definitely not be buying tickets from the hotel – at that point he stopped talking to me, a wise decsion on his part.

That night we headed to the old market place, which has become a big area of restaurants, bars and internet cafes. There are some really nice restaurants but its all very expensive and westernised so once we’d eaten we headed back to our hotel.

We decided in the morning that we didn’t want to spend anymore time than absolutely necessary in Siam Reap so before our big day at Angkor we asked our tuk tuk driver (the motorbikes were giving ben bum ache!!) Sunshine to swing by the old market so we could book bus tickets to BKK for the next day, this done I asked him to stop at a minimart on the way to Angkor so I could buy batteries, he drove past about 4 minimarts and then stopped at a camera shop where they tried to charge me 6 dollars for 2 batteries. I went back and said thagt it was too expensive and I wanted to go to a minimart like id asked and Sunshine was all funny about it saying we were too far out now and I should have said before!, I informed him I had and he would have to drive back, it didn’t go down well and wasn’t a particularly good start to the day but I couldn’t have cared less – and I got 4 batteries for 2 dollars.

Thankfully nothing (so far) has affected the beauty of the temples at Angkor – I have to say Angkor itself is great but Bayon Temple with all the faces and Ta Phrom with the crazy melty tress are by far more beautiful and spectacular and we spent a lovely peaceful day wandering round the main sites. And although I’d seen it all before it was just as spectacular to see again especially with ben who was just loving every second – particularly when the group of monks on tour appeared at Bayon creating the most perfect photo opportunities!

We didn’t get too much hassle from kids thankfully as it can be a bit bleak – they come over to sell you things and ask where your from then tell you the capital of your country and spout off a few relevant sayings – for us English they say lovely jubbly, top banana, you alright mate. On the one hand its amazing as they pretty much know the capital of every country and they can speak lots of languages but when you hear then repeating it like robots there’s just something very weird and sad about it.

When we’d arrived we’d booked ourselves on the balloon at sunset – it’s a tethered balloon that goes up 200ft and you get about 15 mins for $15, expensive but you get such a fantatic panoramic view of Angkor that its worth it. On the journey over we had an accident as the joint that connected the trailer me and ben were sat in to the bike Sunshine was riding locked so that when he tried to turn a corner he couldn’t and the weight of the trailer just forced him to go straight meaning we went off the raised road and toppled over!! Luckily we were going very slow and there were no injuries!

Anyway we got to the balloon and got very irritated by an amercian guy I thought was retarded but ben assured me he wasn’t – he wouldn’t buy a ticket until he’d asked the people coming down in the balloon if it was worth it, the fact that they were Korean and didnt speak English didn’t deter him and he just shouted at them louder – by the time he’d finally bought a ticket everyone else was in the balloon waiting for him and losing the light as the sun sets so fast, then he proceeded to start taking pictures of the basket from the outside holding us up even more – I snapped and shouted to the balloon man to go without him but unfortunately he got on then. Him aside it was wonderful, the sunset was amazing and it just helps give you a much better idea of the size of the place when you can see it from so far up.

After that we headed back and had another expensive but nice meal in the town that night, in the morning we packed and went downstairs to wait for our bus, we were told we would be picked up at 7.45 and that the bus left at 8.30. By 8.15 we were getting worried so we decided to ring the bus people – however because we hadn’t booked our bus with the hotel they refused to help us and pretended they didn’t have a phone! So ben used his mobile only to get a recorded message saying they weren’t open yet! One of the tuk tuk drivers said he’d take us to the bus stop for a ridiculous price but he said it was really far and we had no choice, surprise surprise it was about 2 minutes away but it turned out it was the wrong one and he ended up driving us around for ages to find the right one! Ha! It turned out when we arrived that the bus had broken down which is why no one had come to get us but they fixed it by 9.30am and we headed back along the horrendous road to Poipet. When we got to the border I felt like I wanted to run across – however my rucksack prevented any such craziness – and getting back into Thailand was the most wonderful experience, especially as we were met with an aircon bus with big comfy seats and proper roads!

So once again it’s back to BKK and it’s sad to say it but I don’t see myself visiting Cambodia again.