Scambodia: Act II, Phnom Penh

Act II, Prologue
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Our second morning in Siem Reap was spent on a four-wheeler tour of the countryside. Afterward, we had showers at the Mango, ate a leisurely lunch, and caught the 1:30 bus to Phnom Penh.

The bus ride passed mostly without incident. I met a girl from California who told me about eating "happy pizza" (pizza with marijuana as a topping) in Siem Reap. She described herself as an "avid" weed smoker back home. Avid. What a funny choice of words. Also, Mariela ate a fried cricket. It tasted like very crunchy okra, if you wanted to know.

We got to the bus station around 8:00 and caught a tuk-tuk to our hostel, Nomads, which was run by a man named Roger from New Orleans. He seemed friendly enough. When the tuk-tuk driver bugged us about hiring him for the next day, Roger convinced him to leave a phone number where we could call him in the morning.

In the morning, we met Roger's Khmer girlfriend/babymamma/scammer extraordinaire.

Act II, Scam I
Nomads Hostel, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

There was a tuk-tuk driver sitting at one of the tables outside the hostel, chatting with the girlfriend. He offered to be our driver for the day for $20. There were six in our group, and we countered with $18 (to make it easier to divide the costs later). He agreed.

We told him we wanted to see the palace, the S-21 Tuol Sleng genocide museum, and the killing fields at Choeung Ek.

But first, we wanted breakfast. We told him where we wanted to eat, and he promptly took us someplace else instead. I assume he got free breakfast, or some kind of commission for taking us there. We shrugged it off.

After breakfast, we headed to the museum, and then out to the killing fields. We were finished with these visits by 11:45.

The palace grounds are closed from 11:00 to 2:00 for lunch, so we had extra time to kill before we could continue our tour. We asked him to take us to the Russian Market we'd heard so much about until the palace reopened.

He argued with us, saying he had only agreed to three places. We were under the impression that we had a driver for the entire day - especially since we were overpaying him by about six dollars. He wanted an extra dollar per person to add on another site.

We fought with him for 10 minutes, decided it wasn't worth it, and told him to take us over to the palace area. He protested that it wasn't open for another two hours, but we told him we'd find something to do there.

He dropped us off and we told him to meet us at 3:30. Still fuming, we walked down the street to find a place to have lunch.

We ended up at an unexpectedly delightful Khmer restaurant that was run by hospitable people. They gave us cold bottled water for free, and as many refills as we needed. Five of us split three dishes, and they gave us extra rice for free. The food was delicious, and after they cleared away our plates, they brought out small, stemmed glasses with sweet syrup in the bottom and this warm ball of sweet... something. We don't know what it was, exactly, but it tasted nice.

We went to the palace, met our driver, and headed back to the hostel, tired and sweaty. We had dinner that night and went back to our room.

Act II, Scam II
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

We asked Roger about transportation to the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 4:30 on Wednesday, so we wanted to head that direction around 2:00. He told us taxis to the airport cost $7 a person, and that hiring a van might be less expensive.

Roger's girlfriend called a van service. It would cost $25. It seemed steep, but it was manageable split between six people.

On our second morning in Phnom Penh, we got up early to take a walking tour of modern Khmer architecture with a map printed from the internet.

When we got back from our walk, we started looking through one of the girls' guidebooks. A section on transportation to the airport said a taxi should cost $5 total.

Scammers!

Two taxi services were listed in the book. Alyssa and I went to the Russian Market and left the girls with the assignment of locating an internet cafe where they could make a phone call.

When we returned, they hadn't found a phone. The six of us went to lunch by the river and then back to the hostel to finish packing. It was too late to call a cab company.

We went to the bar to pay Roger for our rooms. He told us he had already added in the van cost. "You can pay me now, and I'll give them the money." We felt a little suspicious about it, but we didn't argue.

The van came with a driver and a guy whose job we never quite figured out. The trip took maybe 20 minutes; definitely not worth the $25 we paid. I'm sure the driver was Roger's babymamma's cousin or something. Old Rog probably got a cut of the fare.

We were just happy to be on our way back to Bangkok, where the vast majority of people aren't trying to swindle everyone.

i <3 siem reap

Our hotel in Siem Reap - The Golden Mango Inn - has been great. They are friendly, accommodating, and oh-so-helpful with arranging transportation for sightseeing.

Alyssa, Mariela, and I got an early start this morning with our tuk tuk driver, Sopon. The hotel owner had written out a list of temples for us to see in the best order to avoid crowds.

The weather was cool and perfect. It's never that cool in the morning in Bangkok. I loved it.

The first temple, I think, was my favorite. Ta Prohm, or the Jungle Temple, is nearly 1000 years old. It's beautiful and green and peaceful. Massive trees have taken over parts of it. Their roots snake down over the stones like anacondas on steroids.


We stopped for lunch across from Angkor Wat, one of the most well-known (and crowded) temple complexes. There, we were harassed by children selling souvenirs. They stood around our table the entire time we were eating, trying to cajole us into buying something.

I looked through one boy's postcards, but didn't see anything I liked. He seemed bitter about this, calling us "stingy tourists," and telling us never to come back to his country again. He kept pouting, "Why you look but you no buy?" He was probably eight years old. There were a couple of girls selling bracelets, too. They made me sad. Kids shouldn't have to go out and harass tourists every day to earn a living. Kids should be in school laughing with their friends.

After lunch, we went to my second favorite temple: Bayon, the temple of faces.

Tourists like to take photos posing where it looks like they're standing nose to nose with a big stone face. It's like Cambodia's version of the holding-up-the-Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa photo.

We saw a few more temples in the afternoon, but had to call it a day around 2:15. The Cambodian sun was almost unbearable; I've never sweat so much in my life.

We headed back to the Golden Mango, napped, and relaxed until dinner time. When we started getting hungry, we walked down to the front desk to ask about food options. They offered us free transport to a restaurant near the Old Market.

We spent 40 minutes shopping, ate some delicious Khmer curry and chicken amok, and headed back to the hotel. One of my first goals after getting back to the U.S. is learning to make Khmer curry and chicken amok.

Overall, a lovely day. Siem Reap gets two thumbs up.