After reading online about the border-crossing scams, we decided we were brave enough to give it a shot. We got up at 4:00 a.m. to take a taxi to the Moh Chit bus station. The Bangkok street markets were already open and active. Our bus was packed with locals, we were the only “falongs” heading for Aranyaphratet. We arrived at the border around
9:30 a.m., prepared for the fake Visa salesmen and con-artists. It wasn’t as terrifying as we had been told. We only had to walk one block to the 1st window for the Passport check. At the second window we paid the $20 for our Visas into Cambodia, plus an extra 100 Baht for no copy of the photo. (No one mentioned that!) The 3rd window stamped our passports, and finally we went out to meet our ride to Siem Reap. He was supposed to be waiting for us with a sign reading “Toni Bodeau”, but we waited and wandered around for two hours, dripping in sweat in the dirty, hot and humid border area. Finally, he approached us and said he had been looking for two men. We fooled him! He took us to the Poi Pet bus station, where we met our taxi driver, Mr. Heng (or “Hung” as I referred to him!) We spread out in the air-conditioned taxi, surprised that they drive on the right side of the road in Cambodia. Mr Heng never stopped honking the whole way to Siem Reap, about a 2-hr drive. In fact, everyone seems to hook in Cambodia for this reason or that.
At the Two Dragons hotel, we met my dad and his friend Bill. We cleaned up, had a fresh strawberry smoothie, and then took a Tuk-Tuk to Pub Street for dinner. Bill wanted to go to Happy Pizza, where they serve “ganja” with anything. During dinner we were constantly interrupted by kids selling books and bamboo bracelets. They spoke English and were persistent yet delightful and funny. “America has 300 million people, minus 4 – because you 4 are here!” joked one boy. We walked about the town for awhile, and then headed back to the hotel because we were getting up at 5:00 to go to Angkor Wat temples to see the sunrise.
Our guide and Tuk-Tuk driver were waiting for us when we came downstairs the next morning. It was pitch black and I was wondering who the hell gets up this early…apparently many people do since it was packed already. We waited for the sunrise(a bit of a disappointment but still nice)while we struggled to understand our guide and Lana and I had to interpret for each other very often. He was a wealth of knowledge for the things we could understand but after about 10 hours later and too many “Lana’s and Toni’s….as he used the plural for our names…we had about all we could handle for the day. Plus it was hot, hot and humid to boot! Back to the guesthouse and another strawberries shake, shower and back out to explore Siem Reap. It’s a great town, filled with many restaurants and shops. The only thing unlike Thailand is that they really pester you to buy, buy. Lana become “Madame America” with many of the young kids trying to sell us on whatever the special “Happy New Year” priced item was.
The next day we got up (a more reasonable 7:30am start) and used the same driver but decided to decipher for ourselves with a guide book the different temples we visited. One that Lana and I really liked was out about 40 km away and we had to hike in about 1 mile or so up to a waterfall and along the river where there were many carving in the water and rocks along the river. It was really amazing to see. Being that it was New Year’s eve we headed into town again and Lana and I got a foot scrub/massage under the full moon. This is the life! We had a couple of drinks in an outdoor café and chatting with the sweetest boy who looked about 14 but said he was 18. After some excitement of the police chasing some boys on a motorcycle with guns we decided to head back to Two Dragons and bring in the New Year with the local Cambodians from the guesthouse. We danced and listened to music and counted down the New Year…..a very different way to bring in the New Year.
New Years day the four of us headed out to Tonle Sap Lake and rented a boat to see the floating villages of Kompong Khleang. This was incredible to see how the 6000 villagers lived in a village of about 1260 houses. You’ll see by the photos how they lived in houses on very tall stilts to accommodate the heavy rains and rising water levels. They row everywhere; to floating veggie and fruits markets, fish markets and just about anything else they may need. We got out and walked along the village and met some of the locals. The children are not shy at all and followed us and loved to pose for photos. This was truly the “real” Cambodia. Between the floating village and Angkor Wat we were so glad we took the challenge to cross the border and visit this amazing country. We figured going back over the border to Thailand would be a breeze….or so we thought!
I downloaded all the photos I took so I know it’s a lot but I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them. www.picasaweb.google.com/tonibodeau/Cambodia
Happy New Year!!
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