On the Road Again

Wednesday morning we had the fun task of repacking all of our belongings into our 6 suitcases and preparing for the taxi van to return to pick us up. Once everything was packed, we spent some time having our final conversations with Mach, Siphen, and their extended family whom we were lucky enough to meet as well while on the trip. Unfortunately, Penh’s niece had some additional aggravation of her condition (and I believe it sounds like now they think it may not be Dengue fever and he again had to make the two hour drive back to Phnom Penh, leaving shortly before we did.


I found Alexandra lounging in a hammock, and I went over to see how she was doing. She kind of half-smiled, and said “I’m gonna kind of miss this place. Its so nice and quiet, and relaxing just sitting here enjoying everything.” Siphen again apologized for the added chaos of her family being in town, and so many other guests at the homestay. We again reassured her that this truly did add to the trip, and that it was great to meet some of them as well and that we had great time with the Americans and Rein too. Kalyssa came over and said goodbye to Siphen, with the parting words “I’m reeeally going to miss your food. It was all really good!” This comment made Siphen’s eyes lighten like you wouldn’t believe.

Though its not the typical vacation for Americans, for anyone that would be interested in a trip to Cambodia, I can't recommend strongly enough, the Meas Family Homestay

Siphen, Mach, and Us

We jumped on our taxi (same car and driver as 2 days earlier) and made excellent time to Phnom Penh, in roughly an hour and a half. Our driver, who didn’t speak a single word of English, but with an extremely jolly smile that we’d become accustomed to gave us an enthusiastic wave that clearly said “Goodbye and good luck on the rest of your journey.”

Our Ride to and From Phnom Penh

While waiting at the bus stop (which was a pristinely clean and modern looking office with nice comfortable leather chairs to wait, Kalyssa had to go to the bathroom, which was outside and around the corner of the building. Natalie had already been in once and said it was spotless, clean, and was not a squat toilet, so we sent Kalyssa on her own. She came back and said there was a Khmer woman in the bathroom, who saw her walked inand looked in amazement at her, and gently reached out to touch her white skin. Siphen had told us that this would likely happen while we’re here…. That in the Khmer culture the white skin is considered an element of beauty and education, and that many locals who may not often see westerners will react in this way and want to touch.

Waiting for the Bus

I recently read an article about the psychology of race that talked about this as being a very common thing throughout the world. Its an idea that makes me fairly uncomfortable, and I honestly wasn’t quite sure how to react. Though I wanted to point out the irony of how many people in America spend a good percentage of the typical Khmer annual salary to make their skin darker through artificial light.

Since we got to the bus depot early, me, Allie, and Kalyssa went for a walk down Sisowath Quay in Phnom Penh to see if we could find some food. Natalie stayed back and read her nook in the comfort of the air conditioned office watching our bags. Unfortunately the bus stop was a mile or so from the touristy part of Phnom Penh, so most of the shops and cafes were very local in nature and it didn’t seem there was a good place for a quick and cautionary meal (due to the length and constant travel, we are trying to be extremely cautionary in our food. We did however find a very small local mart that had some bottles of alcohol, cases of beer, and a couple packages of snacks. They had Mr. Potato Head chips (local rip off of Pringles. Pringles is also available widely here, but not at this establishment). The first can I picked up, upon inspection the seal was opened, so I tried the second which was still closed. I also grapped two liter bottles of Evian water and checked out. The girl quoted me a total of $5 and change, which was an utter ripoff for Cambodia standards, and I probably could have gotten it for $2-$3 (which is still a ripoff for local standards) if I haggled, but it was hot, and it honestly didn’t seem worth the time. (though I probably succeeded in making myself look like an idiot.

Walking back we had a brief lesson of travelling by foot in the third world. As we walked along the side of the road, an approaching car behind us beeped its horn. I think having become accustomed to the sound from within the car, her first situation outside she didn’t immediately realize that out here that sound means that you need to move to the right as a vehicle is about to overtake you. Fortunately traffic was slow, and it was just a motor bike, so I watched to let the bike whizzing by give her a bit of a start before reminding her that she needs to specifically listen for that sound while walking to know when to make sure to hug the side of the road.

When we got back, the previously empty office was now full of travelers. We boarded our bus, and started our 6 hour journey to siem reap. The trip afforded us lots of images of the Cambodian countryside and villages along the road, and some time to relax in a relatively cool environment. Kalyssa slept, Alexandra watched the country fly by, and I blogged.

Along the way, we had one brief 20 minutes top in Kampong Thom. The rest of the time was a bit of a harrowing ride, as our huge bus barreled down the highway like a 15 ton skier darting around motorcycles, trucks and carts, spending almost as much time on the wrong side of the road as we did on the right side.



Not sure what these are but they're everywhere



Once we arrived at Siem Reap, we needed to figure out how to get to our hotel which was 4 kilometers from the but stop. When we began asking around at the depot, they said there were no Taxis, only tuk-tuks. There was no way all our luggage would fit on one, along with us. The drivers were completely flummoxed on how to transport us and all of our stuff. Finally they decided that two of them could accompany us. We split up the luggage, and split up ourseves, with Kalyssa and I in one tuktuk, and Alexandra in the other, and raced to the hotel.

Upon getting to our hotel, the drivers began trying to sell their services for driving us around Angkor tomorrow. Do to the tremendously larger area that Angkor Wat takes up, one needs to have transportation, and most preferably, captive transportation. Allie and Natalie really liked their driver quite a bit, and wanted to use him.  (Kalyssa and mine wasn't all that exciting.)  I believe the trouble was, since two tuk tuks brought us here, they both wanted our business. Therefore they offered us a joint deal. Two tuktuks for two days. I talked about which sites we wanted to see at Angkor wat, and the driver said we can provide this package for you for $1,000. At this quote, I nearly lept out of my seat, and uncontrollably burst out in shock with a bit of “are you completely insane” laughter. Granted coming into the discussion, I didn’t have a good idea what the exact market rate was, but I know that $1000 was more than ten times what the fee should have been. Ultimately, we got him down to a price that was reasonable.

After scheduling an 8:00am meeting with him, we headed to the room, checked in, and spent a bit of time in the air-conditioned room. We were in need of getting some laundry done, so we called the front desk, and they asked us to fill out the form, and they would send someone up. The person arrived at our room far too quickly for us to be ready, and helped us go through our 2 large bags of dirty clothes to count the articles of clothing. I will say its rather disconcerting having a complete stranger sifting through your dirty, sweaty, laundry right in front of you….


Hotel Lobby


After a bit of debate on what we should actually do next, we headed down the street to the Angkor Night Market, found some dinner, did a brief bit of shopping, and returned back to the hotel to get some rest.



Dinner at Angkor Night Market