Woo haa Cambodiaaaa!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
EDIT: Something wrong with Mickis memory cards. My photos are uplaoded so you can enjoy them. Hopefully we'll get her photos up in the next couple of days!
Greetings from Siem Reap!
We managed 1 day on Don Det: Very hot, too many people and not being able to swim didn't really make us feel like home. We decided it was time to move on as there was not really enough going on to keep us interested, we wanted some action and we were about to get a little too much of it!
We got ourselves minibus tickets to go to the border and into Cambodia to a small village called Stung Treng, from there we were going to get tickets to either Phnom Penh or Siem Reap. The boat over the river left in the early morning and pretty soon we were in a minivan heading to the border. At the border everything went smoothly despite us having to pay a "service charge" to some of the border guards to avoid any unwanted problems.
Over on the Cambodian side things started to go wrong. We were ushered into a bus with the other people coming over the border (there were also some minivans but far less of them than had taken us there). In the bus were backpackers going to pretty much everywhere in Cambodia (Kratie, Stung Treng, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap) which we thought would mean we would stop along all these places on the way. I guess it's good to mention that there are not many roads in Cambodia and if you want to go to Siam Reap you pretty much have to go via Phnom Penh or at least very close to there. Then a guy came on the bus and asked everyone where they were going, when we said Stung Treng he asked us to get our stuff and get off the bus, then another guy came and asked the same question and with our answer told us to stay on the bus. After going back and forth we finally got moving. Soon the "tour guide" (from hell) comes over and asks us why we are going to Stung Treng, we tell him and he replies that because of the chinese new year it would be better to head all the way to Phnom Penh with this bus and also that way the bus won't have to take a small detour to stung treng. I smelled a rat and told him that as long as it is free of charge, ok! Of course it wasn't but a small fee of 15 USD (about 2-3 times the normal fare) is enough. I could also guess exactly where this money was going... in his pocket! We told him no, as did all the others going to Stung Treng. After a while we had to stop and get off the bus to get on a minibus. They hadn't sorted the passengers and they needed to get people off the minivans and into the bus... fine we thought.
We got off the bus and a minivan pulled up, there was a lot of talking and waiting and finally the bus left and there were about 20 of us and one minivan for 9 people. We then had to wait about 15 minutes before they finally let the minivan go (with 15 people in it) and then we had to wait a further 30 minutes, in the blistering sun, in the middle of nowhere until another minivan showed up. This minivan had about 9 people already in it but they made us cram into it and off we went, exhausted, packed like sardines and pretty much fuming. At one point a couple of brittish guys were about to lynch the tour guide who tried to leave but whom we were not letting out of our sights until we got to Stung Treng.
In stung treng the 14 packed sardines got out to find a fairly horrible and grubby town, there were no more buses to Phnom Penh but we could get a VIP bus to Kratie (rumoured to be a nice little town, and it is). We all gladly paid the fare of 6 dollars (way to much) but what choice did we have, besides it was a VIP bus... or so we thought. We were ushered to the other side of the road to wait for the bus, the minivan left, made a U-turn and stopped in front of us and we were asked to kindly jump in so that we could leave... all 14 of us again! By this time we were so pissed off that some well chosen words were exchanged and the guide was told were he could put the minivan after we were done with it. For some reason he did not want to come with us (lucky for him). Finally we arrived in Kratie and checked into the nicest hotel we could find (AC, Cable, hot water, minibar and a nice big room for 13 dollars a night). We hung out in Kratie for a couple of days and planned our next move. We decided it was Siem Reap and here we are! Tomorrow we are going to buy a tuk-tuk for 2 days as well as a 3 day pass to the temples of Angkor and getting completely templed out (a very common expression in SE-Asia and especially Siem Reap).
During our travels here we have gotten used to many things that you wouldn't see back home, one of which is cows and buffalos walking around almost everywhere. The other day a heard walked by right in front of our internet cafe. In Kratie we even saw 3 antilopes walk through a fairly busy intersection without anyone taking any notice what so ever :) Cambodia seems so far to be the kick we needed after sleepy Lao. Siem Reap is fairly intense with cars flying around and touts a la bangkok shout tuk-tuk at you all the time... we like it! :D
One thing that seems to be lacking though is functioning computers with USB so it may be a while before we get some photos up for you all... We are working on it very hard!
Take care
Robbe and Micki
Posted byRobbe at 08:33
Hihii!! Can se you all stuffed in a the vehicle...:o). Knowing how calm and cool you guys are, I can imagine how well you took the minor travelling obstacles. Isn't it nice to see how things are around the world. A hot shower seems like heaven after an experience like that. Take care now and continue enjoying your trip. Robbe you can happily spend about Euro 480 that you didn't luckily enough put on an HIFK-kausikortti. Seeing the games here are about as terrifying as your experiences in Asia.....
Gotta love Cambodia, the wild wild West in the East...:)
Hane