Mark’s Vagabonding Blog

. . . . I ended up staying at the Phumin Hotel that night. It looked nicer than Otto’s, and after what I had just been through, and what I knew was coming next, I needed nicer. Although the Phumin Hotel was a lot more expensive than Otto’s, it still had cold showers. For 500 baht I expected a warm shower.

I will never ever get used to these cold showers. And this is what they call the cold season here. Actually it’s a joke. Instead of 93 degrees F, it’s only 83 degrees F. They don’t know what cold is here. But the evenings are a bit cooler. And I’ve noticed that the showers seem colder too. Sometimes I can’t even complete my shower, it’s that bad. I’ll just wet my feet and ankles, and that’s as far as I can go. Who cares if I stink? But my feet are always fresh.

I still wasn’t done with Otto’s though. They say that is the best place to buy the boat ticket for some reason. So I woke up early (Oh, I did do something in Chanthaburi, Thailand. I bought a watch. It was crazy using my camera to check the time all the time. And occasionally I need to wake up early, so I needed an alarm as well. So I bought a cheap $9.00 watch.) the next morning and walked to Otto’s.

The boat leaves Koh Kong for Sihanoukville at 8:00am every morning. The ride takes 4 hours. This time I’m definitely taking my Dramamine, a full dose. But I wanted to take it an hour before departure, like the lable says. Everything was on schedule, it was around 7:00am and I was at Otto’s to buy my ticket. Then I would go back and take the Dramamine, and get something to eat. Then the girl at Otto’s offered me free coffee or tea (I suppose that’s why Otto’s is the best place to buy the ticket). Normally I don’t drink either, but for some reason I couldn’t refuse the offer. I felt like it would be disrespectful if I did. I chose the tea.

Yeeeeowwww, that’s hot!! That tea was hotter than fried lava. It took me over 20 minutes to drink the molten tea. Now I was late for my Dramamine, and I might not have time to get anything to eat. It never occured to me to eat at Otto’s while I was there. I went back to the hotel to take the Dramamine and check out. I didn’t have time for breakfast, so I just went to the boat dock. All I had was bottle of water. There was a lady selling various kinds of food (cooked and otherwise), and motion sickness drugs, but I didn’t trust her. I’d eat in Sihanoukville. There were also guys selling other kinds of drugs at the dock too, and I don’t mean Robitussin.

I don’t know much about boats, but they say this boat was only made for travel on rivers and lakes. We were about to head out into the open seas. The boat was very long and narrow. The inside looked like the interior of a plane. There were 3 seats on either side of the aisle, and about 30 rows. I took a window seat in the second row, on the right. Not that you can really see out of the window, it’s quite a bit higher than you as you sit. All you can see is the sky, unless you get up and look. You actually have a better view out the window opposite you, while seated. You also have the option of riding on the roof of the boat, if you want too. But the only thing keeping you there is a railing pole about 2 feet off the roof. So unless you are very fat, you can roll right underneath, or fly over it, if it starts to get rough. And if you travel up there you better be covered from head to toe, or you will get the meanest sunburn of your life.

As I sat in the boat waiting for it to depart, the Dramamine hadn’t kicked in yet. I felt a little queazy already from the slight rocking. A Cambodian gentleman took the aisle seat next me, leaving the seat between us empty. His briefcase went on the empty seat, and my backpack on top of his briefcase. Shortly after, the engines roared and we headed out into the Gulf Of Thailand.

The boat moving forward made me feel a little better. Then suddenly, a loud sound came from just above my head. I looked up. Oh shit, I’m sitting right underneath a speaker. Whenever you travel long distance in Southeast Asia, they love to play loud music through bad speakers. Or, if there is a TV on board, karaoke videos, or bad American movies dubbed in the language of the country you are in. And I mean bad movies. One movie I saw on the bus from Lampang to Bangkok was an action movie starring Mick Fleetwood, the psycho drummer for Fleetwood Mac. How’s that for bad? It’s usually some kind of action flick. Now I know why those movies get made, there’s an audience for them over here in large travelling vessles.

They started out this trip with karaoke videos. It’s not really music without vocals, with someone on the boat singing. They are pretty much cheezy, sappy, music videos with the lyrics scrolling on the bottom of the screen. I think I would rather see these Cambodians singing badly, at least it would be entertaing. The engines of the boat were deafening to begin with, so they had to crank the volume to hear the videos over the screaming engines. I seriously considered putting in my earplugs. But, again, I thought it might be disrespectful. Or more likely, I would look like an idiot with these big green things sticking out of my ears. So I endured the cacophony.

About 15-20 minutes after we embarked, I felt the Dramamine kick in. All the queazines was gone. This is going to be a good trip. I wish I could see more than the sky out the window.

When the karaoke video was mercifully over, it was time for Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 6. What’s also funny about these movies, is that they are dubbed in whatever language (It’s the same guy doing every voice), but they also, occasionally, have english subtitles. I mean occasionally within the movie, not that some have english subtitles and some don’t. So every once in a while on the bottom of the screen it will say something like, “I thought you were with him.” or “Get Sullivan on the phone and tell him I’m pissed!”

Another very funny thing involving American movies here, is that often guesthouses and hostels will have a common room with a TV and a good selection of movies on DVD or VCD (video CD, lower quality video on a CD instead of a DVD) for you to watch. They are usually good movies, but they are copies, and although they are in english, unlike the dubbed ones I mentioned previously, some genius decided that they needed english subtitles, that you cannot remove. And whoever is writing these subtitles does not understand english very well, and is just guessing what is being said. The results are often quite hilarious. Here are two examples from Etermal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. There are much funnier ones than this, but I wanted to use real examples, and this is all I wrote down so far:

Real spoken line: “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
Subtitle: “I’m sorry I’m yelling you.”

Real spoken line: “It was nice meeting you, and all” (spoken fast)
Subtitle: “Just leave me alone.”

Sometimes the subtitler really has no idea what was said, and they’ll let a series of lines go by with no subtitles at all. But mostly they just make no sense at all. It makes for an interesting movie experience, but I don’t know why they even bother with the subtitles at all. Man this boat is moving fast.

About 2 hours into the trip, the sea started to get a little more rough. The boat rocked more than it did earlier, but I still felt fine. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker saved the world again, so it was back to Cambodian karaoke. Suddenly the boat started to slow down considerably.

I stood up and looked out the window to see what was going on. Dozens of people were standing on the dock of a port, presumably waiting to board this boat. I was right. Only a handful of people got off the boat here, while the dozen’s took their place. Almost everyone was on board and the seat next to me was still empty. How great would that be if it remained that way?

Damn! The last guy to board took our empty seat. Now I had to ride the next 2 hours with my backpack on my lap. And this new guy didn’t look very good. He sat with his fingers pressing against his temples, and a towel around his mouth. Then he slumped forward with the towel still around his face. He was obviously sick. And he smelled like . . . like . . . old garlic.

So everyone was on board and we continued our journey. We made our way back to the middle of the ocean where the waves were getting rough again. The boat rocked side to side considerably. The Dramamine was being put to the test. I still felt okay, but we had about an hour and 45 minutes to go, and I had to pee very badly from the bottle of water I drank. The kid put a concert video in the machine.

Oh boy, we’re really rocking now, and I don’t mean the concert. The boat continued to move swiftly toward Sihanoukville, and the waves were now crashing on the windows. Some of the passengers got up to look out the windows. So did I. The wind must have been whipping, because the waves were menacing now. They were toying with this ship.

Holy shit! The boat was now jumping the waves. We must have turned in a different direction, or the wind must have shifted. This boat that was only meant for river and lake travel, was going airborn out on the open seas!

I started to get nervous. And the guy next to me was really starting to look bad. If he fucking pukes on me . . . Two-hundred people on this boat and he has to sit next to me.

The sea was relentlessly battering the boat now, and we were jumping waves at 100 MPH, maybe 150, I don’t know. But I do know if I didn’t take that Dramamine I would be spewing food I ate in 1989. And now the bright, late morning, sun was shining directly through the window and onto me. It was very hot, and very uncomfortable. The only way to escape it was to lean in toward sick guy. It was an impossible decision: Bake in the sweltering sun, or share a seat with old-garlic smelling sick guy? I couldn’t take it any longer, I leaned into sick guy.

The intensity of the waves grew even stronger, as if they were trying to teach this boat a lesson. “You shouldn’t be out here in the open waters you lake boat,” they were saying. The boat rocked so far I swore I could see fish underwater through the window opposite me.

Whoa!! Airborn!! We’re gonna die!!!!

The concert video started to get stuck, then skip continuously . . . get stuck, then skip continuously . . . get stuck then skip continuously . . . The passengers were getting edgy, some screaching and yelping with every jump. A girl in the seats opposite me leaned forward, very low, and vomited into a bag. Two minutes later she did it again. Man do I have to pee.

So far sick guy was hanging there. And miraculously, so was I. This Dramamine truly is a miracle drug, I thought . . . so far.

We continued jumping waves at great speeds, becoming airborn, while simultaneously rocking so far both ways I was certain we would capsize. This went on for the next 30 minutes. If I die does my insurance cover this? I think it does. I kept checking my new watch to see how much longer until I was on land, or to try and guess my precise time of death.

Suddenly the rocking subsided a bit, and we stopped jumping the waves. We must be getting close to port. I looked out the window and I saw industry. Land! The industrial port of Sihanoukville. The boat docked safely. I jumped over the seat in front of me got the hell out of that death trap. But I still had another obstacle to face.

There was a sea of touts waiting for me. Maybe if I ran through them yelling, “Toilet! Toilet! Toilet!” they would leave me alone. So I did it. But it didn’t work. One guy latched onto me and directed me toward the toilet in a restaurant. But these are not restaurants, the way you normally think of restaurants, so I quickly walked out. He pointed to another toilet. I didn’t even go near it. There was a passport checkpoint, so I got a little reprieve from my tout, but I still had to go back out and face him. And I was still holding a 4-hour pee.

I wasn’t sure of the fair price for a ride to town here. But now I know I paid him double the proper amount. But at least he took me to where I asked: MASH: Melting Pot. But the lady said they were full. I asked her if I could use their toilet (They are only restrooms in America, everywhere else they are toilets). Remember that scene in A League Of Their Own where Tom Hanks took that 5 minute pee? They weren’t exagerating.

We were on a small dirt road lined with guesthouses, so I figured I would just walk and easily find a place to stay. But my tout, as touts will do, would not leave me alone. He relentlessly pestered me to take me to “his friend’s” guesthouse, where of course he would get a commision for bringing me. I had to forcefully, as I’m now learning to be, tell him that we were through, and paid him and walked away.

I quickly found a place. The Green Gecko Guesthouse. $4.00/night. I would stay there for the next 5 days.

Everywhere you walk in Sihanoukville, especially if you are a foreigner, there is a motorcycle taxi driver, called motodups in Cambodia, asking you if you want a ride. When you say no, they ask if you want to smoke, and they don’t mean Bensen & Hedges. And when you say no to drugs, they’ll ask if you want a girl. Almost every single one of them does this. And there are hundreds of them, it’s quite annoying.

So I spent an uneventful 5 days in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. It’s a beach town. The beaches are nothing like the beaches in Thailand, or Sarasota, Florida. But there are nice rock formations on them, and islands in view, so it was different than Sarasota in that respect. And despite the annoying motodups, it is a cool place to chill for a while, and get used to being in a new country. I only saw one of the beaches, Victory Beach, the others may have been better.

After I tired of Sihanoukville, I bought a bus ticket to Phnom Penh, the Capital of Cambodia. That’s where I am now, using the internet at my guesthouse. I’ve been here for about 4 or 5 days now, the guesthouse, not the internet (although it does take me quite a long time to write these posts).

Phnom Penh is a pretty cool city. I thought it would be full of limbless, homeless people begging for money, but it’s not like that. There are a few, but it’s not as bad as Bangkok, in my opinion. They mostly hang around the tourist attractions.

I went to the Killing Fields yesterday, made famous by the movie of the same name. And famous by what happened there. It’s a short distance outside of Phnom Penh. That’s where Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge had thousands of Cambodians exucuted. There is also a museum in a different location, but still in Phnom Penh, that was once a high school, but was turned into a prison by Pol Pot, where they tortured the prisoners before they brought them to the Killing Fields. It’s quite unerving to be there.

Oh well, I know the ending to this post was kind of lame and anticlimactic, but I just wanted to get you up to date on where I actually was right now. My last few posts had been days and days behind of where I really was. Soon I will go to another Cambodian town, perhaps, Kratie or Siem Reap. But I really want to go to Ratanakiri.

Whoever invented Dramamine should have won the Nobel Prize for medicine.

Mark

***Before you read “A Border Crossing Adventure, Parts 1&2”, let me just say that it’s been a while since I’ve written them and I’ve since regretted some of the ways that I tried to save money on this trip. I now realize it was uncool, and I feel bad about it. But at the time I needed to make a limited amount last a year+ with absolutely no income, and that’s all I thought about. If I had it to do again, I would not have been as frugal (and probably would have enjoyed myself a little more too). But don’t let this stop you from reading them, it’s still a good read, Thank you, Mark***

. . . . Unless you’ve secured other transporation into town, you pretty much need these guys (touts, See part one). I knew from my research that the fair price for a ride into town was 50 baht (they accept Thai baht on the border towns of Cambodia).

So, finally, I spoke to my tout, who I took to be about 23 years old, “Alright, how much?”

“A hundred baht, ” he said. He spoke perfect english.

I said, “Fifty.”

He said something about petrol, and I stuck to 50 baht. After a little back and forth, he finally accepted the 50 baht price, and we climbed aboard his bike.

There’s one other immigration formality a short distance down the road. Three guys underneath a 3-sided wooded shack look at your passport. Apparently some number was missing on my visa, so we had to go back to the office. On the motorcycle, the driver rides with your backpack in front of him, between his legs. I’d read about this so I was okay with it. When we got back to the immigration office, he said that I could leave the backpack on his bike.

“No way,” I said, “the pack stays with me.”

So I took the pack with me, and we went to the station where they had taken my picture, and I handed the lady my passport. She wrote the number on my visa and we got back on the bike. On the way back we didn’t even have to stop at that checkpoint again, they just waved us through.

The ride into town takes about 5-10 minutes, and I was enjoying the scenery of mountains in the near distance. Then my tout broke the mood, and asked me if I smoke. I told him no. Then he said something about marijuana. I said I wasn’t interested. I would hear that question A LOT in the coming days.

Up ahead was a bridge, a toll bridge. Before we approached it, he said, “There’s a toll up ahead, you have to pay it,” as he pointed to the toll sign.

I told him that I was aware of the toll. I’d known about the toll bridge from my research. I also knew that technically, he was supposed to pay the fare, but this is one thing I would let him get away with. But he had something else up his sleeve.

He said, “Do you have any riel?” Riel is the currency of Cambodia. U.S. dollars and Thai baht are also readily accepted in Cambodia as well.

I didn’t have any, so I said, “No.”

He said, “Okay, I’ll pay the toll and you can pay me back later.”

I knew that the fare was 11 baht, but wasn’t sure about riel. However I was pretty sure you could pay the toll in baht, but I just said, “Okay. How much is it?”

He said, “One-thousand two-hundred riel.”

When we arrived at the toll booth, I saw the sign on the glass. It was writen in Khmer (the language of Cambodia), but I could see that the price was 1200 riel, or 11 baht. So I could have just paid the 11 baht myself, which alerted me that there will be a scam coming up involving riel.

After he paid the toll, I told him to take me to Otto’s Guesthouse please. I said it twice so I know he heard me, but he didn’t respond.

We finally came to a town. Shortly after, he stopped at a money changing booth, which is just a lady on the side of the dirt road, with different currencies in a glass case.

He said, “You have to change your money to riel so you can pay me back for the toll.”

I said, “No, I don’t have to. I’ll just pay you eleven baht when we get to Otto’s. I’ll give you sixty-one baht.”

“No, you have to change your money here,” he said.

I said, “No I don’t. And I know that you are supposed to pay the toll, but I agreed to pay anyhow.”

He insisted that I had to change my money to riel. So I said, “Okay, I’ll change eleven baht then.”

He said that I couldn’t, so I said that I’d change $1.00 U.S. He said that I couldn’t change that little amount of money.

I finally said, “Listen, I know I don’t have to change any money. It’s a scam. I’ll give you sixty-one baht when we get to Otto’s. It’s the same thing.”

We were both still sitting on his bike during this. So, frustrated, he cranked the throttle and we left the money changer without making an exchange. The scam is: That’s the first place to change money as you arrive in Cambodia from that crossing, so they make you think you have change your money right away. They give you a horrible exchange rate, and he gets a cut for bringing me there. That’s the seed he tried to plant at the toll booth.

Yeah, I was getting a little scared at this point. I was pissing this guy off from the start, and my life was literally in his back seat. I was in a foreign land, and knew nothing about that town, and I had no idea where Otto’s was. He could have taken me anywhere, and had his cronies beat the hell out me, and take everything I had. But I’d taken my stand against corruption this far, so I might as well go all the way.

As we got a little deeper into town I started looking for any sign of an Otto’s (I’d read about it on the internet). I didn’t see any, but soon enough, we had stopped again. We were at a place called, The River Guesthouse, and it looked like this was the end of our trip.

I said, “What’s this? This isn’t Otto’s.”

It sounded like he said, “This is my guesthouse. We stop here.”

“But I asked you to take me to Otto’s.”

He said, “This is a good guesthouse. Nice rooms. A lot of foreigners stay here.” He pointed at the tourists sitting at the tables.

It did look like an okay place, but that wasn’t the point. So I said, “Okay then take me to the Phumin Hotel (another place I read about on the internet).”

No response.

Then the owner, or whoever, came over and said, “This is a nice place, you’ll like it here. Come look at the rooms.”

“But I told him to take to Otto’s,” I said.

“Otto’s no good, small rooms, no AC. We have big rooms, and AC.”

I said, “That doesn’t matter. I told him to take me to Otto’s, so he should have taken me to Otto’s.” I really started to get frustrated now. “Okay, look,” I continued, “you can give him his commision for bringing me here, and then he can bring me to Otto’s. Or better yet, where’s Otto’s? I’ll walk there.”

No response. So I asked my tout, “Where’s Otto’s?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then where’s the Phumin hotel?”

“I don’t know.”

One of the employees pointed to a map on the wall. “There’s a map,” he said.

I looked at the map but it was no help. His point was that Koh Kong was a big place, and that Otto’s could be far away.

Then the employee said, “I think it’s on an island somewhere.”

I knew they were all fucking with me now, so I went to the tourists to see if any of them knew where Otto’s was. They honestly didn’t, but one girl had a guide book. We looked it up, and there it was. It said, “One welcomed addition to Koh Kong is Otto’s . . . it’s 50 meters from the port.” Now we’re getting somewhere.

Then the girl said, “I think that’s the port right over there,” and pointed right across the dirt road.

I stupidly asked my tout, “Is that the port?”

“I don’t know.”

Well, now I was armed with this new knowledge about Otto’s, so I didn’t need him any more. And it was obvious he wasn’t my friend any longer. So I gave him his 61 baht (good thing I had exact change), and took off on foot to find Otto’s. It was starting to get late too. Darkness was setting in. I better find Otto’s fast. The port had to be around here, why would the girl have thought that that was the port otherwise?

So I headed down the road in the direction we were going since I didn’t notice Otto’s on the way there. About 50 yards away on the other side of the road was a gas station. I went in to ask where Otto’s was, and the Phumin Hotel. The clerks there were all very nice and cheerful and happy. Now this is the Cambodia I’ve heard all about, and hoped to experience. They pointed down the road where I came from and said that it was just down the road a bit. They were glad to practice their english.

“Both places?” I said.

“Yes.”

With a big smile on my face, I said, “Thank you.”

As I started back down the road, relieved, I thought of how funny it was that Otto’s was probably right next d . . . . . “OH SHIT!!! My backpack!!”

I walked all the way to the gas station without my backpack on my back. Asside from the frustration with my tout, and that whole situation, I’m still not used to carrying a backpack. This is the first backpack I’ve ever owned in my life. I only carry it when I move from one place to another. When I’m situated in a hostel or guesthouse, my pack stays in the room, and I wander the streets without it. Plus, I’ve stayed with June so much, I’ve hardly had to carry it.

I ran down that dirt road in Koh Kong, Cambodia, as fast as this weary 40-year old body could run. Memories of my lost wallet flooded my brain. “Oh please, not again.” Then I remembered the tout road with it between his legs on the bike. It was probably still there when I walked away. I’d pissed him off badly, and I was sure he road off with it, laughing all the way home, to see what goodies he had won.

When I reached The River Guesthouse, panting, out of breath, there it was, on the ground. I grabbed it and opened it to see if everything was still in there. As I was looking, the owner of the guesthouse came over.

He said, “Your bag is safe here. We have good security here.”

I said, still panting, “It wasn’t you I was worried about.”

Everything appeared to be in the bag. Relieved, once again, I continued to walk down the road with my backpack on my back to look for Otto’s, a little bit humbled. About 30 yards down the road was a small sign that read, “Otto’s Guesthouse 50 meters,” with an arrow pointing down the side road. Another 30 yards down the main road was the Phumin hotel. I’d also seen the port where the boat leaves from. A boat that I will take to Sihanoukville, Cambodia tomorrow morning.

A boat ride that I will never forget . . . .

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