Cambodia…back to the 3…
Friday, December 14th, 2007Okay, I really hate that term 3rd world, but if the shoe fits…
We kind of started things out with typical fashion. We slept in the airport. By choice. We had a 7 am flight to Cambodia and we just decided it was easier to sleep in the airport than get up at 4 am, having to find a taxi and all that. Plus, we were just being cheap – if we went the night before we wouldn’t have to pay for accomodations that night and we could take cheap public transport instead of I’m sure a lovely taxi that would jack up the price since it’s 4 am. It really wasn’t so bad. We had stayed at the airport previously but we were inside the departure area. This time we couldn’t check in until the following morning so we were outside – there were tons of restaurants open late and some really uncomfortable chairs but it was only for a few hours anyway…
Anyway, we took a flight on Air Asia after hearing the horror stories of going overland from Bangkok to Cambodia – I’m sure they aren’t as bad as they sound but the plane ticket was pretty cheap so we went this route. Our guesthouse, Sunday, came and picked us up in the slowest tuk-tuk. I mean the Thailand ones go way faster. When you’re being passed by bikes you know you aen’t going very fast…I’m sure it has nothing to do with there being 5 of us stuffed into it!
So, being without a guidebook, we picked up a cartoon map at the airport and found this tourist throwaway which actually had a pretty good map in it – these would be our guides for the time we’re in Phnom Penh…
But first things first – we had to get a visa for Thailand. Because we kind of didn’t plan very well. And we were going to stay 35 days. For Americans we automatically get this visa-exempt 30 day thing but we’d be staying 35 days. And we didn’t really want to have to do a visa run since we’d be in the north (I guess they’re pretty common but it just seemed like it would cost more to do the visa run then just go get a 60 day visa). If we’d be in the south we’d go just visa run to Malaysia but it seemed a bit shadier going over the border to Myanmar. Little did we know what a pain in the butt it would be. We go to the Embassy armed with our passports, our plane tickets out of Thailand, our receipt for accomodations in Thailand…and after an hour of waiting and watching all these Cambodians cut in line…the lady looked at our e-ticket and said it didn’t look like an e-ticket – so we pull out our connecting flights to Argentina…and she still looked at us like we were criminals and told us to come back at 3 pm to see if the e-tickets would work as our exit out of Thailand. We went back at 3 pm where she said like 2 words to us besides “give me $70 for the visas.” We are hopeful we have a lovely sticker in our passports at 3 pm 6 December. Which would have been 5 December (3 day turnaround) except for the Thai king’s b-day which of course they have off. Wonderful.
So after all that running back and forth between the embassy and our guest house we found a place in the tourist throw-away called Friends that said they had good margaritas. Okay, we’re sold. It actually ended up being a restaurant that trained street kids. Very cool. And very Ro (which I thought was funny after I reread her e-mails about her trip to Cambodia and she mentioned this restaurant). And very good margaritas. We had a couple of drinks and tapas and then headed to an Indian restaurant that had been mentioned in the throwaway and I had seen in the lonely planet (yes, I had written stuff down in a bookstore – so sue me). It was run by Indian people (always a plus!) and was very good. After that we went and crashed since we hadn’t slept in a while.
The weirdest thing so far about this country is that things are paid for in both US dollars and Cambodian Riels. You go to the cash machine and it gives you US dollars. Which is semi-convenient considering the Riel is 4,000 to 1 and so you’d be carrying around a huge stack of bills. But it still is really strange. But they don’t use the US change. So you’ll get something at the grocery store and it will be $1.25. So you’d give them $1 USD and 1,000 Riels. On street food you use the Riel and in local restaurants; but otherwise you use the US dollar.
It’s quite a jolt back to reality since you actually know how much you’re spending. I mean, when you have to convert it from whatever currency it makes it seem kind of unreal – I mean, we track our spending at the end of the day but it isn’t as real as when you say something like that pirated DVD is 2 USD. Even though in Thailand they’re like 100 Baht (3 USD) it seems cheaper since it’s quoted in Baht. Yes, it’s totally psychological but hey, this whole journey we’re going through is pretty much psychological…
JohnCin