Mark’s Vagabonding Blog

If you have traveled in Southeast Asia (SEA), or have done any research into it, you are probably aware of the reputation of Poipet, Cambodia, a border town with Thailand. If not, here’s what Lonely Planet: Cambodia had to say:

“Viva Poipet! Long the armpit of Cambodia, famous for nothing but mud and mess . . . during the wet season the roads become rivers of mud and detritus . . . There is no reason to spend any time here . . . Poipet is also emerging as scam central and many tourists are being ripped off on overland travel . . . Don’t judge Cambodia on your first experiences in Poipet . . . should you for some masochistic reason decide to stay in Poipet . . . (so and so hotel) is a good option if you are unlucky enough to get caught in town for the night.”

And if that’s not enough, here are a few more quotes from Bootsnall members:

“Poipet is a toilet,” Bubbha

“Poipet really is hell,” Static

” . . . poipet is a shit hole…get in, get the hell out,” Gooner

So for any sane person who is aware of this information, and has passed through before himself and seen the truth, and is also not with a volunteer organization that stuck you there, spending 4 days and 3 nights in a row in Poipet…by choice…would be unthinkable. UNTHINKABLE! Like running through an active slaughterhouse naked with your mouth wide open and flippers on your feet. Well, crown me insane, because I’ve just returned from my 4 day, 3 night vacation in sunny Poipet, Cambodia. And I did it by choice.

Why would I do something so masochistic, as Lonely Planet calls it?

Well, my Thai visa expired on Aug 8, so I had to leave Thailand. And I also signed up for the class to get my teaching certificate. The class is in Bangkok and it starts on Aug 14 and ends on Sept 8. Thailand allows you to stay in the country for one month upon arrival, but it’s not a calendar month. For example, if you arrive on Aug 9, you can stay until Sept 7–always 2 days short of your arrival date the following month. So the earliest I could return to Thailand and be able to stay for the duration of the course was Aug 11. So I had to spend 3 days in another country.

Sure I could have gone to Malaysia or Singapore, but that would have been too costly by plane, and too time consuming by land. And I certainly could have gone to a better part of Cambodia for just a little more time and money. So why didn’t I? Why did I choose to swim in the cesspool? Well, I had 3 other choices: Siem Reap; Battambang; or Phnom Penh. I’ve been to all 3 of those cities already, and if I could have snapped my fingers and ended up in either of them, I would have chosen Phnom Penh (At least for the reason that that is the only place I’ve been to that sells my brand of deodorant). But I haven’t attempted that trick since 1992 when I snapped my fingers for Fiji and ended up in the jungles of Guam–boy was that family startled, not to mention their monkey.

Phnom Penh is the farthest away of the 3 cities, and the buses leave from Poipet at 6:00-7:30am, which would mean staying overnight in Poipet anyway. And I’d only get two days in Phnom Penh then have a very long trip back to Bangkok, and would not arrive until late in the evening. It is also a pain in the ass to get to the other two cities, over horrible roads.

So the main advantage of staying in Poipet, was that on the 11th, I could walk out of my guest house at 7:00am, turn right, walk 100 yards and get stamped out of Cambodia. Then walk another 50 yards and get stamped into Thailand, and a few minutes later be sitting on a bus heading to Bangkok, and arrive around noonish. Because I had things to do when I got back. (But I didn’t set my alarm correctly and ended up leaving at 8:30 instead of 7:00. Still okay though.)

The assessments of Lonely Planet and the Bootsnall members are indeed accurate, the place is a cesspool. An ordinary traveler should never choose to stay longer than the few minutes it takes to pass through to their next destination. But if you have some time, an open mind, can stand some filth, and you are not just there to see the ruins, temples, mountains, and museums; if you want to see real life at a bustling Cambodian border town, then I recommend spending a night or two in lively Poipet. It certainly won’t kill you. I think the biggest threat is getting hit by a car or motorcycle. And if you are a photographer there is a great opportunity to enhance your portfolio.

The folks there are good people, just like any you’ll see in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh. They just live in squalor. Not that Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Beverly Hills or anything. And you will come across the occasional shady character trying to sell you sex or something, but that’s no different than anywhere else in SEA. And there are the rip offs that LP mentioned, but that’s for the onward travel crowd.

There are actually a couple of decent places to stay in Poipet. I stayed at The Poipet Guest House (not mentioned by LP). For 400 baht/night I got a relatively clean, big room, with AC, refrigerator, TV w/cable, including HBO, Cinemax, Star Movies, ESPN, CNN World, and a few other English language channels (and they came in clear), a balcony to watch all the action on the street, and I was supposed to have hot water, but the heater didn’t work. But that’s okay, I’m finally getting used to cool showers. Sometimes they’re nice when you’ve been sweating in the hot, humid air. And there were some stains on my bed too that I didn’t want to think about. But overall, it wasn’t bad.

If you want greater luxury you can stay in one of the casinos for as little as 1000 baht/night. At least at the one I checked out. The casinos were where I chose to eat. When you see the squalor in the streets, the hole in the wall restaurants seem about as appetizing as a happy meal that had been sitting the sun for 16 days . . . after an elephant pooped on it.

My second night there I went to the Poipet Resort Casino for dinner. I asked where the restaurants were and the guy pointed me upstairs. The upstairs people told me they were downstairs. Finally, in the basement, I found a small food court with a buffet. None of the signage was in English (Which has got to tell you something), so I wasn’t sure how it worked. I approached the woman at the desk, and we had trouble communicating. It seems I had to get a coupon upstairs, after joining G Club International, or checking in or something. Eventually she told me to pay her 100 baht and I could go in (I did see something that said, “100 baht”). As I was getting out my 100 baht, a lady came from out of no where and handed me a coupon. The lady at the desk said, “okay,” and directed me toward the buffet. When I went to the buffet to thank the lady for the coupon, she gave me another one and said, “For tomorrow.” So I ended up getting 2 free buffet dinners from the generous stranger. And the food was pretty good too. I had two big plates each time.

One day I was walking down the street, and an SUV stopped next to me. The driver said, “Excuse me?” I turned to see a white American man in the driver’s seat. As I was turning my head he continued, “Are you the doctor?” Then immediately after seeing my face he said, “No you’re not.” Hmmm, if he thought I might have been the doctor, and had to ask, he had probably never seen him before. Why then did he immediately know that I was not the doctor after seeing me more clearly? Do I look like I could not be a doctor? This will haunt me for some time.

Anyway, I am one of the few who discarded all rational thought and went swimming in the cesspool that is Poipet, and I did not drown.

But I did find a new definition for the word “ruthless.”

Ruthless: Pawn shops in casinos.

It’s bad enough for people to open pawn shops near casinos, like in Atlantic City, NJ. But for a casino to operate one on the premises is just wrong! “Aww, was that your last baht . . . Hmmm, that’s a nice shirt.”

You might have noticed above that I snuck in the fact that I signed up for the teaching course. Yep, I finally did it. I’m taking the course with Chichester College. It is an actual college in England, but this is only a branch for the teaching course. So if all goes well, I’ll be spending a lot more time here than I originally planned. At least another year. And my life will change drastically. Also, the course is supposed to be very intensive, so this may be the last post until the class ends. But if I find time maybe I’ll post something.

All better go well, the course costs $1390 US! Plus I had to buy a new wardrobe. In order to get into the class, I had to answer 7 questions:

1) How would you describe yourself?
2) What are your areas of strength?
3) What are your weak areas?
4) What ages would you prefer to teach? Why?
5) What do you usually do in your spare time?
6) Why would you want to teach in Thailand?
7) What is (or are) the professional achievement/s that you are most
proud of?

I hate questions like that. Anyway here was the response of the admissions guy after I sent my answers:

” . . .I don’t think anyone has ever wrote such detailed answers before! It was a pleasure to read.”

Funny, I didn’t think they were detailed enough. Anyway, I thought I’d share my answer to question 5 with you:

5) What do you usually do in your spare time?

Well, the past 9 months has been my spare time. Every minute of it. In fact, if you are doing what you want to do, your entire life is your spare time. To take it even further, as I’m writing this, it’s becoming clear to me that everyone’s entire life, no matter what they are doing, is their spare time. This is the only time we’ve got. And if it is not your time, than who’s time is it? I understand most people would read this question, “What do you usually do when you are not working (for someone else)?” They may respond, “I like to go to the park and read, and go to the movies, and play tennis . . . ” and that may be what the author of the question had in mind. But even if you have an unsatisfying job, you made the decision to use that time–your time–to be at that job. It was time you had to spare in order to make money, and it was your decision to spend that time there. So for me, everything I have ever done in my life, has been done in my spare time. And that’s too many things to list.

What do you think?

Also, I’ve rented an apartment. It’s about a 5-10 minute walk to the school. It’s in a place I’ve stayed several times while in Bangkok, but I’ve never stayed in the apartment suite. I’ve always stayed in the cheap dorm room, which I’ve always had to myself. The daily rental rate for the apartment is 700 baht (approx $18.75). But if you are taking the course, or if you’ve stayed there so often that the lady knows you well, and you rent it monthly, it cost 8000 baht ($214). Plus I have to pay water and electricity. It’s furnished, and includes a bedroom, bathroom (cool water), a living room with a couch, a small tv, a refrigerator, and A/C only in the bedroom. But it has no cooking facilities, not even a microwave. However you can use the office for that, but it’s pretty far from my room.

The TV has HBO, and for two days after I moved in it had ESPN, but that changed to Super Sport, which is not nearly as good. It has no American sports, as far as I can tell. And you know what that means: Soccer, soccer, soccer. Also, HBO, and all movie channels here (all countries I’ve been in so far), show edited movies. The f-word is edited out, as is nudity, and various other things. Anyone who knows me knows that I f#@king hate censorship . . . and love nudity. But what can I do? At least they don’t edit movies in the theaters here. Two things different about going to the theater here are, 1) Before the movie, during the coming attractions and commercials, “Please stand and pay your respect to the King,” shows on the screen, and everyone stands. Then they play a montage of photographs of the king to music that he wrote. 2) Assigned seats.

Anyway, one thing that sucks about not having ESPN anymore is that the New York Mets (my favorite baseball team) are having a pretty good season, so far. And it’s possible they could be playing in October, which means the playoffs and possibly the World Series . . . Oh God I just jinxed them! Possibly in the World Series against the Yankees . . . oh oh, I just jinxed them too. Anyway, ESPN shows the games here. But even if I get a job by then, and move to a new place that has ESPN, it won’t matter, because I’ll be at work when the games are on here in the morning, except on the weekends. So I better not get a job until November. And one more thing. I still can’t get used to seeing Johnny Damon in a Yankees uniform.

Bad news. My camera broke. I can’t use the zoom anymore, so it’s stuck on wide angle. I also can’t zoom pictures I’ve taken to view detail on the screen. I hope I can get it fixed cheaply. Maybe if I get a decent job I’ll buy another, better camera.

Oh, and one other thing about my apartment. It is a part of a resort hotel that is involved, or was once involved with, the sex trade. So my bed is surrounded by mirrors on 3 walls, as well as the ceiling. But you get used to it after a while, and stop walking around naked all time.

About a minute after the dubbed kung fu movie ended, the lights inside the overnight bus from Vientiane, Laos to Pakse, Laos went off, engulfing us in darkness. Thirty seconds later, her head found my shoulder. It had only rested there a minute before she realized it, and she straightened herself back into her seat. Twenty minutes later my shoulder became her pillow once again. This time it lasted for about an hour. And we still had about 7 hours to go.

Three or four days earlier, after spending the better part of a month with June in Bangkok–shooting and selecting pictures to show you guys (see my last 3 posts)–I’d said goodbye to June, and to Bangkok. I boarded the 8:45pm train to Nong Khai, Thailand, one of the 5 border towns from Thailand into Laos. The scheduled 12 hour trip took more like 14 hours, but I was in the sleeper car, which I was lucky to get. I procrastinated in purchasing the ticket, and when June first called they said the sleepers were all booked. But she called back after finding out that all the buses were booked too, and they said they had added more cars. So I went alone to Hua Lumphong station to buy the ticket, letting June sleep. I got a ticket on the preferable bottom berth for 658 baht (approx $16.50 US). Then I came back to June’s to spend our last few hours together.

The beds are actually quite comfortable, as long as you are under 5’8″ (I mean the beds on the train). But it is still very difficult for me to fall asleep on them. I was at the end of the car where the noise is the greatest, plus it can be a very jarring ride. And even if it was a smooth ride I would still have to contend with the snorers, who have obviously done this many times before.

So I arrived at Nong Khai at around 10:45am the following morning, on no sleep. A short 20 baht (50 cents) tuk tuk ride later, I was at the border. Those devout readers of my blog know that the last time I departed Thailand by land, I had quite a harrowing experience (If you missed it here’s part Part 1 and Part 2 of my crossing into Cambodia. Very good reads I’ve been told.). But the crossing here is a bridge called the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge, so you wouldn’t expect any trouble here. And for the most part there wasn’t. I did get ripped off however, but not here.

I purchased my Lao visa in Bangkok. I think if you get your visa at the border it is only good for 15 days. If you get it ahead of time it’s good for 30 days, for the same price (but don’t quote me on that). So I went to the Lao Embassy in Bangkok, which is a short taxi ride from June’s apartment, to get the visa. The visa cost $35 US. There is an option to get it within an hour for an extra $5, or pick it up the next day for no extra charge. But they don’t really give you the option. It all happens so fast that you’ve paid the $5 and you wait an hour for the visa. And that’s fine because it saves you another trip, but since I was kind of close to the embassy, it would have been cheaper for me to come back the next day. But most tourists in Bangkok are not staying where I was so it would make sense for them to get it that day. But I accepted it, what the hell, I might as well get it over with now. But that’s not where I got ripped off.

When he told me the price he said, “1600 baht.” But I didn’t think I had that much baht on me so I asked if I could pay in US dollars. He said, “Forty-two dollars.” Again, it all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to calculate everything in my head, and I was thinking in terms of baht to dollars, not $35 + $5. I gave him a $50 bill, and he gave me 320 baht back (approx $8). Yes, that’s $42 dollars like he said, but that’s also $2 more than it should be: $35 + $5 = $40. This rip off was opposite from the Cambodia rip off. It cost more to pay in baht there.

But the actual crossing was a totally opposite experience from the Cambodian crossing. Having already secured my visa, I could go directly to the booth without applying for the visa on arrival, known in these parts as a VOA. When the officer stamped the entry visa on my passport, he only stamped it for 15 days. I said, “Isn’t it supposed to be thirty days?” He looked at it and said, “Oh, yeah,” and he changed it. Then in all sincerity, he said, “Sorry about that.” I said, “That’s Okay.” Then I kissed him. Okay I didn’t kiss him, but I wanted too. Those Cambodian guys can learn something from this guy. Well, it is called the Friendship Bridge after all.

Next, I needed to get to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. That’s where I would be staying for next 3 days. It’s about 23 km away from the border. On the grounds of the border station there is a company offering transpoartation to Vientiane, but I knew there was a cheaper way. I kept trying to get the girl to tell me where the cheaper rides were, but she kept pushing hard for me to use her service. Finally I walked away. There was a duty free shop across the street, so I headed there to get something to snack on (I didn’t have enough time to pick up anything in Bangkok before I left, so I hadn’t eaten anything in a while. June and I had to run through the train station in Bangkok to catch my train. It’s our standard practice). On my way to the shop I noticed a bunch of tuk tuks across the street from it. One of them was about to leave, and the driver waved to me. I decided to forgo food for another few minutes and take the ride, since this must be the cheaper transportation I was looking for. And I know they only leave once they’re full, and this one was full. I walked over to the tuk tuk and asked the driver how much. He said, “One dollar.” I repeated it and he nodded his head yes. That’s 5 times cheaper than the lady was asking.

When we arrived in Vientiane, I handed the guy a one dollar bill (They accept U.S. Dollars, Thai Baht, and Lao Kip here). He wouldn’t take the dollar, he wanted more. I reminded him that he said one dollar. He took out a Thai 20 baht bill and put it with the dollar, his way of telling me that’s how much he wanted now. After a little back and forth, I gave in and took out a 20 baht bill and gave him the one dollar and twenty baht ($1.50). I’ve been ripped off a lot on this trip. Fifty cents here, a dollar there, two dollars at the most, but it all adds up when you are trying to make a small amount of money last a year.

Anyway, I spent and uneventful 3 days in Vientiane, a nice little town. I did spend a little too much on accomodations though: $10 the first night, and $8 the next two. Well, I wouldn’t say it was totally uneventful. I did go to the ATM machines and withdrew 3,000,000 Kip. No, I didn’t type too many zeros. I’m a millionairre!

If you look at a map of Laos, you will see that Vientiane is in the middle of this long and narrow country. So I had a decision to make. How am I going to explore the country? Ultimately I decided to go to the extreme south first and work my way up to the mountainous north, where I’ll have a choice to either go to Vietnam, China, or back to Thailand (Which I really haven’t had a chance to explore yet, even though I’ve been there for 3 months on this trip) next. So I bought a bus ticket to the southern town of Pakse, a 10 hour overnight ride. This is where I should have come into Laos from Thailand in the first place. Saving me this trip. I belieive I got ripped off once again–this time by the lady at my guesthouse–on the price of this bus ticket. But it was my own stupid fault so I accept it as that. And this is where we entered this story.

My assigned seat was in the back of the gigantic, upscale, 32 seat, VIP bus. Curiously, the back seat patrons are not as highly valued as everyone else on the bus. The seats don’t recline as far as the others, and oddly, our blankets were inferior to every other seat’s blankets. I was one of the first people on the bus, so I was able to see and feel the other blankets. They were thicker and softer than ours, and their’s were all purple while ours were green. This further makes me think I was ripped off. The ticket cost me 190,000 kip (approx $19.00 US). You would think they’d charge less for the back seat, since they show the inferiority with the thin, coarse blankets. The lady knew I was getting the back seat (she told me), and I think she still charged me more than what a regular seat was worth. I’d seen signs at other places for less, but this is why it was my fault. For some reason I thought one of the signs I saw said 190,000 kip, but when I went back to look at it again after purchasing the ticket from my guesthouse, I saw that it said 170,000, not 190,000. I’m starting to get loopy.

In the other two back seats were 2 girls from Austrailia (The only other foreigners on the bus), and next to me was a middle-aged Lao woman.

I didn’t really mind that she was using my shoulder as a pillow, but this was going to be a long ride. Almost immediately after removing her head from my shoulder after having it there for an hour, she pressed her entire body against mine, and turned the other way, now pressing her ass against me, as if she wanted me to spoon her. Later she rested her foot on top of mine and brought her head back to me. A good portion of her body was clearly in my seat.

Now if this was a man, I would have felt very uncomfortable. I would never have let it get beyond the initial head on shoulder bit. But men are weird that way, as long as it’s a female it’s okay. But this lady was getting pretty carried away. Maybe if we’d had some kind of communication before hand, it wouldn’t have been so bad. At least I would have felt like I knew her a little. But we hadn’t even made eye-contact for God’s sake. I started to wonder if this was standard practice in Laos. I’d seen some other girls on the bus that I’d wished it was, but I also saw some that I was glad it was not.

Then she managed to move her leg so it was underneath my hand. Now my hand is resting on her leg, and her head is on my shoulder, more like my chest.

“All right lady, if you want to cuddle, c’mon, make the move, let’s cuddle!”

Of course I didn’t say that, but she wouldn’t have understood me anyhow. This was becoming a very surreal experience. Is this really happening?

So now I kept wondering what was going to happen when the bus stopped. Would there be any acknowledgement of what was going on? Is she some kind of nutcase who was going to complain that I was groping her? Finally I got my answer. Halfway through the trip we made a pit stop at another large bus station. She got off the bus with everyone else, but I remained on the bus. I used the buses toilet, and I had brought enough food with me, so I did not need to get off the bus. Plus I would have felt weird standing out there with her.

She came back on the bus with something she purchased from the stand, and put it in the compartment above us. Then she got back into her seat, got under her blanket, and adjusted the air device above. Then finally, she communicated with me. Without spoken language, she acknowledged that she had been using me as a bed and pillow, becasue it’s cold on the bus. Then she tried to speak something to me, but it was in Lao, and obviously I didn’t understand, and she did not understand English. When the bus continued into the night, and the lights went out, so did I continue to allow her my warmth.

Every once in a while she would make one of those, “I’m tired” sounds, which was kind of cute. But then she would also say things out of nowhere that I couldn’t understand, or at least they were monosyllabic sounds of some sort that she made in her sleep. Also the toilet was in the back of the bus, and once when someone made noise opening the door, she yelled at him, which was very creepy.

Suddenly, I started to feel very uncomfortable about the whole situation. Both because the weird sounds were freaking me out, and also the surrealness of it all was very weird. So now I tried to stay as far away as I could. But she continued to use my heat.

Finally, when we got near our destination, still in darkness, the interior bus lights came on in full force, and they put the loud Lao karaoke video on to wake us all up. I didn’t need any waking up since cuddle bunny wouldn’t let me sleep. Shortly after, she said something to the attendent. I think it was about her getting off the bus somewhere before the actual last stop. Then she grabbed her things and moved up to the front seat of the bus, which was vacated by someone who’d gotten off prior. When she left I don’t think she even gave me a smile or a nod or anything. But I can say that I think this was probably the weirdest experience I’ve had on this trip. So surreal.

When I got off the bus in Pakse, I shared a tuk tuk for 5000 kip with the Aussie girls from the other back seats of the bus. We went to where all the guesthouses were. Every guesthouse in Pakse, it seemed, was full. Then I found the girls sitting at an outdoor restaurant (They’re all outdoors in SEA) having breakfast. I asked them if they had any luck finding a place. They hadn’t either. After the first place they looked was full, they wasted no time and purchased a ticket to for a minibus to Si Phan Don (4000 Islands).

All the guesthouses and hotels in Pakse were full because of an event involving the temple there. The locals got all the rooms. So I went to get a ticket on the minibus to 4000 Islands as well, but the guy said the bus was full. Great! Now I’m stuck here with no place to stay. After sitting and wondering what I was going to do, the guy came to me and said that there was still a place on the minibus leaving at 8:30am afterall. So I took it. Si Phan Don is in the very deep south of Laos. If you look on the map I linked earlier in the post you will see it as Don Khong, Don Khon, and Don Dhet, 3 of the bigger islands. That’s where I was headed next anyway . . .

***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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

***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 ... [Continue reading this entry]