Siem Reap -- Part I

hola compadres... a word of warning: this is going to be a long entry. as bill belichick would say, "it is what it is..." this entry is going to encompass two major events on our journey thus far: the agonizing bus ride from bangkok to the cambodian border and the assorted shenanigans associated with that, culminating in our ultimate victorious arrival in siem reap; the second part of this entry is going to cover the magnificent temples of angkor wat, the ruin to which these iconic buildings fell during the khmer rouge regime, and their gradual rebirth into bastions of capitalism and domestic pride. i hope that made sense.

so every backpacker who rolls through southeast asia goes to cambodia for one thing and one thing only: to see angkor wat. for those of you who havent heard of angkor wat, do a quick google search and you will inevitably see some stunning photographs of these ancient buddhist temples. they were constructed between the 9th and 11th centuries by the powerful, yet peaceful angkor people of that region. the angkors created a society so sophisticated and forward-thinking that it rivals the great ancient civilizations that we learn about in school, like the aztecs, incans, mayans, sumerians, egyptians, phonecians, rome, etc.

(side note: the reason why we dont learn about ancient angkor in school is the same reason why the international community ignored a heinous genocide that took place in cambodia in the late 70's: the people have dark skin and the land has no profitable natural resources. the reason why we learn about the aztecs, incans, mayans, and other south american civilizations is because of their proximity to us; we learn about the ancient european and african civs because their roles in history (our version of history, that is) are secured in our history books.)

the ankgors are widely recognized as amazing architects and scholars; the walls of the temple are adorned with intricate fresco-like carvings, all unique, all depicting events in history, all praising buddha. it's really a site to see. (go ahead, search google images for "angkor wat".... i know you want to.)

anyway, that's the lead in to the first part of this entry: the journey by bus from the modernities and excess of bangkok to the poverty and starvation that is cambodia.

originally, we were going to fly or maybe take a train from bangkok to siem reap. on the map, the journey appears simple. the two cities are perhaps only 225 km from each other. we figured that by bus, it could only possibly take maybe 8 hours, including the time it took to cross the border and get our visas, et cetera. skye and his dad went to the travel agency to book a flight. the travel agent quoted a price of $300. papa skee thought that the price was for 3 people; it turned out to only be for one person. with the flight out of the question, skeelow and his dad somehow negotiated a $30 a person bus ride. the travel agent told us that we had to be ready outside of our hotel at 8 the next morning and that the journey would take upwards of 12 hours.

unfazed by this, they booked the bus and we waited the next morning until about 830 for the bus to come and get us. the first part of the trip went very well. we were in a small shuttle with about 10 other people and the AC worked extremely well.

skye and i took turns (between the rest stops) sitting next to this german guy named jurgen. what a character! so jurgen is a depraved homosexual (we think) who is on a 30-day visitation visa for thailand. in order to preserve his perverted lifestyle (complete with ladyboys, we think), jurgen had to make this special trip, just to cross the border to cambodia, get a stamp, and to come back to thailand -- presumably to carry on with whatever the hell he does there for another 30 days. the funny thing is, it took him a very long time to articulate this to us.

another thing about jurgen, besides the fact that he wasnt actually going to siem reap, was that he listened to the most outrageous europop music, turned up all the way in his headphones. so everyone had no problem hearing avril levene (i have no fucking clue how to spell that bitch's name, and i dont care enough to look it up...suffice it to say that i know that the spelling is off here) belt out 'complicated' or some german dj screaming out "gangster" over and over and over. jurgen would rock back and forth, eyes closed, mouthing the words, basically rocking out in the middle of this shuttle full of assorted tourists. it made me a bit uncomfortable, to say the least.

the other people on the bus were equally interesting. there were two guys from canada who had super-strong canadian accents -- like we're talking cartoon style. they were also such fucking stereotypical canadians, it wasnt even funny. actually, it was pretty funny. they would carry on conversations like:

gilbert: you guys are from california, eh? thats a beautiful place, eh? i took my daughter to go visit disneyland. in canada, we dont have big amusement parks like you do in the states.

his fat friend: ive got a daughter as well. 14 years old, eh? you guys are goin' against to flow; in canada, we work together....maybe thats just a canadian thing.... if i get stuck at the border because of you, im goin' to be pissed off, eh? in canada, we don't fuckin ---

gilbert: hey! don't you say the f-word!

his fat friend: i will say it! im all turned inside out, eh?!

gilbert: don't you get mouthy! im sorry, i apologize for my lippy friend. lets have a beer, eh?

his fat friend: i'll say what i want, eh? these guys dont understand how it is in canada! they're all a bunch of selfish babies!

gilbert: hey! do you have blood in your mouth, eh?

his fat friend: i will not bite my tongue! im tellin' you, if these guys hold me up, im goin to be majorly pissed off, eh?!

me: WE'RE NOT IN FUCKING CANADA ANYMORE, DOROTHY! SHUT YOUR FUCKING TRAP, YOU FUCKING HOSER!!

(actually, i didnt say that; he was a really big and sweaty guy of about 50 who could have undoubtedly ripped both of my arms off. i would have liked to have seen papa skee take this guy on in some sort of deathmatch though.... i think papa skee would have housed him.)

that previous conversation is about 75% accurate; the reason why the fat guy was so pissed off at us is where all of the madness begins.

so what we didnt know about the bus ride and the border crossing is that it is all a big scam for the thai guides and bus people to make a ton of money. just before we got to the cambodian border, we stopped to have lunch at this really sweet spot that had lots of mosquitoes and really heavy wooden chairs. after eating some chicken pad thai and drinking some beer chang, we were summarily asked to fill out our visa forms, give them two separate passport photos, and to also pay them 40 bucks. this is when the shit hit the fan.

skye read in his lonely planet book that the visa was 20 bucks. we tried to get visas online, but didnt. the price online was 25 bucks. now these people are asking us for 40 bucks so they can stamp our shit and walk us right through? sounds like a bunch of crock to me.... so basically, we sat through about 20 minutes of straight up lying by the guys, trying to extort money from us. in the end, everyone paid the 40 bucks except for me, skye, papa skee, and this chinese-australian guy with perhaps the best name ive ever heard: chengus -- pronounced just like it looks "chong-gus". one word. classic. he also had the perfect sydney accent and basically didnt ever say a word unless he had to. talking to that guy was like pulling teeth from an musk ox.

we get to the border after the fat canadian basically threatened our lives and it turns out that we were 100% correct. the visa forms they gave us were bogus. the visas themselves cost 20-25 bucks (we had to pay the extra westerners tax) and everyone who had paid the dudes had to wait in line, just like everyone else. the only difference was that we were doing it the legit way by actually going to the visa office at the border, paying them, and getting our visas. it turns out that we only needed one passport photo and had to fill out an entirely new form. what do you think those guys from the bus do with all of that information on the bogus forms? they have your passport number, your picture, and other relevant information. they must be peddling fake passports. it just has to be.

long story short: we get into this massive line to cross the border that was inching up bit by bit. and who do we see just a few people in front of us? our bus group, who we had left to go get our legit visas. no one seemed very happy. we nestled in behind the last guy and waited for our turns in line. the guys from the bus must have paid someone there to hold us up, because the officer looked at my passport about 100 times for about 10 minutes after the last person from our group went through. after getting outside, we realized that we had been left. it was just chengus sitting there, motionless, expressionless, devoid of any sort of human emotion. i asked him what had happened. he shrugged.

we had to take a bus from the border in poipet to the bus depot to take buses to siem reap. this is another scam. first this dude gets on the bus and tries to upsell you to a taxi. for $15 a person, you can take a taxi, which is faster and less disgusting. (we had been promised air conditioning and a bathroom on our bus by the thai travel agents, but we were holding no illusions at this point that our bus would even run.) then the dude tells us that there is a legit money changing place right next to the bus depot that we could go to to change our money into cambodian 'riel'.

the exchange rate was criminal; our buddy changed $300 and only got around $105 in riel. what a rip! they know that you dont know what the exchange rate is, so they gouge you big time. the bus depot was just this big room with all these dudes in it trying to get you to take a taxi. eventually, we were able to talk to someone in the know. she called some people on her cell phone (a big deal item here) and they begrudgingly agreed to let us on the next bus because we still had a receipt for our bus tickets. we were made to put on bright colored stickers for reasons i still do not know and we waited for about 2 hours in the depot until a bus arrived. by that time, there were loads of fellow travelers out there also getting ripped off. after a lot of deliberation and negotiation and basically screaming our heads off, we were allowed on this bus. after some more shenanigans, we were off.

the road from poipet to siem reap is perhaps the most traveled road in all of cambodia, with everyone doing to bangkok to siem reap to phnom penh to fly somewhere else circuit. knowing this, im sure it would surprise you to learn that the road is absolutely unpaved. the bus could only go about 15 mph, tops. all around, there are major detours and holes and people -- anything you can imagine -- in the way.

(side note: there is a pretty well-documented rumor that accuses a major thai airline of bribing the cambodian government so that the road is never finished. they have a monopoly on the bangkok to siem reap route -- hence the outrageous $300 flight we were quoted. thats just one example of the rampant corruption that exists here in southeast asia. in cambodia, you can kill someone and get away scot free for a $25 bribe. im serious.)

the bus ride was the most harrowing experience of my life. because the road is unpaved, all traffic kicks up this fine dust that blankets everything. the was no AC and no bathroom on the bus, obviously, so we had to ride with the windows open. no fun. every 10 seconds or so, the bus driver would slam on the horn so people would get out of the way. there were pickup trucks full of over 20 people cruising down this road. women, children, workers, everyone just rode in this dustbowl. along the way, the poverty slams you in the face like a 2-ton wrecking ball. people are so poor, they sleep in piles of trash. there is absolutely no infrastructure anywhere to be seen. its just this open expanse of desert, kind of like a wasteland. as far as the eye can see, there are just big dust clouds and some very modest rice patties. it's really shocking; you have to see it to believe it. out of respect, we didnt take many photos.

we eventually got to siem reap after about 8 hours on this bus. by this point, we had had it with all of the bullshit corruption going on so we refused to stay at the guesthouse the bus brought us to. we decided to go to this other guesthouse and ended up staying next door to the one we requested. the place was called 'good kind guesthouse'. the people were lovely. skeelow and i bought some shitty cambodian weed from some kid at the guesthouse, rolled some joints, and set off walking. not long after, we ran into some american girls who accepted our joint when we passed it to them. they were from DC. they were also pretty much the last americans we have seen in cambodia. nothing much happened; we talked about where they had been and got some more ideas for our journey. after this, we turned in. it was pretty late. the next morning, we would take our pilgrimage to angkor wat.

thats enough for right now. i will write the second half of this entry the next time i sit down. hold out hope: skeelow may very well make an appearance here in the blog shortly. right now, he has a bad case of 'sianouk's revenge', the ugly stepchild of 'montezuma's revenge'; it's not pretty at all.

adios until next time.