Bless the Cambodians for their sense of humour
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2007
1
62
76
Trip End
Ongoing
Siem Reap,
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The good news on the road trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap is that - finally - efforts are being made to seal the road to make it less of a horrendously bumpy ride between the two hotspots. Unfortunately, that's the only good news. Read on and weep.
Just like two years ago, the Cambodian border officials are still horribly corrupt, hiking up the price for the visa from what is officially 20 USD to 1000 baht (which is equivalent to more than 30 USD), refusing to accept dollars even though the price of the visa is posted everywhere (at least on the Laos to Cambodia border, they just ask for 1 USD "stamping fee"). All along the Thai-Cambodian border, people are making money by offering a "visa service", which entails taking your filled in visa form (which obviously you've filled in yourself, duh!) to the border officials, and pocketing the surplus paid over 20 USD for themselves. I really really hate this, as there's nothing you can do about it (and they just know it), you can't even report the names of the officials as they won't provide their names and you can't read the name on their badges. Crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia is one of the most frustrating affairs of this trip, and I'm disheartened to find that in two years time nothing has changed.
On the Cambodian side, you are then left in the clutches of the local transport maffia (LTM). They officiate themselves as the "government" transport company, which they quite obviously aren't. They sell bus tickets for 12 USD per person or taxi's to Siem Reap for 60 USD (or 15 USD per person). Having hooked up with a young Irish couple from Dublin, Sue and Gary (what a nice name) at the Cambodian border, I cursed, haggled, complained, rolled eyes, stuttered, howled and wept and finally managed to get the taxi down to 45 USD (which is still overpriced). The LTM was not amused when I initially accepted their first quote of 15 USD per person for a taxi, on the proviso that we each got our individual taxi. No sense of humour, those Cambodian ratbags.
And after a bumpy three hours over the almost-completely-nearly-started-on-being-paved, but-not-quite-wholly-finished-except-for-the-first-10% road to Siem Reap, you are left on the outskirts of town in the able hands of a "free" tuktuk (that's a contradictio in terminis if ever I've known one) which will take you to any place in Siem Reap, providing its the place they want you to stay, for which they receive their commission and you pay through your nose for. After a full day, of near-continuous irritations by a string of devious, deceitful Cambodians, I was honestly very very happy when I reduced the aforementioned tuktuk driver to a shameful showing of effing and cursing, after I declined to even look at the place he wanted me to stay. Really made my day.
I have a tremendous amount of goodwill for Siem Reap, all built up after my first visit to the place, but having been there three times in two years, and seeing this city near the fantastic temple complex of Angkor be completely mismanaged, this was definitely also my last time. Tourism has quite obviously reached its peak, but hotels continue to mushroom throughout the place. Tuktuk drivers, the vermin of the transport sector, rated just below rats and cockroaches in the Barnes' scale of appreciation, luckily still beating amoebic dyssentry and syphilis though, now easily outnumber the amount of tourists by 3:1 and are becoming increasingly aggressive in hawking for trade. The golden boy of the years ago has grown up into a spoilt, wingeing and extremely unpleasant little brat.
Add to that the fact, that every time I've been to Cambodia now, all the transport companies (and I mean every one) has lied stonefaced about the amount of time a boat or bus will take to reach the destination (add at least five hours to every bustrip and four hours to boat trips), has lied about the type of transport ("it's a first-class air-con bus with a loo onboard, honest guv!") and I'm afraid to say that I hope the whole place just sinks into the mud which the road from Poi Pet to Siem Reap so regularly becomes, and goes through a much needed bust-period to clean out some of the worst excesses of tourist exploitation.
So, if you really want to see Angkor, do yourself a favour: book a cheap Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Siem Reap. It's only twice as much as the cost of the overland trip, one tenth of the time and about one hundredth of the aggravation.
Can't end this entry on such a sour note, so I'm glad to say that the some of the redeeming features of the place, e.g. the lounge club Blue Pumpkin, a little oasis of peace, the Irish pub Molly Malone, the restaurants Soup Dragon and Dead Fish Tower are all still well worth a visit when you're there. After all that moaning and groaning, I've worked up quite a thirst. Last opportunity to have myself an ice cold Angkor Beer, I suppose. Always enjoy them.
Cheers!
