New Adventures In Backpacking

How cheap is Cambodia.

At the time of my visit, the exchange rate of 1 GBP equaled $1.75. The currency is riel, but it’s a rather useless currency and only used as change. I will put the cost in both.

Accommodation

The price of budget accommodation worked from area to area. It was possible to find a room at anything from $4 to $30 dollars (2.3 to 17gbp).

Food

A typical meal of fried noodles with vegetables or fresh fish bbq would cost anywhere around $1.50 to $4.00 (.85 to 2.3 gbp). As for breakfast food, it was typical to eat an omlette with the ever-present baguette for $1.50 (.85 gbp).

Alcohol

Local beer is the best bet for drinking on the cheap, and could practically be free at $0.50 a pint. Even mixed drinks or a glass of wine went for less than $3 or $4 (1.7 to 2.3 gbp). New Years Eve, for a full night’s entertainment, only cost me $15.00 (8.5 gbp).

Water/Soft drinks

A liter of water only cost $0.80. As for other options, a pot of tea or Khmer coffee went for $0.50 and a nice fresh juice went for $0.75.

Travel

A typical bus journey would last anywhere from two to eight hours, and cost around $2-$10 (1.15 to 5.7 gbp) depending on destination. Tuk tuks should only cost you $1, however, as a tourist you’re more likely to pay $2. If you wanted to hire a bicycle for a day’s rental, it was $1 for a bike with a basket, or a mountain bike went for $2. Lastly, a motorbike, the popular way to get around, went for a mere $3 dollars a day

Here’s a brief insight on how I spent my money and the costs involved.

Entrance to Angkor Wat…………… $20.00 / 11.5 GBP
Battambang – Seam Reap Boat trip $16/7.5 GBP
Fake Books…………… $5.00 / 2.7 GBP
Knock-off DVD’s………………… $1.50-$10.00 / .85 to 5.7 GBP
One Hour of Internet …………………………… $1.00 / .57 GBP
Museum Entrance ……………………… $2.00 / 1.15 GBP

I think there comes a point in every trip I have ever done when I am having a bad day that I always remind myself that at some point I will be lying in the sun, living in a basic cabin and have nothing to do other than read my book. On every trip, be it in Pai, Thailand or San Pedro Laguna in Guatemala, I always love finding a spot for just chilling out and soaking up every lazy minute.

Rabbit Island is a short boat ride from Kep and is so named as apparently it looks like a rabbit from above and not because there are lots of cute fluffy bunnies hopping all over the island. I must admit to be being slightly disappointed with that. I was delighted to find my own little hut made from bamboo to rest in at night and a practically empty beach with hammocks to spend my day as I devoured book after book with the occasional game of water Frisbee or football with a kid’s stolen football thrown in to break up this hectic schedule.

At night I drank beers on the semi-deserted beach with a lovely group of people. The music in the bar was piped in by the owner’s ipod, so when that failed I rushed to provide the island with music and played DJ for the night. I managed to play the entire Frightened Rabbit album on Rabbit Island and sat there filled with self-smugness and glowing, safe in the knowledge I was indeed the biggest music geek on the island!

It was such a lazy few days that I can barely stretch to writing 300 words for this blog so will provide you with a few pictures to show you what hard times I had hit at this point of my trip!

It was a six-hour journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Phen. I had had a booze laden evening the previous night and not much sleep. I spent the first half of the bus journey in a deep window-licking sleep. As is traditional with most long distance bus journeys, there was a half hour stop which I tried my best to sleep through, but the noise of the other passengers woke me and as much as I tried to repress the feelings of hunger and thirst it got the better of me and feeling very squinty eyed, I got off the bus in search of water and cookies.

I was greeted off the bus with something I had become very accustomed to in Cambodia—the sight of several children trying to sell me something, which was of no use to me. Normally I am the polite tourist who will always reply with a friendly ‘no thanks’ to street vendors, little or large. But on this morning with my eyes still squinty and my mood firmly still in the just out of bed stage, I grumpily walked passed the kids without acknowledging their sales pitches. Big mistake.

‘Hey Mister! Do you like spiders?’ I heard it, but did not really take any notice of them, presuming it was yet another sales pitch, and then the little girl in front of me reached into her plastic bag filled with leaves, and produced a rather large tarantula and placed it on my stomach. At first I presumed it was a toy to play tricks on tourists, but then it started moving up my stomach. My morning mood soon changed from one of grumpiness to panic. I have never seen a tarantula, never mind contemplated having one climb up my stomach first thing in the morning. I froze, mainly because I was failing to take it all in then screamed at the little girl to ‘Get it off me now’ but in stronger terms that should never ever be used whilst addressing a sweet six year girl.

I am by no means scared of spiders. I was just a little shocked really. I can only imagine how horrific an experience that would have been for someone who actually was scared of spiders. I reckon my youngest sister would probably still be in hospital recovering from shock had it happened to her.

Once my heart rate had cooled down a little and I found the required cookies, I met up with Vince who was having great fun with the kids. It appears their purpose was to sell deep fried spiders (even in Scotland we don’t do that) for the tourists to eat. For one dollar you could have had your own little spider buffet. Being vegetarian, I could think of a better breakfast, but it seems pretty common practice here in Cambodia. Vince was not up for it either but was more than happy to pay the dollar and watch the kids have deep fried tarantula.

The children of Cambodia really are wonderful. Wiser, sharper and funnier beyond their years. Inside all working class Cambodian children seems to be a mean sales person with put downs and quips for any tourist who dares not purchase one of their items for sale. They will try all avenues to get that dollar out of you. They will tell you the capital of Madagascar, play noughts and crosses, insult your looks, swear at you explicitly in Swedish, and threaten to vandalize your bike if you don’t buy their water, all for the sake of one dollar. Despite all their harsh and aggressive sales pitches, it’s very hard to be too threatened by them when they have the face of an angel and sport a Sponge Bob t-shirt.

I found that instead of haggling or rejecting their sales it was easier just to talk to them, play games with them or let them play with whatever technology I had in my hands. Like all children, they loved having their pictures taken. Despite being forced to work out of necessity for their parents, their language skills, and sometimes rudeness, they are just like any other six year old around the world.

Siem Reap is the man made town built to support the mass flow of tourists who come to Cambodia to visit the world famous Angkor Wat. It is safe to assume for the majority of tourists Siem Reap is their introduction to Cambodia, which really is a shame because it is by no means a fair reflection of this wonderful country.

The town flows with up-market hotels, a casino, and shopping malls. I’d liken it to the Costa Del Sol of Asia. In the heart of the tourist hub is the awful named Pub Street. As the name suggests it is full of bars, all blasting out loud music over the top of each other and, like most places I have been to in Asia this year, full of pubs with barely anyone in them. I wonder how these bars make any money and suspect they don’t. You have to wait until very late at night when bars start closing and everyone piles into the remaining few open pubs before anything remotely resembling an atmosphere starts, although I suspect like most, watching ugly western men plying Cambodian hookers with drink is not my first choice of night time entertainment.

Unlike my two nights in Siem Reap, my day at Angkor Wat will remain firmly entrenched in my memory. My second wonder of the world on this trip, it really had a lot to live up to after my amazing few days at the Taj Mahal. I’m pleased to report it really delivered. Angkor is the heart and soul of Cambodia and quite rightly a great source of pride for all Khmers.

I won’t bore you with all the facts and figures about the temples. I’ll let my pictures do the talking. It really was like being in my own version of an Indiana Jones movie. It is just jaw droppingly amazing and beyond my comprehension how something so incredibly complex yet inspirational could have been constructed as far back as reportedly the 13th century.

I should stress how big the actual site of Angkor is and it should not be attempted to be viewed by foot. Most people rely on tourist bus tours and tuk tuk drivers to ferry them around the massive site. Vince and I decided to hire bicycles from Siem Reap, a mere 15km away, which turned out to be an inspired choice as it really was the perfect way to see Angkor—our only problem being the hordes of children selling food, water and terrible souvenirs. It’s hard to get annoyed with them as they are only doing what their parents feel they need to do to help their families survive. Their grasp of English is very impressive and they are aggressive little sales people. One girl, after me informing her that I had no girlfriend to give her incredibly ugly $1 bracelets to, told me ‘You know why you have no girlfriend? Because you are cheap man.’ An excellent judge of character as well so it seems!

Believe it or not even the stunning temples may not be my overriding memory of my day at Angkor Wat. We stopped of for a bit of lunch and a place to hide from the unforgiving sun and got talking to one of the local waitresses who I estimated as being anything from sixteen to eighteen. After a tasty lunch we took to lying in the hammocks provided to allow our food to digest before getting back on the road, when the waitress approached us with an English textbook and asked could we help her learn. Of course we were happy to oblige even though it was the most basic of stuff like ‘Hello’ and ‘what is your name.’ After about 30 minutes of this which was actually good fun and something I have done before, the girl informs me that she has to go home now and opens up the back of her text book and leaves it in front of me for me to see. Turns out her English was better than she let on.

I didn’t. Honest.

We stayed on the site right until closing time, keen to take pictures of the sun going down over this magnificent landmark. It led to us cycling home through the forest in the complete dark. Peddling as fast as we could, unsure of what direction we were heading in, we caught up with a tuk tuk. If we were greyhounds, then this was our hare. After a few months of inactivity it was extremely hard work peddling as fast as I could to keep up. Especially as he was more than keen to earn his money from his passengers and went home via a route that took us 30 minutes more than our journey there.

As we approached the city and light returned we ditched our guiding light and peddled as hard as we could to arrive back at the bike shop ensuring we reached it before closing time. More important still was getting Vince’s passport, which was left as a deposit, to ensure we could leave the next day. Whizzing past tuk tuks, cars, cutting in and out of the traffic like we were in some sort of invisible force field, and reaching the shop three minutes before closing time was a wonderful way to end a memorable visit to one of the world’s greatest wonders.

Whilst most tourists head straight to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat, ever the trendsetters, myself and Vince decided to go a different route to avoid yet another scam and had our first Cambodian adventure in the town of Battambang.

It was the ideal place to start, a stylish little riverside city with few tourists and plenty of tell tale signs that let me know I was not in Thailand anymore! I can see how people doing the reverse journey to me and using this as their last stop would have fallen in love with its tranquil atmosphere and easygoing culture. Allegedly it’s Cambodia’s second biggest city but I saw no signs of a bustling city. It’s remarkably compact with most of the bars, cafés and hotels located in the riverfront. It also provided me and Vince to do what we do best, chase pavement.

No matter where we were having a drink, we were always convinced there was something better going on elsewhere. So we’d spend our entire night walking the streets of our chosen location, looking for the mother of all parties, but instead we’d normally end up cold, tired and locked out at closing time. Battambang’s Holy Grail was the Riverside Balcony Bar, which sounded amazing, and after about 45 minutes of pavement chasing we found it, and it was quite delightful. It was just a shame there were no other people there! A brief stop-off at Smoking Pot Bar also proved to be a disappointment; they should be charged with an offence under the Trade Description Act, that’s all I am saying.

Battambang’s real tourist attraction is not really the town itself. It’s the boat journey between Siem Reap and Battambang that draws people. The journey takes around eight hours by the slow boat down the Stung Sangker River and starts at a very early 7 am, but I could not think of a better way to spend the first part of my day, than to sit and watch Cambodia’s most scenic stretch of water pass by. As well as a variety of wildlife to spot it was incredible to see so many people living in floating villages. I even saw a floating town hall and a floating school. It made me really wonder what life was like for these people living out on the river and how different their lives are to most Cambodians, never mind mine. By the delight on their faces and the over-enthusiastic waves we received from the local children as we sailed past I am guessing life out on the river cannot be the most exciting existence. Having an affair with your next-door neighbor would prove hard to be discreet about too.

Sitting on the boat’s roof in the early afternoon, reading my book, enjoying this amazing experience and having had a rather enjoyable lunch in one of the river houses I made the uncharacteristic mistake of taking my shirt off and even worse allowing myself to drift off sleep for the good part of an hour. The result? The most ridiculous vest top tan you will ever see. Scottish people and sun do not mix. One the plus side it will give women something else to laugh about when I take my clothes off.

After eight gloriously relaxing hours the boat arrived at our destination. I got a little surprise from our tuk tuk driver who was waiting to collect us. Our previous night’s hotel had arranged it for us and something tells me they were less than happy with the tip I didn’t leave them!

I’ve been called worse.

My good friend Vince joined me in Bangkok. We met during my central America trip last summer when we were both recruited by a couple of terrible southern Americans looking to bring their taxi fare to Antigua down. Once they found out Vince had no cash on him (neither did I but I wasn’t telling them that), they tried to ditch him whilst he was searching for an ATM. Being the nice guy that I am and almost 99 times out of one hundred prefer the company of Dutch people to people from Texas, I stayed with him instead. The good deed was returned when my hostel had over booked and whilst I was walking around aimlessly trying to find a bed for the night I bumped into Vince who took me to his hotel and I found the last dorm bed in all of Antigua.

We traveled around Guatemala together, sharing stories, none of which can really ever be relayed over this website. In fact traveling with Vince really makes me wish I had a travel blog written under an alias name that my mum would never read. Since then we have kept in touch visiting each other in Edinburgh and Amsterdam respectively and countless emails swapping stories from our rather complex personal lives.

It was good to finally catch up with him in the flesh on the roof top pool of our hotel in Bangkok. He was just as I remembered him—tall, Dutch and placed next to the nearest semi-naked women he could find. It was also good to have someone with me who was on holiday and in a rush and had a planned itinerary. After a few months of planning, researching and gathering as much info as I could about new places I was about to visit it was nice to just sit back and let someone else do all the hard work. One day here, two days there, I couldn’t have cared less.

We set off very early from Bangkok taking a tourist bus to the border. Both of us being seasoned travelers (Vince is a tour guide in his spare time in the summer holidays) we were keen to avoid the obvious scams taking place.

While the direct Bangkok-Siem Reap bus tickets are cheap, the bus operators make their real money from the commission they receive from guesthouses for bringing guests. Their goal seems to be to make the journey last as long as possible because if you arrive in daylight at a relatively early time you will have the energy to go look for a cheap place that suits your budget but after a long journey that finishes in a strange new town in darkness you are more likely to stay in the guesthouse that the bus operator has dropped you of at even if it’s twice the amount of the place you actually wanted to stay in.

The bus operators will offer to get your Visa for Cambodia, making sure of an easy passage and scare you off with tales of having to wait hours if you try it on your own. For 37 dollars they would do all the hard work for you, We knew it only cost 20 dollars at the border and when the tour company stopped to have an overly long lunch outside the border town, which of course we recognized as the tactic above, we jumped on a tuk tuk to the border ditching are greedy operator and feeling superior to our fellow travelers who were signing up for the scam like sheep.

Our joy however, was short lived. You see, even Tuk Tuk drivers are in on this scam and instead of taking us to the border as we had instructed him, he drove us to his mate’s visa application centre to which he would be getting commission for bringing our stupid asses to. Left god knows where and a little too tired and unwilling to fuss about dealing with trying to get the border ourselves, we bit the bullet and paid the 37 dollars. We left one scam and walked straight into another one. At least a poorly tuk tuk driver would have been getting a little commission out of it.

Our annoyance grew as we got to the border. Not only was it as simple as any airport visa application and took a matter of minutes but the sheep we had left on the bus had also managed to get there before us. Except they did not have a baby sitter from the visa application outlet like us shadowing our every move looking out for us treating us like teenagers before bundling us into a taxi.

Our feeling of smug superiority had well and truly vanished. It’s almost impossible not to get scammed when traveling, be it small things like paying over the odds for simple things or like a scam I heard happened to a friend over a card game in Malaysia which one day will get a blog all to itself.

Being scammed is all part of the fun, it happens even to the best of us, even me!