So This Is Cambodia

Jen and I were both pretty excited to be heading to Cambodia. We'd heard wonderful things about Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, if the news about Phnom Penh was a little less than inspiring. When we landed at Siem Reap International, we filled out our visa forms and hit up the ATM. Funny thing, it gave out US dollars. I was ahead of Jen in line, so I handed in my form, one passport photo and my passport. The official told me it would 1000B. As we had just left Laos, the land of kip, I had no Thai baht on hand. I asked how much in dollars, and he said $20. Weird, I thought, since it's roughly 32B to $1 so he was actually charging me less.

I found out afterwards that he had made Jen pay in baht, to the tune of 1000B. Shifty, we thought, but didn't spend much time worrying. After we had gathered our bags, we stopped at the taxi stand and asked for a ride to Earthwalkers, a guest house on the outskirts of town. We didn't have an address, just a point on a map, and hoped they'd know where it was. The guy in charge took our $5 and pointed us towards a taxi. He told the guy where to go, and we set off.

We'd made it only a few meters down the road when the taxi driver asked us where the hotel was. I tried to explain it on the map, which he didn't understand. He kept insisting that he should take us to a hotel in town, but we said no, we have reservations, we've paid already for our hotel. (This wasn't true, but we'd been warned of scams such as this.)

Jen then tried telling him things around that area, but still, nothing. Finally she said it was near the Lao Airlines office, did he know where that was? Yes, he did. Driving slow enough for Miss Daisy, he eventually pulled into an empty parking lot on the side of the road, looking around and muttering that Lao Airlines was around here somewhere. We asked him to make the next right then, as that was how it appeared on the map.

A few minutes later, we had passed Bangkok Airlines office, which was past the turn off. He again pulled aside, and when we asked him to turn around and look for the street again, he refused. He started getting angry, as did Jen, while I just sat there wondering what the hell we were supposed to do. He told us to get out of the car or he was going to take us home with him. Jen and I tried to point out that we had paid him to take us to the hotel, and that was what he should do. He refused to turn around and finally, unsure of what he might do, we got out of the car and started walking.

Luckily, we soon found the road we that lead to Earthwalkers, and although the only room available was a dorm with two sets of bunks and a fan, the staff seemed nice and assured us they would have a private room with AC available for the next night. We dropped our gear in the room, went and had some lunch and then laid by the pool for awhile, which helped sooth our frazzled nerves, and made us worry less about what Cambodia had in store for us.