22nd August, Thailand to Cambodia, Siam Reap

Off to Cambodia...

I was picked up in a mini bus with a couple from London and a Mother / Son from Waiuku. The Kiwi lady had visited some pretty interesting places; Iran, Rwanda and Uganda were among her favourites.

We travelled to the border where a 'guide' organised our Cambodian visas for us. I knew that the price was US$25 and that it was easy to do myself but he said that he had to do it... I protested but he said that if I did it myself I would have to take a bus later in the evening as I would hold the group up... the rest of the group looked at me as if I was some stingy dick worrying about $10 so I just said OK.

Cambodia was in stark contrast to Thailand, you see the poverty as soon as you cross the border. Whereas Thailand has tar seal, Cambodia has pot-holed dirt roads, the people were skinnier and I wondered why some were pedalling bikes with their arms until I realised it was because they had no legs; victims of land-mines. There were burnt out shells of buildings which may or may not be remnants from the civil war and most of the vehicles were overloaded. So many toyota camrys!

The next part of the bus scam, which I think I've actually read about before, was the currency converter. We were told by our guide that there were no ATM's in Siam Reap (there are) so we had to change currency at his special man near the border. I don't know what rate I got my Riel for but I'm sure it was shitty. And the thing is we didn't need to anyway as US dollars are more common than Riel.

4,000 Riels = US$1, which is why I am annoyed I have no-one to play poker with, say half-a-million buy in?

The next part of my bus scam was when I found my connecting bus was not quite what I was expecting. It was full of rubbish, had people on the roof, livestock... I may exaggerate slightly but it was bad. My guide then said that if I wanted to go with the rest of the group in the taxi I had to pay another 2,000 Baht. Bus = 6 hours or Taxi = 3 hours... I was fucked off. I expressed my anger with him while the rest of the group waited inside a building. Reluctantly I accepted and gave him his Baht. I didn't realise that the group was watching me from inside and it was a bit awkward when I came back in.

We also met up with a German named Jonus at this stage, he'd studied at an English public school so his accent was hard to pick.

The road through to Siam Reap was shocking, the dusty pot-holed road turned to a slippery muddy track. Cambodia's landscape is very flat, and is prone to flooding which is why the roads are elevated. The fact that this is monsoon season means water covers most of the countryside, only the water buffalo and fishermen seem to benefit from it. Those on scooters were sliding all the way along the muddy road or having to push their bikes along. The drive was chaotic, we narrowly avoided a couple of head-ons, managed to push a scooter into a ditch and nearly knocked over a couple of dogs.

We had our car washed half way down the dirt road, I tried some cake made from a vendor on the side of the road while we were there, it was strange - covered in hard icing.

We had dinner at the hotel and after myself and Jonus went for a wander around the city. We were walking down a dirt road in the dark when we came across two ladies coming from the opposite direction. One, who was stumbling, had a drip coming out her arm, the other was walking beside her holding the bag nice and high. I can't imagine that was the most sterile place to receive intravenous fluid.

Before going to bed I had a shower, when I came out I noticed the man-hole cover was open in my room. This was dodgy as I'm sure it was not open beforehand. I went and told them but had to close it myself in the end.