Cambodia Trip
Dec. 2004
We landed in Bangkok on the 16th of December and stayed overnight at the Buddy Lodge on Khaosan Road. The BL is a place that's a bit too nice for the area, but it's hard to escape the comforts of home. There are places we could stay that are much cheaper, even as low as $5 a night, but you get what you pay for. The BL is 1,800 Baht per night, assuming 100 Baht is about 2.5 yen and 1,000 Baht being about 2,500 yen, our place was close to 5,000 yen or $50. That's was per room, not per person. I didn't mind paying that much for a nice place right on the main strip. Since this night was covered in what the others had already paid me, they certainly didn't mind either.
One of the group flew in separately from the 3 of us and she was at the hotel when we got there. If you ever fly to Bangkok, ignore the people in the airport that approach you for a taxi ride. They wanted 600 Baht and we were too tired to bargain. If you go outside to the taxi stand it's only 200 Baht. That's a difference of $18 and $6, roughly.
We hung out on Khaosan Road for the night and I had my Pad Thai, which I love. Then we did some mild shopping and exploring and went back to the hotel. We checked out around noon and took a taxi to the airport. We paid the silly 500 Baht fee for leaving the Kingdom of Thailand and waited for our plane. We were in an odd area when we boarded. There were no boarding ramps and no planes near. I figured that was because it was a small plane and was parked on the runway. Sure enough a bus pulls up and we board and it drives us out there. We pass a lot of small little jets and then we suddenly pull up to.....
My first prop plane trip. Actually it wasn't bad at all, I had just heard horror stories about it. In fact, on the return trip, which I will get into later, one girl and I both agreed it was within our top 5 best landings. I mean the plane just touched down like it was rolling down a hill. we didn't even know we were actually on the ground until the front of the plane tipped down.
When we landed in Siem Reap after the easy 1 hour flight, we passed through their small arrival airport. It was honestly one room with everything. It costs $20, and I actually mean USD, to get a 30 day Cambodia Visa. You give them your passport, the money and a photo and 5 minutes later you have a Cambodian Visa. They misspelled my name which I knew would result in me being beaten in a Cambodian Prison for some reason, but it didn't. Then we walk outside to a barrage of people asking if we want a taxi. I see my name on a sheet across the way and brush them off.
The guy that picked us up worked for the hotel and we later hired him to drive us around and show us the sights. His name was Nak, which means 'heavy' in Thai, but I don't know what it means in Cambodian. The languages are different, which seems odd to me because they were related at one time I think.
He was a nice guy and spoke decent English. He said he learned it all from tourist. I think he understood more than he led on. Anyway, he drove us to the hotel and we checked in. The rooms were $10 USD a night, and we had two. One was actually a triple and I had a double, but I stayed alone since the three others were girls. Then we went back downstairs and he drove us out to see Angkor Wat in the evening.
We couldn't enter since it was after five and there was some Interpretive French Ballet going on at the site, but we could see enough for the first night. I'll have to set up a completely different page for Angkor Wat since I took nearly 500 pictures there. Most of the pictures I took were of the carvings. Not only was the structure itself amazing, but everywhere you go there are these detailed relief carvings all over the place. Things like that amaze me the most. That and the wall. I often wonder how people built these huge walls so long ago. The layout of Angkor Wat is supposed so precise that it's only off by a few centimeters I think. I truly don't know how they did that. I built a 15 foot long by 2 foot high lake wall at our lake house once and it was wobbly and slanted. Granted people weren't whipping me while I was doing it, but still I know these things are hard. It might be different if I was born for the sole purpose of creating that little wall and my life was dedicated to it.
So here will be the links as I create the pages:
The night before we leave I had dinner in the hotel as I did often since it was cheap and they would just charge it to your room. For some dumb #$%& reason I ordered the Greek Salad. Why is that so stupid? I knew there were frequent power failures in the area. In fact while we were there, a few restaurants had no power though we ate there anyway. So what's the connection between power failures and Greek Salads? Feta cheese does not do well when it is thawed then frozen then thawed then frozen. It was bad. Really bad. I woke up about 4am and ran to the toilet. During the course of the morning I was on the toilet over 4 hours. There were no liquids in my body. Even water came out. So I stopped taking in anything.
Time to leave comes around and I am still in pain. What do I do? I say let's go, there will be bathrooms at the airport and on the plane. We start out late for the airport since we have to take pictures with everyone and some people have to mail postcards from Cambodia. Then we take this long shortcut and it's blocked off, so we turn around and go another way. Finally we make it. The whole time my stomach feels like it's being eaten from the inside out. My whole gut actually. We check in and I get scanned at the x-ray area. They pull me out to do a more thorough scan and I start feeling bad. Finally they find some paper in my pocket that is causing the scanner to react, though it is truly only paper. A receipt actually.
Next I go to the Immigration part and I expect there to be a problem with my visa. The entry guy had written my surname as Donald not McDonald. I guess the exit guy knew the same amount about Scottish names as the entry guy because he let me leave and said "thanks Mr. Donald". Then we have to wait for our flight. It leaves at 11:30 and now it is 10:45. Plenty of time. I ask some lady who is obviously an employee of the airport where the bathroom is and she said she didn't know. This airport is smaller than a football field, how can you not know? Do you never go to the bathroom here? Well I found it and it wasn't really marked. I go in and it's time to die. Things are coming out every orifice I have. I am in there about 15 minutes. I exit at 11:00 and the waiting room is empty. Someone comes over and asks if I am Mr. McDonald ( the ticket had the correct name ) and I say yes and they say the plane is waiting on me.
Great. So I go out to the prop plane and board it early and yet late. I see there is only one small bathroom, which is likely to cause a problem. I was more afraid of vomiting on a plane, because people would think I've never flown and was just scared. The only time I felt really bad in the plane was at the peak altitude about halfway through the flight. I guessed it had something to do with the pressurizing. I spent some time in the bathroom and was happy to see no line of people waiting. I guess most people can wait during an hour flight.
We land and take the cheaper taxis to Bangkok and manage to check in. The girls go out and sightsee or eat whereas I just stayed in bed doing nothing. Finally I had some nasty soda water. Honestly that tasted like battery acid poured over a rotting dead body. It came out too so I figured my theory of nothing in nothing out wasn't working. I go to a pharmacy on the street and ask for medicine. They give me some Imodium and something to kill the bacteria which was what was causing the gut pain. In about 3 hours I felt fine and had something to eat.