Cambodia... Guns, Booze, and Temples

Well, it's a little bit late, considering I'm home now, but here was the story of Cambodia. It's a fucked up country to be cruising around in, the corruption, beggars, rip offs, they're everywhere. I got a little taste of all of it.

Coming into Cambodia itself was a scam. They charge $40 USD for a tourist visa to enter the country. I thought it was shit, but whatever, it has to be done. The first thing you notice at the Cambodian border, is that it's covered with casinos. Gambling is illegal in Thailand (it happens everywhere anyway) so the border is littered with casinos for the Southeast Asian version of Vegas.

After waiting in crowded immigration offices for what seemed like ages, we were finally on the bus to Phnom Pehn. First stop, however, was at a tourist bus station in which we would be transferred to buses for whichever destination we had planned. Here they convinced us to exchange money into Cambodian Riels. ($1 = 4000 Riel) As did the rest of the group, we exchanged some money into their shit currency.

As it turns out, the major currency in Cambodia is US dollars, and no one wanted their own shitty currency. So if something would cost $1, or 4000 Riels, we were being charged about 4500. Not a major rip off by any means, but still a really annoying pain in the ass. I wanted to go back to the border and kick that tour guy in his little Cambodian balls.

From there we got into a minibus and settled in for an eight hour bus ride. It was hot, sweaty, boring, and the only thing to look at was all the run down shit holes on the side of the road. In the middle of the journey our bus stopped, then we're directed to get into some random car that's sitting on the side of the road. This looks like a gang rape in the making, but reluctantly we oblige and get into the car.

After another four hours we finally get to Phnom Pehn. The next morning we're harassed at every corner for money, and if we want to buy anything from heroine to Viagra. The transition in consumer goods was ridiculous. At first they would be offering a blanket, then a prostitute, then heroine.

Phnom Pehn

Phnom Pehn itself didn't have shit all to do, we wrapped things up in three days. In those three days we went to shoot some AK47s (unfortunately I wasn't allowed to kill a goat like I was told) and then we went to the genocide museum. Let me tell you this, nothing is more of a bummer than going to a museum filled with human skulls and literature about how babies were swung by the legs and killed against trees. An estimate 1.7 million people were killed, and many of which were still in mass graves.

From there, we were taken to a school turned torture site. It was four buildings filled with shitty little wooden cells where people were tortured in boiling oil, had their skin peeled off, and thrown from rooftops. The day was getting depressing, and we were ready to leave. As we were walking out of the school/kill site we saw that it had a gift shop. The weirdest fucking thing ever that I have seen. In this gift shop were somber reminders of the regime that killed so many people in the 1980's, but right along side that were all the seasons of Family Guy and House. Nothing like buying a few DVDs to lighten the mood after hours of evidence of the worst of man kind.

Sianouxville

After leaving the ever uplifting Phnom Pehn, we wanted some time back on the beach. Sianouxville was it. The beach was awesome, and the weather was fucking scorching. The ocean was a welcome break from the bummer we had just come from. We only had two days here though, because of the timeline we were on, and our days were spent on the beach.

The funniest part of sitting on this beach is that it was mostly old people. I'm talking, close to death, old and shitty old. We had a laugh, sitting down to watch them pick up hookers like Indians picking up shit at Walmart when they get their poggie cheques. It was amazing. If the price was too high, they would gradually lower their standards and pick up the next haggard skank. Classic.

Siem Reap

Siem Reap is in Northern Cambodia, and is the location of the famous Ankor Wat. Don't know it? If you've seen Tombraider with Angelina's glorious tits bouncing around you know what I'm talking about. Apparently, it is a must see in Asia and if you don't go you're missing out.

After arriving in Siem Reap we met some tuk tuk driver that said he would take us to the temples whenever we wanted. That night, he convinced us to head up there to watch the sunset. I don't know what we were expecting other than an over crowded pile of ruins with a nice sunset as the back drop. Turns out, my idea of over crowded was vastly underestimated. There was Koreans everywhere, with giant zoom lenses that could take pictures of Mars taking ridiculous "peace sign" poses and all we could do was laugh at them. It was boring.

That night we decided it had been far too long since we've gotten shit faced. We made our way down to an area of Siem Reap called "Bar Street." I liked the idea immediately. Next thing we know, we're crushing $4 jugs of Vodka Red Bull, and it's 7:00am. After my buddy, Oscar, chokes out some Cambodian in the middle of the road, we decided that it was time to shut it down.

What we didn't expect was that the same fucking tuk tuk driver would be banging on our door at 10:00am the next morning. He was ready to take us back to the temples for the grande tour, more than likely he just wanted to make sure he got his money off us. After twenty minutes of banging on the door, he finally had us up and in the back of his shitty tuk tuk.

Let me tell you this, there is nothing worse than going on a boring temple tour, than when it's 35 degrees and you're hungover as balls. We tried to make the most of it, but it was tough. Basically, we were ready to leave after an hour, but since we had paid $20 USD to get into the place, we figured we might as well take some pictures, act like tourists and get our monies worth.
The funny part is, we saw all the temples in one day, but they offered week long passes to the grounds. What people did there for seven days is beyond me, because as far as the three of us saw it, there are only so many temples you can look at. There are no explanations as to what you're looking at, or why they're even there.

The main lesson was, if you were too cheap to get a guide (and we were) going to Ankor Wat offers little else than opportunities to upgrade your Facebook profile picture. We were bored, hungover, and finally left.

The next morning, we had an early flight out, and back to Malaysia. But with one final kick to the balls, and a finger in the ass, our tuk tuk driver tripled his rate, threatened to have us arrested if we didn't pay, and were then charged another $25 USD to leave the country. All in all, your old pal baggedmilk was an unhappy camper.

Final Review

If I could do it over, I definitely wouldn't have gotten money exchanged to Riels, as it was a pain in the ass. Even more so, I would have taken more advantage of the cheap booze. I could have gone without seeing the "must see" Ankor Wat, to spend more time on the beach in Sianouxville. Cambodia was a land of rip offs, and in under two weeks there, we got bent over on almost all of them. If you ever plan on going, remember that you are a walking dollar sign, and they treat you as much.

Highlights:

-->blasting AKs like I was fighting for blood diamonds
-->cheap booze
-->cheaper food
-->old men picking up endless streams of whores and taking their pictures in the act
-->my friend choking someone out in the road
-->the funny Cambodian kids selling books that tell you you have AIDS if you don't buy one

-baggedmilk