Cambodia

We have made it to Cambodia and are loving it!

We took a bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap.  The bus went well with no hang ups.  * Interesting fact: Thailand drives on the left side of the road and Cambodia drives on the right side of the road.  The border is the change over.

Feb 8- After our arrival in Siem Reap, we took a tuk tuk to our hotel with all of our luggage, quite the feat!

Our hotel is great, it has a nice pool, comfy beds, free breakfast and even Tom and Jerry (our pet geckos in our room).  We decided to go hit up a night market and Pub Street. **

Representing!

$3 for a beer and Doctor Fish!

These were big fish.

Feb 9 – We went to Ankor Wat, we hired a guide for this temple and he did not disappoint.  His stories and knowledge were great.  We got some really neat pictures and had a blessing from a monk.

One of the stone wall stories.

Our tour guide telling us the history of the Angkor Wat Temple.

We bought 3 paintings from this artist.

The sellers were chasing Renelle, so funny!

Representation of the centre of the universe.

This was so special to all of us.

We then went to two other temples, one of which Tomb Raider was filmed at. (who knew?).

We have been having a tough time with all the children that are selling stuff.  The government does not want you to give them any money because then they will not go to school.  This little guy hounded us for 5 minutes.  ‘2 for $1, 2 for $1…………”  Really heartbreaking.

To cap our day off we met up with Brian and Carrolyn, Renelle’s sister Ali’s friends that are volunteering in Siem Reap.  They took us to a cool restaurant called The Red Piano that had really good pizza.  They also introduced us to the streets behind Pub Street.  We had a great visit with them!  I feel like a broken record but…….the Cambodian people are incredible!  So far our trip has taught us that people are incredible, everywhere that we have been this has been the common thread!  – Shawn

* Booking our bus took some time online.  We had bought our tickets but a couple hours later and we still did not receive the confirmation email.  We used the online chat and the person we chatted with said there was no longer five seats on the bus at our time of departure.  We asked for a refund and decided to stay in Bangkok one more day.  We booked online again and found five seat that were assigned to us with the same company.  We were reading online how to best proceed getting across the border and had read about many scams of bus companies and the people as you cross the border trying to scam you before purchasing your on arrival Visa.

Just before we reached the Cambodian border our bus attendant came on and asked who had their E-visa and who still needed one.  We could arrange with the bus company to process our Visa for $1400 baht each (about $45usd).  Mostly everyone on the bus had E-visas so we felt a little pressure to buy and yet felt okay to pay more with their help, since we didn’t really know how to go about it.  We filled out some forms and handed them our passports and a copy of our passports for the photos that were required for the visa.  There was a solo traveller from France with very little English and she was a bit panicky about handing over our passports and wondering if we were getting scammed.  Danika had to help translate that we felt the same but were hopeful it would all work out.  They did end up getting returned to us and the bus gave us all lanyards with the bus information and our meeting place.  We walked off the bus and headed to the first building to get our Thailand exit stamped.  A solo Russian lady stuck to me like glue.  She had little English but she tried to say she was grandma to our kids. She did not get her visa on the bus.  I’m not sure if she didn’t understand or if she was smarter and would only end up paying the $30usd.  She seemed very panicked the whole time as she was the only one without the visa stamped in her passport.  After we walked through the first building and she did too we continued to walk across the street to the next building.  With our lanyards around our neck the locals did not try to bother us to ask if we needed rides or “help” with our visas.  As we got to the next building it said Visas on Arrival so I pointed the Russian lady to go in that building.  She seemed a little scared and as though she wanted me to wait for her but we continued on our way as I didn’t need another person to look after.  At the customs counter we filled out more forms and noticed that every adult had their finger prints scanned and Shawn and I did not.

The Russian lady made it on the bus so everything must have been okay.  I didn’t get a chance to ask her how much it cost her to get her visa.  Not sure if she would understand me anyway.  Now that I know how the process works I wouldn’t pay the bus company, I would just do it on my own.  I don’t know that I’ll be crossing from Thailand to Cambodia on bus again in my future.

** Pub Street had pubs with $.50 draft, fish massages, fried(not really fried)ice cream rolls, fried snakes and scorpions, and tons of restaurants, clothing stalls, and food vendors.  The kids saw blue lights flying up and down in the sky and later found out it was a toy.  A little girl was trying to sell them to us and I politely said “no thank you”. She walked with me a while and continued to try to get my to buy.  They were $1 and she said she had no food or money and really knew what to say and what facial expressions to make you feel guilty.  The price went down to 2 for $1.  I still said no and the only way she left me alone was when I pointed to another lady and told the girl that I think that lady wants one.  We did our fish massages and started walking back the same street.  Shawn decided to let the kids get one of these light up toys and bought some.  WELL, it wasn’t from the same girl that was pestering me and she saw this.  She came to me and said “Why you not buy from me?  Why you buy from her not me?”  I told her I was looking for her but couldn’t find her.  We ended up buying two more from her anyway so I asked her. “You happy now?  You happy .  Me happy”

A few days later she saw me on the street again but didn’t try to sell to me.  She just wanted to say “Hi again” with a smile on her face.  I laughed and said hi back.

Also, after touring the temples in 30+ degrees we decided to buy popsicles for the kids from a man selling them.   We bought a pineapple from a kid near the popsicle stand.  Then another kid came and wanted us to buy from him.  “You buy from me too?  You buy more.”

As a side note we had read at one of the temples that it is not good to buy from children as it encouraged begging rather than going to school.  As the toy seller was in the evening, I’m not sure if she goes to school and just sells at night.  It is tough on the heart to see these kids begging, the moms begging with babies in their arms, and the landmine victims evident from their amputations. – Renelle