Cambodia, land of smiles , bus rides, temples... and laundry

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The Okay Guesthouse centred around a covered outdoor dining area, always teeming with travellers and smelling a little like a cow shed. They were fully booked and I suppose that’s why our “twin room” was at the buildings highest point, past a few mattresses and piles of laundry, having a small bed and single pillow. ‘Peter’ led the way, a friendly guy. The room wasn’t entirely walled either, but still we slept well- despite the staff radio alarm outside our door, and the best replacement pillow the staff could muster being a hard cushion.

An army of tuktuk drivers lay in wait at the dining area, and would come and chat to you while you ate. Peter turned out to be a tuktuk driver, high fiving me and slapping me on the shoulder each time I couldn’t hide quickly enough.

The food at the guesthouse was actually pretty good, and we spent two nights there. The weather was hot though, so we did little else but go looking for bookshops and taking gentle walks around. I tried and failed to trade in my hardback book, but did pick up “Dune” from DS books, which had a great used selection. We also ate one night along the riverside, at a Mexican restaurant. I was offered pretty much every type of drug by one guy as we walked back and forth between the restaurants, each offer becoming more elaborate, the last time holding a bag under my nose. The atmosphere was good, and walking around felt really safe, the food was good, though the waitress took her own tip.

In order to escape the heat of Phnom Penh, we took a coach to Sihanoukaville, took about four hours, an hour of which was spent showing our ticket, handing it over, being asked where it was, being given another with a different number, being asked why we we’re sat in the wrong place, etc. Being overbooked meant that one English guy had to sit in the aisle, and then some locals got on around the corner, at a discount, and were given little plastic seats to sit on.

We jumped on a couple of scooters to “Monkey Republic”. A place with cheap bungalows, owned by some English guys. One of whom “hadn’t had a day off in three months” and was shouting at the Khmer staff. Despite this the chunky chips we’re good, and cheaper than expected (I think because the friendlier owner was embarrassed by his colleague).

Another cockroach that night and a rave that kept us awake til 1.30. Still we got up early and made our way to the beach - leaving our big bags at the republic, as we were heading to Bamboo Island. Took a little boat out as big black clouds loomed in the sky. Trip was about 1 hour and whilst we saw heavy rain in the distance we luckily missed it all and the sky had already started to brighten up when we arrived.
Got to the row of bungalows where I had called to reserve, but the guy said they were full and they never got my reservation.... hmmm.... Not too happy we walked to the next set of bungalows who initially said they were full before running after us as one had just become available and we were very glad it had. Bamboo Island was blissful - bungalow cost $12 a night and we stayed two nights, lazing in hammocks, reading, and snorkelling, where unfortunately most of the coral was dead but luckily plenty of fish were still about. We also spent some time eating! After a couple of nights on one side of the island, we headed to the other side for one final night. The beach here was much bigger, the sea much calmer and the temperature much hotter due to the wind being stopped by the slight hill in the centre of the island. Snorkelling was not as good this side but it was much better for swimming - so we swam, read, lazed about in hammocks and ate!

Spoke to the guy who owned the second set of bungalows - Koh Ru - who told us that both sides of the island had been bought up - half by Russians and half by Chinese and it was soon to be turned into a big resort island, which is a real shame as the $10 a night bungalows will be gone as will the whole feel of the island. Glad we made it here now.

Returned to Sihnoukville after a minor hold up with our boat getting beached! Ben went to help push the boat out to sea, whilst I helpfully took a couple of photos and laughed. Spent a couple of nights in a motel - the second night being woken up by a German guy and his Cambodian “lady” in the room next door and was very glad to be leaving early to catch a bus back to Phnom Penh.

The bus journey was pretty diabolical, with Cambodian karaoke blaring out of the tvs for the first 2 hours followed by some Cambodian pantomime with a screeching guy in drag, who every now and then let out a belting tune for the next 2. Very glad to arrive in Phnom Penh bus station!

Back at the Okay Guesthouse, had a much nicer room for only $2 more - one with a real mattress! Must have been the first since Hanoi - you may get used to varying thickness of foam covering wooden bed bases, but you never actually like it! Stayed for a few nights here, visited the Killing Fields which was pretty emotional, we did not know much about the history of the Khymer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime before we went but learning about what happened was horrendous and the fact that we had met mostly smiles in a land where such atrocities took place only 30 years ago is amazing.

Our next destination was Siem Reap. Another bus ride, with some more karaoke and more Cambodian pantomime - and my belief that maybe there really is a god after I prayed for something to stop the nightmare and the bus went over a fairly large pothole and killed the tv! Unfortunately the speakers along the bus were still working so we were soon hit with Celine Dion “My heart will go on”, a Backstreet Boys song and a few other songs on repeat for the last hour. Still it was much quieter and so possible to read/listen to MP3 player without being interrupted too much!

We stayed at the “Hello Paradise” Guest house, affiliated with the Okay Guesthouse. Room was only $6, pretty big with bathroom and tv and we organised our trips to the Temples of Angkor through them. The temples were everything we expected: big, grand and magnificent. After spending one afternoon there ending by watching the sunset from a temple up on a hill, I woke the next day with a rash covering my body (except my face), believed it was prickly heat from doing a little research which meant when heading to the temples I had to hide in the shade a fair amount. Was still worthwhile and we even had a frog that jumped onto me in the tuk tuk when we were motoring along! We took him to a lake as soon as we stopped where he thanked us and jumped away.

The final morning of our three day temple pass we got up very early to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat, which was spectacular. We went to the Rolous Group in the afternoon, which had far fewer tourists and was a bit different. We also saw many geckos and a couple of bigger lizards around, and a huge bird of prey circling above us which Ben thought might be an Ibis of some kind (based on quick Google image search 😉 )

So, aside from the rash a pretty successful few days. Spoilt a little the next day when we got our laundry back with orange stains all over our 3 white shirts. We had a slight disagreement, which ended with the owner calling us liars and telling us the shirts were already stained when we gave them to him and when we decided to leave and deduct $12 (which would only replace one shirt) from the bill he put down his penknife that he had been brandishing and took out his phone to call the police... and did it with a grin on his face - knowing how corrupt the police are we decided it would be far more trouble than it was worth so we paid the money and stormed out (just for a bit of dramatic effect!)

We walked to a guesthouse we had seen the day before which had looked nice. Paid $20 for a night (way above budget, but after our experience felt like staying in a decent place!) and bought a bus ticket to Bangkok for the next morning.

Well, as per the rest of the buses in Cambodia this one did not disappoint on it’s “oh my god get me off of here” kind of a way. We were first picked up by a car and dropped at some random location, a guy came along and said the bus was overbooked by 16 people so would we like to pay an extra $3 each and get a shared car instead. No. No we wouldn’t. That was until the bus came! Big enough for about 30 people, no space for luggage and built around the same time as the temples of Angkor. But we decided to stick with it in an effort to save some money.

The people who got on the bus were all pretty friendly, which, along with the Ricky Gervais podcasts on our MP3 player, made the journey bearable, even after the bus driver shouted “PEOPLE” at Ben and pointed to the aisle... He wasn’t happy because Ben asked him not to throw his bag down as it had a camera in it and the driver was then trying to shove it under one of the benches - we found out later what he meant by shouting people when, after the aisle down most of the bus was full of bags, three girls got on with plastic chairs and sat there.

The journey would have taken less than 3 hours had we not stopped. But we stopped twice, increasing the journey to about 4.5 hours. The road was pretty bad and the bus did not have much (or anything) in the way of suspension. But we arrived at the border, made it through in about 1.5 hours, expecting a bus to be waiting for us, instead we found the rest of our group sat on the floor just outside the Thai immigration. Only then did we realise our passports had only been stamped for 15 days instead of the 30 we were expecting. Everyone else had the same - new rule that came in 2 days previously! Not that bad now but we were planning on spending 3 weeks when we came back into Thailand from Laos. Balls.

I would like to say luckily we didn’t have long to mull it over as our bus came and took us to Bangkok in time for tea. But I can’t. We waited for almost an hour sat by the Thai immigration, then a guy came to get us, said the bus was just 7km away so we went expecting to find a bus. Then we waited - now standing as the floor was too dusty and grimy to sit. And we waited a little more - someone asked how long, the guy said 20 minutes. We waited 20 minutes then 20 minutes more - still no bus, someone else asked a different guy who told us the bus was just 7km away (hmmmmm) so we waited. After a couple of hours a bus decorated beautifully with scenes from the Little Mermaid arrived. We cheered and got on. The air con was not on and the bus was like an oven. We waited for the driver to get on and start the engine. He didn’t get on, so we got off into the slightly cooler air outside. Asked why we weren’t going - apparently we were waiting for another group! Brilliant! So some more waiting, some people getting pretty damn angry, especially a guy who had a plane to catch in Bangkok and finally another group turned up, the driver got on, the air con switched on and we were on our way. For 5 minutes before stopping for a dinner break! All of our group shouted and told the driver to go, but the driver clearly didn’t give a stuff what we were doing, he was going for food. As the air con was off the bus started to heat up quickly so we got off. 45 minutes later and we were on our way and actually made it to Bangkok with no more stopping at about 8:30pm! The journey is possible in 7 hours, we took 14.

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