Everything Costs One Dollar

Asia » Cambodia » North » Siem Reap
December 10th 2008

Published: April 29th 2009

Edit Blog Post

JoshuaGS

Stone Faces

This may have been my favorite wat in cambodia.

i felt ok taking the bus to Cambodia because i had researched the scams and knew to look for them. i avoided the package deal. took a tuk tuk to the bus. got in a tuk tuk to the border and shared with an american on the bus. he reassured me that he had done the bordercrossing many time and he would help guide me through. so the first thing that happened was that the tuk tuk stopped off on a side street and the american tried to get me to join him in buying my visa here for twice the price. i refused and was frowned at for half an hour. so i rode the rest of the way to the border with the american, not certain whether he was a gullible friend or a kind enemy. he asked if i was upset and i said i was. he said that if they dont get you there they would eventually. so i paid the tuk tuk woman my half and walked on alone in the wrong direction. then turned and went in the right direction. that border is sketchy. i made it through the thai side and was told by

Angkor Lotus Reflection

Lotus pool with Angkor Wat in the background.

touts that i have to get my visa at an official looking building along the way. i walked on but the american guy ran up and said that the building is where i had to go. so i went inside and began filling out the forms. one uniformed guard wanted to fill the form out for a fee. i ignored him. the armed uniformed guard asked for money from me while he tried to staple my picture to the form. i completely ignored him and walked right by. there was a man standing in front of the window who told me 1200 baht. i said 'no, its $20'. he then came up with like 4 excuses all at once. that is only if you get it at the embassy. this is the express visa. that was the old price... then i pointed to the wall where it said in big block letters, 'TOURIST VISA- 20 USD'. he said no thats not right. i pushed past him to the window as he was yelling something in cambodian to the officers in the booth. they of course concurred. so i said' i'll give you $21' he said $25(875baht) i turned and walked

Angkor Wat

this wat is massive.

away. he called that i had to go back to thailand now. i just walked to the border. there was a little building with 'arrivals' written on the outside. i went inside. there were 4 long lines in front of windows. the guard in uniform sat at a desk with stacks of forms and passports. he asked for my passport in an official tone. i handed it to him as he asked for 1100baht and began handing me the form i had already filled out. i showed him that i had already filled it out and he immediately threw all of his forms(including the 2nd form that i needed)into the drawer and slammed it closed, leaned forward against the drawer, stared at the wall and told me that i had to go back to the other place. i stood there for a few minutes trying to talk some sense into him. saying that i had seen the forms that he had in the drawer, offering $20, telling him that i wouldnt mind giving extra money to the cambodian government or to the people but to give this particular man extra money because he had a position of trust was shameful

Confident Monkey

Paris had fed the monkeys bananas. they were saving one banana but just as we were leaving this monkey jumped into the tuk tuk and grabbed the banana out of luluÂ´s hand as lotte pulled the 5mo old away in protective instinct. i luckily still had my camera on.

extortion. he just said that i had to go back to the other office or go back to thailand. i asked a young girl(lotte) who was holding a baby what she paid. she told me 1100baht each for her husband, herself, and her 2 girls. they told me that they had just gotten their visa there and that the guard was full of crap telling me i couldnt get my visa there. so i waited for 30 minutes to get through the line that the guards didnt want me to get into(i ignored them). when i got to the window i said "20 dollars, right?" the man nodded and then pointed to the guard and said i had to get the proper form from him. i was a bit frustrated. i returned to the guard reluctantly and asked if i could please just have the form. he said,'1000baht'. they had me. this was the border. i guess i could have walked back to the other guy who was settling for $25 instead of the $20 posted above his head. but by this time the 15min walk through the sketchiness and the walk back didnt appeal to me. so i paid

Can One Overload a Scooter

we passed this guy in our tuk tuk in cambodia

and went through the lines. and left the border. i immediately got mobbed by touts. i saw the family of four and walked to them for cover saying, "hi im going to talk to you like we are travelling together so i can think about how i want to travel to siem reap. they invited me to share a cab with them. i agreed. 3 air conditioned hours later we were in siem reap having had time to get to know one another. Raul(24) is from Calama, chile and Lotte(26) is from denmark. they had met in bolivia where Raul was in med school and lotte was an exchange student. they married and moved to denmark. Paris(2) and Lulu(5 mos) were travelling with them. it was so nice being around kids.
we were about to take separate tuk tuks in siem reap, when a tout tried to ride in theirs. i got out of my tuk tuk and asked if i could ride with them which they used as an excuse to get rid of the tout. we got rooms at the same place and have done something together with our original tuk tuk driver everyday since. i actually facebookified

Faces

There were faces everywhere in this wat.

our tuk tuk driver and treated him and the family to dinner last night. we never made it to the sunrise over the ruins because the kids make everything slow. but i wouldnt trade their presense for the world.
i would much rather be pooped on and puked on by lulu than to be approached by strange women wanting to know if i want sexy boom boom. cambodia has made me really good at ignoring people. constant bombardment. and i wonder if they think that westerners are cold callous people. i asked raul and he said that he thinks they know full well that they are annoying the crap out of us. the secret is to never make eye contact. i mean i can deal with one person at a time. i just smile and firmly say no and keep moving but when there are several at once...and the kids frowning and saying "you make me cry" then fake crying...wow. everything seems to cost one dollar. it is strange. cambodia has its own currency but it is nearly worthless especially when you try to take it out of the country. so everyone accepts US dollars for everything. but only dollars,

Roots N Ruins

this tree is not bashful about taking the jungle back.

no coins. so if you go into a store and buy something that isnt exactly to the dollar you get change back in cambodian riels. but as the exchange rate changes you are certainly given less than proper change so when i had to buy something i would try to make it reach an even dollar amount by buying a pack of spicy dry peas or bottle of water.
sunday night MTV was putting on a free concert inside angkor wat. raul, paris(2yr), and i tried to get in but it was full. they were serious too cuz we offered money. i think tuesday i or maybe we will all go to the floating market. raul and i researched the last wat outside of town and it is cool but not worth the extra $20*5 people plus transportation. after 3 days of temples, temples, temples and after seeing some preview pictures of the outside temple and reading about it, we came to the conclusion that it was a ploy to give the drivers one more day of grip on tourists. they save it for last and promote it the most.
today the family and i took a boat to a

Face in the Roots

the roots grew around the face

floating village and looked at crocodiles and bought pencils and paper and some books for the school children and then handed them out during a class. i hung out with Paris the most today. we were a little wary of one another for a little while but we had tons of fun today. she had a lot of energy this morning and scratched 5mo old lulu. i could see she was driving her parents crazy and the mood of the family unit began to spiral downward. they became irratable and tired and hungry and impatient. so i intervened. i became a jungle gym for the little dynamo so that her parents could tend to the little one and catch their breath. i was throwing her in the air and carrying her everywhere it was crowded. she threw a fit if her parents tried to carry her because she is so independent but i was a new game that made being carried fun. when she wiggled i acted like i was in the middle of an earthquake, stumbling around. such a beautiful little laugh. and if she saw something she wanted to look at closer i tried to be her legs.

Trees win

humans 0. nature 1

i turned her into an airplane a few times. when she couldnt stand it anymore she and i had hopping contests much to the amusement of the cambodians. really she got more attention than anything with her blond hair and blue eyes. the cambodians loved her. they picked her up and carried her around and hugged her and kissed her. she was such an attraction. i was carrying her a little ahead of her parents and i was still approached. i couldnt believe it. 'how old is she?' 'where is the mom?' 'you want new wife?' 'you want boom boom?' paris is a little destructive and a little aggressive. she wants to touch every animal. she held frogs and lizards and geckos and bugs and a shrimp today but as soon as it falls out of her hand she tries to stomp on it. but she tore some leaves off of a potted plant in a shop and put the stem in my chest pocket like a corsage.
the family and i took a taxi from siem reap to the border and haggled with a couple minivans heading to bangkok. we settled on one for 300bt p/p. it was

Tuk Tuk Fam

Our driver Sauron(his nickname is Jacky somehow) lotte is holding lulu. paris is asleep in her backpack and Raul is standing outside the tuk tuk. i sat where the passenger car swivels on the back of the little scooter.

a bit crowded but not too bad. the minivan dropped us off on khaosan rd where we searched for a guesthouse/hotel. we ended up staying in the same guesthouse. my room was the smallest i have ever been in but was only 150bt. there was just enough room to walk beside the bed that was closer to a cot. we all had dinner together and walked the crowded streets. raul, paris and i went to a park the next morning while lotte and lulu napped. then lotte, the girls and i walked around in the afternoon while raul got a tatoo covering his back touched up by one of the many talented thai tatoo artists. we parted ways that evening. the family went to meet friends and i had decided to head north to see what chiang mai was all about.

Additional photos below

Photos: 19, Displayed: 19