Day 44 Wednesday June 17 2009

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Day 44 Wednesday June 17 2009

Negotiated a ride on the motorbike to take us to the War Remanents museum as we were running out of time before heading off to the airport. A motorbike ride through downtown Saigon/ Ho Chi Minh City should be a ride of passage! I need to spare the details, but I did wear a helmet as always. After the museum, we attempted to check out of the Orient Hotel. Our first mistake was agreeing to pay $10 US without asking what the rate was in VND, which is what we were paying with. So when we got the bill, it was much higher than we had caculated. She claimed the exchange rate was 18.2 VND = $1.00, yeah right! We looked it up on the internet, because the exchange rate has been 17.7 VND =$1.00. The internet quoted us 17.8 VND and we showed her, but she said we didn't ask the price in VND just dollars, so we told her that she failed to tell us that they were using a higher exchange rate. We calculated the amount of VND we owed, gave it to her and turned to leave only to find our way barred by the security guard (so they do more than just play cards all day, amazing). I asked them to let me leave to get the tourist police while Camden stayed there so we would have representaion and he said no. I told him he couldn't not let me leave to get someone to represent us but he ignored me. Meanwhile the lady at the counter had called someone and was speaking rapidly in Vietnamese so I grabbed my cell phone and acted like I was calling someone and had a whole fake conversation about our problem saying that the Orient Hotel was holding us hostage due to a disagreement over payment and that they wouldn't let us contact the tourist police, I even asked the security guard what the address was and he eyed me nervously and then turned and spoke something to the lady behind the counter who immediatley hung up the phone and said we could leave....That's what I thought lady!!!! That was probably the best bluff of my entire life...whew!

It was almost noon so we headed to the airport and upon check in the lady at the counter said there was a problem with the ticket (not again!). It was 12pm and our flight was at 2:15pm to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After two frustrating hours in the airport, the lady behind the counter said to "hurry hurry" that everything was taken care of. So we checked our bags as the plane was boarding, prayed that they would meet us on the other side and ran through the airport to catch our plane.We will worry about lunch later.

Once in Phnom Penh we took what I called a motuk (not quite a tuk tuk and not quite a motorbike). We picked the hotel out of our guidebook and headed to backpackers ally. This place was very dodgy looking, but somewhat safe due to the number of backpackers who stay in this area. The Floating Island Hotel we picked out was $8/night. We had really good luck at other places for $10 so we thought there wouldn't be much difference. Wow, let me tell you! I would maybe pay $2/ night with a guarentee that I didn't fall through the floor and into the lake. (Apparently they are filling in the lake for a large development and the whole ally of backpackers hotels and restaurants was scheduled to be demolished so I guess that's the reason all these places recommended by the guidebook are going to crap). Back to the floating Island Hotel: Walking in there, you go through an empty area that may have once been a restaurant out the back and across several plank boards (about 4 planks wide with lake below on both sides) to a building that had more of the same planked flooring that you could see through to the lake below. We went up the stairs/ ladder with our big backpacks on our backs and our daypacks on our fronts to get to the second floor to look at our rooms, more giggles here. I couldn't stop laughing ( I wasn't laughing out loud though) and I didn't want to offend the guy by asking if I could take a picture of the place to show my friends back home. The floor was made of some kind of divider laying over plank boards of course, two twin beds and something that resembled an A/C. It did have its own bathroom thought I would hestitate to use it. As we were walking back to the stairs/ ladder, I heard someone taking shower in one of the rooms (brave soul) and as we walked back out over the long planks I noticed water pouring from the floor above and into the lake. Nice shower drain.

We went to a cafe called "Oh My Buddah" and had a very late lunch at 4pm. Afterwards, I stayed with all the bags to read and Camden went out to find us a better accomodation. After 45 minutes of turning away children selling books 10 times (same boy 4 of those 10, get a hint!), me agonizing over all the robberies/kidnappings I was reading about in Lonely Planets Unpacked, I was debating about asking the local ladies who ran the restaurant to watch my bags for a small fee while I went to retrieve my husband from who knows where: dark alley, dumpster, what's left of the lake, etc, when I finally spotted him walking back towards the restaurant. Thank God!

We ended up staying at the Lakeview Hotel and climbed 3 flights of stairs to get to our 2nd floor (the ground floor is 0) room. The room consisted of a big bed and an old wicker table, but at least it had A/C, it's own shower, and is somewhat clean all for $8. The only complaint I had was that the blanket/ towel on our bed was barely big enough to fit a twin bed, so that was bad news for me who likes to snuggle and for Cam who had to unwind me from the covers in the middle of the night. Took a motuk ride down to the river, which you couldn't see due to the construction so we walked around for a while to explore. After two 75 cent beers and an $8 Kehmer massage, we were in Zen so we headed back to our backpacker ally and had a fun night of pizza and pool at the Wanderer Restaurant.

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Comments

[Connie]

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Britt and Camden, After reading the blogs, I really ready for you to be home and safe. Love you, C