Siem Reap

Siem reap

We made our way down to the fake 7/11 at the bottom of our street to wait for the bus to Cambodia. Once we had collected everyone, we made the short journey to the pier. Unfortunately the ferry we were supposed to be on was already full by the time we got there and so we had to wait for the next one. Thankfully, it was only a 30 minute wait. We had a quick look around the shops but it was just tourist tat so we decided to have a cup of tea to pass the time. The tea in Cambodia is rank, but for whatever reason we just don't seem to learn and continue to order the weak tea with condensed milk...bleugh! I think we have this unlikely hope that one day they'll give us something which resembles the tea from home. The ferry didn't take long and we were soon on mainland Thailand heading for the border. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was a scam going on at this crossing, but thankfully we were well read up and ready to take them on. The bus pulled into a small restaurant under the pretence that our tickets needed to be checked, and that another bus was coming to take us to the border. We sat for a while and ordered some lunch. One by one people were taken away from where we were sitting, they were told that they were now ready to go to the border. When I went inside the restaurant to order some water to have with our lunch, I saw everyone who had "left" sitting inside. I figured this must be the part of the scam where they tell you that they need to arrange your visa for $50. When I got back there was only myself and Kay, and one other, an American, still waiting. We tried to tell him what we knew about the scam but he didn't seem very keen to go against the status quo. Next, it was our turn to go through. We were taken into a small room where we were asked to show our ticket and passports. We were then told that we would also need to purchase our visas before leaving for the border. We told them we had already organised E-visas for ourselves (which was a lie) and when they asked to see them, we politely but firmly told them that they didn't need to see them and that we would show the officials once we got to the border. We were bundled out of there very quickly and put in a taxi to the border. I tried to go back to speak to the American so that he could do they same but they wouldn't let me, even when I said I needed the toilet. They didn't want us to speak to anyone else and potentially ruin their whole days takings.  We were dumped at the border and made our way through Thai immigration, past no-mans land and into the Cambodian immigration office. Here we encountered part two of the scam. This is where the greedy officials want a back hander for just doing their job. He wanted the $30 fee for the visa but also 100 baht. This is only about £2, but if they are taking this from everyone that passes through that border everyday they'll be making a small fortune. They showed us a scrap of paper with " Fee - $30 + 100B " written on it. We stuck to our guns and pointed to the official sign above our heads which showed the correct price. He then pointed to his scrap of paper again to which we responded with "what is the 100B for?" This continued on loop for a couple of minutes until he gave in and walked away. We then handed our passports to the gentleman behind the counter and waited for them to be processed.  We had read that if you refuse to pay the bride, they keep your passports for a long time and make you wait and wait. Luckily for us, they obviously weren't in the mood to play games and we got passports back in about 5 minutes. We then needed to queue to have our pictures and finger prints taken, this was where we met up with everyone from our bus that morning. They all told us how they had been made to pay $50 for their visa.  Some, who had also read about the scam, paid as they were worried about onward travel from the border if they didn't. Another long bus journey and questionable food from a restaurant in the middle of no where, we finally made it to Siem Reap. The next day was spent getting our bearings and deciding what to do with our time in Siem Reap. We took a walk to the infamous Pub Street, had some lovely pizza for dinner and booked a tour of Angkor Wat with a tuk tuk driver for the next day. We had to be up ridiculously early the next morning as we wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor wat. This meant being up at 4.30am and collected from our accommodation at 5am. Our driver dropped us off about twenty past and we made our way to Angkor wat to try and get a good spot for the sunrise. Sunrise wasn't until about 6.30am so we had to wait around for quite a while. We did have a good spot though but unfortunately the sun rise wasn't very spectacular that morning. We spent a couple of hours waking around after sunrise and then our diver collected us again about 9am. While we were walking around inside Angkor Wat we had insense trusted into our hands and before we knew it we were being blessed and asked to make a donation. Kay went into her purse and took out some small bills. He looked horrified but it wasn't until later that we realised just how little we'd given him....about 3p! Still getting used to the money here. He then took us to Angkor Thom and Bayon where we spent our time making funny pictures with all the carved faces. One Frenchman wailed behind us "No Madame! Not the nose!" as I pretended to stick my finger up one of their noses for a picture. Next stop was Ta Prohm temple which I think was my favourite as it's very much untouched at the moment. There are still tree roots strangling the walls which made up the temple. Parts of Tomb Raider were filmed at this temple and some of the others too.  We went for dinner at a small place along the road from our accommodation and both had a very tasty vegetable curry. It's my birthday!!!! Kay made me go and get my own breakfast from down stairs, can you believe it, on my birthday! While I was down stairs though, she fashioned a cake and candles for me (12 cupcakes and 1 huge candle). After having some cup cakes as a second breakfast we went across the road to a nice hotel where we could lounge by the pool and have cocktails. I had decided that for my birthday night out we would do an organised pub crawl. Neither of us had ever done one before and I wanted to do something a bit different. We dragged ourselves away from the poolside and went for dinner to line our stomachs. Faces on, we got a tuk tuk to 'X bar' which is just off Pub Street and where our pub crawl would begin. We played a game of beer pong with some lovely Canadian girls before all the madness began. After a few warm up games and drinks at X Bar, around 70 of us headed off to the next pub. Drinks were only $1 but, as I keep encountering, there wasn't any sugar free mixers. The problem was easily solved by running across the road to buy my own mixer from the convenience store. At one of the bars later, Kay asked for "just vodka" for my drink and was handed a full glass of vodka! The spirits are cheaper than the mixers here so they are very free flowing with the alcohol! Had a lovely night meeting lots of new people. Definitely one birthday I will never forget. The next couple of days were very uneventful as I had food poisoning which in turn was leaving me very run down. Sore throat, swollen glands, ulcers, the works! Poorly girl.  Kay was very kind and went to the pharmacy to get me some medicine and in two days I was well enough for our next journey. We were headed to the North-East to do some trekking!