getting to cambodia

so we finally took some time to sit and write. sorry i don't have any new pictures on my blog but the computers here are extra slow. jose is going to try putting some on his blog so check it out (www.joseontheroad.blogspot.com). his camera always has better luck than mine.

i have so much to say but don't know that i will be able to say it all. mostly because i don't know when i will have any words to write about some of what we have seen. i'll start with getting to siem reap in cambodia from koh chang...
we left the island at 8am with a bus ticket to siem reap. we were supposed to arrive at 4pm but didn't arrive until midnight. now we have learned that when asking how long anything will take you need to double it. so our 8 hour bus ride was actually 16 hours. we knew it was going to be longer than they said but had no idea it would take as long as it did.
we were picked up by a mini bus that we took a ferry with back to the main land and then they tried to stuff two more people onto our bus and it was obviously not working. finally they had to call another mini bus and split us all up. when we were thinking we were just about at the border we stopped and they had us all get out. i looked up at a sign that said 'visa services cambodia' and then noticed it also said hotel. jose and i were like ok this is weird. they ushered us into the building and a woman was greeting us and saying come in sit down, the toilets are over there. some people from our bus were asking if this was the border. we couldn't believe how stupid everyone was being. there was no way to mistake that it was not the border. then a woman came out and passed out visa application papers. everyone just started filling them out. jose was really mad and probably the only one trying to question the people that brought us there. we knew that we could get our visa's at the border and everyone else should have known the same but was not questioning at all. we were told that we would be brought to the border to do our visa. we were trying to question the woman handing the papers out about why we were there and she was giving us every excuse to make us think this was the only way to do it. she said it would be $35 and we knew it was $20. she looked very angry with us but noticed that she didn't want anyone else to listen to us. they would not have anyway because jose had tried to talk to some of them. so to us she said ok, ok and said she would charge us $30. we went along with this but were not happy at all. had everyone else refused we probably could have been brought to the border but it was hard being the only ones. later we found out this is just part of a huge scam that happens every day to bus loads of travelers. the worst part was that she told us to go have lunch at the restaurant next door while she had our visas prepared. she said it would be an hour. everyone went to eat except jose and i. it was just part of the scam to make more money. we wouldn't have been so angry if this was all part of what we were told when purchasing the tickets but, scams don't have schedules i guess. so finally we left the hotel and it was about 10 more minutes to the border. the woman was there with a stack of our passports and she handed the stack to jose. we took ours out and checked the visa, it was $20. so they are making a huge profit off of everyone.

now we are handed over to this guy who we are supposed to follow through the border (piopet). the area is just crazy. it's a huge market of people trying to sell stuff.
so, he walks us over to an ATM and starts telling us that it is our last chance to get money because it is very difficult in cambodia and we will need baht (thai currency)(i can tell you now that i have been to an ATM in siem reap that you can take out US dollars in. money in cabodia is another story. you can pay in thai baht, cambodian real and U.S. dollars, it's very strange.) so anyway, we didn't get money out. i was guessing it dispensed fake money or stole your account number or something.

going through the border was so crazy. all the things we saw. i don't know how to really express them. there were children begging us for food, some with no clothes on. one little boy walking around a group of us pushing people and laughing. one was pointing to some sun lotion bottles in an outside pocket of my bag wanting them. there is no real good way of interacting with them but there is no choice. you either ignore them or give them something. it was just extremely sad, i really don't know what to say. i have been extremely angry with many of the westerners reactions to the children in general though. so many treat them as an attraction. sometimes making them sit where they want to take a picture. it is all just so surreal. there is some kind of no mans land between thailand and cambodia that i just don't know if i can explain. there is the worst poverty right next to huge beautiful casinos that you would find in vegas. i guess all i can say is that i want to know who goes there.

once through the border we had to wait for another bus. i will just say that was too long and not fun so i will skip it. once on the bus we were driving past terrible poverty that was really difficult to see. at least for jose and i. the guy sitting in front of us had his arm out the window with a big goofy smile waving like we were in some amusement park. for the most part we don't see too many travelers like that but when we do they just stick out.

so now we are on the road (if you can call it that. it's not paved, it's not in the greatest condition and it's the dry season so it was extremely dusty). the border is 160km from siem reap. we were told it would take 4 hours. which would have gotten us to siem reap at 9pm. we were not happy but knew that would happen. well, then came the next scam. we stop for dinner at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere. we were not told we would be stopping for dinner and everyone just wanted to keep going. well, once again jose and i decided not to eat, along with a few others. we were there an hour and finally left again. final scam...
we stop quickly 15 minutes outside of siem reap and a guy jumps on the bus. starts talking about how he is "the tour guy from siem reap" and putting on a little act. it was pretty obvious and people were looking around at each other smiling. jose had it with the scams and started clapping for the guy. finally he tells us that he is taking us to his guest house and how nice it is and that it is in the center where everything is and everything else in town was booked for the chinese new year. we practically pulled into his reception with the bus. there was a group waiting for us all to take rooms. jose and i and a few others were not happy at all so we did not stay there. it was far away from where we were supposed to be and it was late so we walked with a few others down the road to another guest house and took it. this is all a short version of the story. we have talked to other travelers and this seems like what happens to everyone in one form or another if you are budget traveling.

we found the old market area which is where we wanted to be and got a new guest house.

so finally siem reap...
i think i will need to write about it when i can really wrap my mind around it. there is just so much poverty here that it is difficult to feel comfortable in the areas with so many tourists and places to eat that are very western. you can walk inside and feel like you are no longer in cambodia and we have found that a little disturbing. i don't now if others here feel the same way but we have been talking a lot about it.

the temples here are amazing. i don't know why we don't know more about them at home. angkor wat is the most famous one but the area of temples is so huge. we got a 3 day pass that cost $40 and we have only seen a fraction of what you could see here. today was our last day with the pass and we really wanted to see more. we didn't have our day's planned out well enough and we also got a bit ripped off with a tuk-tuk driver we hired today. i won't explain it all but we saw a change in his attitude with us from when we started the day to the afternoon. he started telling us lies and would not take us to some areas we had thought he agreed to. we confronted him with this very nicely and he was very angry. telling us that westerners are all the same. that they get angry and yell all the time. we didn't understand what he was talking about. we were trying to be really nice. jose was trying to talk with him but he wouldn't let him get a word in. then he said he accepted our apology. we were just confused. we know there was no language problem because he spoke english very well. we had to end our day short and he drove us back.

i have a lot more to say about what we have seen but just don't have any words yet. it's just sad.

we are leaving tomorrow morning for phnam phen. we will be getting our visa's for vietnam there. we hear that road is actually paved so hopefully it won't take so long.

ok, i've written enough for now.