Posing as a local girl on a Hindu inspired wall at Angkor Wat

The Cambodian Apocalypse

No, I am not writing about the Khmer Rouge. I am writing about my “mini bus” trip from the island of Koh Chang in Thailand to Siem Riep (Angkor Wat) in Cambodia.

I got sunburned after a snorkeling trip and had to keep postponing my departure to Cambodia until I felt comfortable enough to sit in a mini bus for eight plus hours. I bought a mini bus ticket for transportation from Ko Chang to Cambodia. A French traveler I had me told me not to overpay for my Cambodian visa through the travel agency arranging the mini bus to Cambodia and to just buy it at the border.

Well, was I in for a surprise.

About 12 of us foreigners were crammed into a mini bus to the Thai border. We stopped in a restaurant for a break and met with a big busload of tourists who were traveling from Bangkok to Siem Riep. The travel agency took everyone into a room and asked us to fill out Cambodian visa documents if we didn’t already have a visa. Two Norwegian guys and a tall good looking German man agreed with me and we all colluded and said we would only purchase our visas at the border. Of course, the Thai bus company tried to convince me that I could not buy a visa at the border, but I didn’t want to succumb to their games to rip off tourists. When we got to the border, the tour company representative made me and the Norwegian guys and the German go to the front of the line to pass through Thai customs, while most of the rest of the people on the minibus stayed behind. After we went through the Thai side, we had to go to the Cambodian visa office to apply for visas. The damn travel agency person said something to the Cambodian visa clerks and as soon as we came to pick up the visa applications, the Cambodian visa officer told us the visas were $10 more expensive than the price listed on the sign above his window.

“That’s an old sign,” the clerk told me when I asked why I had to pay more than the listed price.

Yeah right. I bet he’s just asking us for more money because the travel agency representative told him to do so.

After we got our visas, we crossed the “Friendship Bridge” into Cambodia. The bridge was supposed to connect the two countries above a river. Instead of water, the bridge was full of garbage. It was absolutely disgusting. I remembered that in the book A Fortune teller told me by Tiziano Terzani, the author refers to this bridge as the “AIDS bridge”. When Cambodia opened itself to tourism and trade with Thailand, not only did tourists cross into the country to see the famed Angor Wat, but so did the prostitutes, drugs, and sexually transmitted diseases.

The four of us and some other foreigners who were on the big bus from Bangkok were told to get on a bus to take us to the bus station where we will board a bus to go to Siem Riep. We asked about the rest of the people on our mini bus and the big bus and they told us that they will come later.

We got to the bus station and there was no bus. A Cambodian man, who said he worked for the bus company, was yelling and telling us that the bus broke and that we had to ride on a pick up truck for five hours on a dirt road to get to Siem Riep. We were about 12 people and we couldn’t figure out how we would all fit into the pick up truck. People were angry and tried to get the Cambodian bus employee to call the company to order another bus.

We were stuck. There was no bus.

“What about the other people who rode with us from Thailand,” we asked.

“They will come later,” he responded.

We piled into the pick up truck with all of our luggage. Because of the dusty roads, Cambodians usually rode in vehicles with bandanas covering their mouths and ears. We didn’t get any bandanas. I sat in the cabin of the truck next to an Italian couple that didn’t talk. In the front seat, there was an Englishman who lived in Milpitas, not far from my town in California. The Cambodian driver and his traveling companion played horrible Cambodian pop music during the bumpy ride. My butt hurt from sitting on the seat and bouncing up and down all the time. The poor guys in the open part of the pick up truck had dust flying into every crevice in their body. I had dust everywhere too, but they had it worse. Then the pick up truck broke and we had to switch to another one. At one point, the driver wanted to pee and we all watched him pee on the side of the road. He didn’t even try for privacy behind a bush.

Brush fires were burning all over. There was not much of a trash disposal system in the country, so people burned garbage in the fields.

For five hours, we bounced up and down, had dust blowing onto our bodies, inhaled the burning garbage fumes, and listened to Cambodian pop music from hell. Our only entertainment were the occasional open air disco parties that we could see from the road. Andreas, the German, called it an apocalypse.

Happy Chicken

We arrived in Siem Riep exhausted, dirty and hungry. We all are so tired that we agree to split rooms in the first guest house we are taken to. A Swedish girl and I split an air conditioned room with a TV. We sat to eat dinner at the guest house restaurant and the three Australian guys who got there the night before told us the same “Oh the bus broke down trick” happened to them when they came from Bangkok. But, their bus driver gave them bandanas to wear. Then they show us the great marijuana and hashish they bought from the guest house clerk. They pass around the bag of marijuana and the British guy next to me asked me if he should buy it and the price was good. He just had to pay a fine in Thailand for overstaying his visa and for drug possession and he wanted to get more drugs in Cambodia. Well, I knew how he was going to unwind from the bumpy ride from Thailand.

I looked on the menu and saw that one of the items was “Happy Chicken”. I wondered why would the restaurant label the chicken as happy? The chicken is dead so it can’t be happy. The description said “chiken with ganger”. I thought it was chicken with ginger. The helpful Englishman explained that the Cambodians didn’t spell “ganga” right. The chicken was not with ginger, but cooked in drugs. Whoever at the dish would be very happy after eating. I wasn’t interested in that kind of joy and ordered a fish dish, unadorned with happiness inducing local herbs.

I never saw the Englishman and the Austrian girl whom he met on the pick up truck again. They shared a room at the guest house. I think they skipped the sites of the Angkor Wat and enjoyed the mellowing effect of Cambodian drugs. They were happy. I don’t think they needed any Happy Chicken.

The next day, I rode on a “tuk-tuk” motorcycle driven carriage around the 40 square kilometer complex of the temples of the ancient Cambodian Khmer empire from the 9th to 13th centuries. The mixture of Buddhist and Hindu art on the buildings is AMAZING. I spent two days seeing the complex. One could easily spend several days or a week exploring the numerous temples and structures. If you’ve seen Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider”, you’ll recognize some of the temples.

Enjoy my photos of Angkor Wat and my chat with a local fortune teller. (He spoke English and French.)

The trip to Angkor Wat was well worth the apocalyptic ride.

Leave a Reply