8 am
I repacked my backpack in my hotel room in a Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) like I always did before traveling to a new city. First, to make sure I had all of my essential things and also to ensure that there wasn't anything in my bag that wasn't supposed to be in there. I made my way downstairs and into the alley outside the hotel. The hotel was run by a very small woman, of about 35, who was born with deformities to her hands, arms, legs and also had crossed eyes. She was only about 4' 6" and she couldn't walk properly. Her birth defects were similar to the pictures I had seen in the Vietnam War museum of children born after their mothers' were exposed to Agent Orange and other defoliants that America dropped on Vietnam to strip the forests' of their leaves. I don't know that her birth defects were the result of such chemical contamination, but I certainly never saw anyone in America or anywhere with such strikingly similar birth defects to the pictures I had seen. She slept in a room on the ground floor of the hotel, and when she wasn't cleaning, she spent her time in a neighboring building with other women who ran hotels nearby. I gave her the key, thanked her, and then was off to breakfast and to the travel agency down the block where I had purchased my bus ticket to Phnom Penh the previous day.
After a motorbike taxi picked me up and speedily brought me to where a bus was waiting, I was standing on the sidewalk unsure if I was supposed to enter the bus waiting there. The motorbike driver had just stopped the bike and walked away without any sort of direction to me. A few minutes later he walked over and handed me a bus ticket and drove off. The bus was being loaded with all sorts of food, building supplies and other random items that you don't normally see being put on a passenger bus. When it got close to the time that I knew my bus was supposed to depart, I approached someone who looked like they worked on the bus and presented my ticket. He told me to get on the bus and asked for my Cambodian Visa. I signaled by making an X with my hands that I didn't have one and said in English that I could get one at the border. He spoke in what sounded like a harsh tone to me in Vietnamese that could have only been interpreted to me as "You don't have one? You need one! It should be on one of these pages!" as he flipped through my passport. After the rant, he signaled for me to get on the bus and walked away quickly. Now this was not what I wanted to hear as I was getting on a bus to a border crossing of two third world countries, but I knew that I didn't need a Visa prior to arrival at the border. I had made sure of this before leaving South Korea and knew others who had crossed the border without one. I even had a backpacker magazine with me, that I grabbed in Hanoi, that laid out all the Visa requirements for all the countries in South East Asia. I knew I was right, so I wasn't too worried, but was wondering if I was the first American that he had ever taken across the border or if he just had a horrible memory. Certain I was right, I took my seat, and eventually the rest of the passengers got on the bus.
As the bus began to leave, they put a DVD in so we could all enjoy a movie during the ride. As it was queuing up I was wondering if I would even be able to understand whatever was about to come on. What is the chance they would play something in English as I was the only Westerner on the bus. To my surprise, the DVD that began to play was "Vietnam in HD", a documentary about the Vietnam War. I had recently seen this documentary, and knew that it showed all the horrors of the Vietnam war and America's treatment of the Vietnamese civilians. The video had Vietnamese subtitles, and it seemed to me that most, if not all of the people on the bus were Vietnamese. Needless to say, this was quite the awkward position to be in as I was the only American in their midst. I couldn't even pretend to be Canadian because the man on the bus, as well as several others around me, had seen me with my passport out just a few minutes before. Not once during the film did anyone on the bus look at me in a bad way or make me feel uncomfortable at all.
About 30 minutes after we left Saigon, the man working on the bus walked around and collected everyone's passport. When he got to me, I reminded him very bluntly that I didn't have, and didn't need, a Visa and he said something very loud in Vietnamese and walked away without taking my passport. I again read the fine print of my magazine that clearly said Americans did not need to get a Visa before arrival in Cambodia and told myself that it would be alright and this guy was just an idiot. I figured that he must have known that he could get me across the border otherwise he wouldn't be taking me on a bus to the border, right? Unless he really didn't care if he had to leave me at the border to wait for a bus traveling back to Saigon. About 30 minutes later, I could hear him on the phone as he was sorting out the arrangements for the rest of the passengers to get across the border. When his phone call was finished he came up to me and took my passport without saying a word, but his demeanor had changed a bit.
When we arrived at the border, there were tons of people standing in a line pushing each other to get to one small window. The man from the bus company had my passport, so I went to the bathroom and then stood in the back of the room and waited. Eventually, he came up to me and I followed him back to where our bus was waiting. He signaled that I should stay by the bus and he got on the back of a motorbike and went across the border with my passport. I sat there and watched many people pushing their motorbikes across the border, and I assumed they were not permitted to drive them through this government area. I did see a few rule breakers, including the man who taxied away the man with my passport, cruise across the border and out of sight without a problem. Maybe ten minutes later, he returned and handed me my passport with a colorful Cambodian visa freshly inserted inside. I got back on the bus and sat down, breathed a sign of relief, and listened to some music. Eventually, everyone else got back on the bus and we entered Cambodia and into some heavy rain.
After a stop at a restaurant, and a sketchy river crossing on a ferry, we eventually began to enter a more heavily populated area which I knew was Phnom Penh. I booked my hotel in Phnom Penh using the Agoda App on my IPhone. I knew when I arrived I would not have wifi and would need to be able to find my hotel without the use of my GPS, so I took several screen shots of the map Agoda provided of my hotels location. Agoda's maps are not detailed at all, showing only outlines of roads and no names, but a few blocks away from my hotel were a few distinct looking roads, including a circle, and also a large river that I knew I would be able to recognize on a map when I arrived. I took several screen shots from different zooms, to help me find it on my own if need be. This was just a backup and obviously my first option would be to show the name of my hotel to a taxi driver and hopefully they would take me there.
At around 4 pm we arrived in Phnom Penh and everyone got out of the bus. I had absolutely no idea where in Phnom Penh we were or if we were anywhere close to the hotel I had made reservations with. All of the Tuk Tuk taxis waiting were trying to grossly overcharge me. One driver said he could take me there for 5 dollars and I immediately walked away. He followed me for a few blocks and dropped the price down to 3 dollars. Now this sounds like a ridiculously cheap taxi ride to me now, and I am sure to anyone else reading this, but they are not charging locals 3 dollars for a ride within the city. Most Cambodians earn less than 3 dollars a day (Cambodian 2012 nominal GDP was $926 which is $2.56 a day) and certainly could not afford such a fare, but since I am a tourist they like to take advantage which is totally understandable. In hindsight, I was just being stubborn to make the point that I wasn't a chump, but I didn't want to be ripped off and preferred to get there my own way. Thinking back on it now, I would like to give money to every person I walked past there because they do live a life of poverty while my life is luxurious by comparison. However, when you are immersed in that region for a few months you start to think of the fair value of goods and services there quite differently. You begin to understand the going rate of things and don't want to pay 5 or 10 times the real price just because you can afford it. I noticed that this mentality had taken over other travelers the month before, when I was in Thailand, and I didn't really care then, but after getting ripped off a few times I began to think the same way. I knew I would pay more for some things, but if there was a way around it I would find it. So I began to walk and scan my surroundings.
A few blocks later, I saw what looked like a decent hotel, and walked in to see if there was a city map I could buy or take for free. The girl behind the counter didn't understand English, but I was able to get across that I was in need of a map. She signaled that she didn't have one, but pointed to one of the walls which sure enough had a city map hanging. I walked over and compared my Agoda map to this detailed city map and located the distinct road layout near my hotels location. I asked her where we were now by miming and she scanned the map for a few minutes and then pointed to a location. I immediately realized that it was actually quite a straight forward trip to my hotel, although it was probably 45 minutes or so by foot. I took several pictures of this map with my phone, thanked her and made my way down the road. I have always been good with maps and used to like to draw them as a child. With pictures of the city map in my phone I felt confident I could find my way without trouble.
The walk across the city was a really cool experience. There was a good shoulder on the road and I got to see more of the city than I could have if I quickly passed by everything in a Tuk Tuk. It was drizzling a little bit, but in that humidity it was a welcomed relief and I was able to find my hotel without much trouble.
I'll blog about Phnom Penh and the rest of Cambodia soon!
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