A lot of travelers get into a macho mindset where if you do anything touristy or comfortable you're looked at with disdain.
"You slept in a 3-star hotel? Well, I once slept on the back of a rabid water buffalo, during monsoon season, in the Hepatitis River."
Öh, yeah? I've been reusing the same tampon for 6 months."
Öh, yeah? I once fought a rat for half a can of cat food."
Please slap me if I act this way when I get back. After staying one night in a hotel that had a large rat running around in the lobby, I have re-evaluated my needs for comfort. I can suffer if I need to, but I'll opt out if I can.
Cambodia
When crossing the border into Cambodia, you can be subjected to a couple of scams. The most common: You attempt to buy your visa at the border, where there is a sign that prominently says that a visa is $20. Then the guard demands $35. My group didn't have any problems, but we also paid $22 to have our visas purchased for us. Also, worth noting: The country is prone to a little hyperbole: The visa says "Kingdom of Cambodia."
Along the Mekong River heading towards Phnom Penh, you notice that Cambodia is a lot less developed. More farms, fewer houses on the river, more cattle. In Vietnam, when we passed people who were on the shore, they usually waved. The first Cambodians we passed did nothing when we waved; they looked at us like they'd be just as happy seeing us roasting over a spit.
The roads into Phnom Penh were also a lot less developed. The last leg of our 3-day trip included a 1-hour bus ride. We were all jammed into a minivan that looked like if it went another mile it would come to a wheezing halt and collapse in a rusty heap. Combine the van with roads that were often unpaved and you had some rough riding.
Phnom Penh: A Man-Eat-Dog Town?
After reading the guide books and another book called something like the most dangerous place to vacation, it is tempting to bypass Cambodia. Big mistake. This has been the best part of my trip. Here's why:
- Phnom Penh (PP) is smaller and more manageable than Saigon (13 million people versus about 4 million)
- PP has better traffic control: there are more traffic lights and people obey them. (Like Saigon, few people wear helmets)
- It has all of the same wild offerings and then some. I went into a bar with a guy I met here and he bought a joint. They are sold over the counter. Dance clubs are great, all ages, races, sexual orientations (saw girley boy dancing up a storm the other night.)
- People seem less out to rip you off. Tuk-Tuk drivers and motobike drivers generally give a fair price. I have not been short-changed (to my knowledge) in stores.
- Street peddlers can still be annoying but you can disarm with a smile and a nod. If they are persistent, I either start talking to them in French or ask them if they want to meet an ugly American girl "only $2."
Drawbacks to PP:
- Few natives speak much English and street numbers don't mean anything to local drivers who speak Cambodian, also known as Khmer. My first night, I went to an outdoor restaurant. The diners were mainly locals, so I figured the food would be good. But I had a hell of a time trying to order. There was no English menu. The waiter first brought me some chicken wings, then a plate of cucumbers. Still, my problems led to my meeting another North American guy and his Cambodian girlfriend. We've since become fast friends.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Mekong Delta; More Gross Outs
About a week ago, I signed up for a cruise down the Mekong River from Saigon. The 3-day, 2-night excursion ends with a boat and bus trip that drops you in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The trip was a little rough around the edges but packed in a lot of sites in a little time.
Shakey Start
I bought my Mekong cruise trip from a small store-front agency called TSK Travel. After I paid my for the 3-day trip ($47), I got an inkling of what was to come: The office advertises free Internet service to all customers. When I went in to use the computer, one of the staffers said "Internet not working. Boss not pay the bill." Hmmm.
The trip also required that we be up at 6:00 everyday because of our full itinerary. The night before we left, I went out at 11:00 pm looking for a bowl of soup. I walked down to a place around the corner from my hotel. (I was still in the nice 3-star hotel). All the tables had people, but a young Vietnames guy motioned for me to sit with him. We ordered. We spoke a little. Our food came. He reached out and grabbed some greens in a condiment dish. He added some to his soup. Then he added some to my soup and said "good, good." I smiled, but wondered where his hands had been before eating. Then he grabbed some bean sprouts and threw them in my soup and smiled. I didn't want to offend him, so I ate and I'm still here to talk about it. The Vietnamese guy grabbed another passerby, a 50-something French guy dressed for Halloween. We were up till around 1:00.
- First day of Mekong trip: we were ferried around some islands in various size power boats and by canoe. At a stop called Unicorn Island, we drank rice wine, banana wine, and snake wine, the latter supposedly offered a virility boost for men. I didn't notice any effects. But the bottles of wine had cobras and scorpions in them and would have made nice coffee table ornaments. I was ready to buy some when my guide said that I wouldn't be able to bring them in to Australia, a country with some of the strictest animal import regulations. Apparently, importing deadly but dead snakes and insects is verboten.(Australia is my next stop and I wasn't about to mail a bunch of bottles)
- Then came unpleasant surprise #2:
I had signed up for a trip that included 3 meals. As we sat down for lunch, I was seated at the table with people who had to buy their own lunch. I asked our guide what was up. He said that my original tour didn't get enough people so I was switched to a different tour. I felt like I was being traded like a sub-prime mortgage. I had also prepaid for a private room with air-conditioning. I became an ugly American and demanded that our guide verify my room arrangements. Good thing I had kept my receipt and had asked the tour operator to write all details on the receipt. Things were a little tense, but I got my room. (It was still kind of a pit) We spent the night in a Vietnamese town called Can Tho.
- Best Reason for Taking Around the World Trip
On the trip I met a big, overweight Brit who was in his late 20's. His fiancee had recently dumped him for another guy and his parents had just moved to Spain. Sounds like his once full life was now feeling empty. He waited 6 months to get over his girlfriend, then he quit his job, and is now traveling. He had an eye-brow ring and was planning on trying sky diving. Still he always wore preppy, conservative clothes. I'm guessing he was trying a new, more daring persona that hadn't fully developed yet.
- the next two days we visited a bunch of touristy sites, including a candy making facility, a fish farm, and a villageof indigenous people. We spent the second night in a town called Chau Doc at another divey guest house. The locals were friendly. I was out looking for a bar, when it started to rain. An old woman stepped off her porch and motioned for me to sit on her porch until the rain stopped. A woman on our trip was walking around and passed by a wedding celebration. They invited her in and she drank rice wine with them all night.
New and Improved Gross Outs
- Snake Heart: For $30, you can eat a still-beating cobra heart. The "chef" grabs a live snake, aggravates it to get it's hear rate up, then he guts the snake except for the heart. He drains the blood, removes the heart. And tells you to wait 2 minutes. Then he returns with a shot glass filled with blood and a little heart that is still beating. You drink up. Down the hatch... (source: hearsay)
- Pig Toilets: In India, there are squat toilets that are just a hole. When you move your bowels, you can hear pigs grunting below you as they eat your waste. Yum. (source: hearsay)
- Picking Teeth vs Picking Nose: In Cambodia, people try to cover up their mouths when they are cleaning their teeth with a tooth pick. On the other hand, walking down the street people will flagrantly root around in their noses for a booger.
- Clipping Toe Nails in a Food Stall: The other day, I was eating soup in a food stall. I heard a familiar clipping sound behind me. A guy was working away on his toe nails.
- Rat in the Hotel Lobby: TSK Travel strikes again. At the end of my 3-day Mekong Delta trip, we got dropped off at a guest house called The King Guest House in Phnom Penh. How convenient. Obviously, the guest house director, Mr. Jerry, has some kind of arrangement with the travel companies. I was determined not to be taken, so I walked around the block to check other hotels. They were all full. Why was the King the only place with lots of rooms? I went out for dinner and came back to the hotel to get some money. In the lobby of the hotel, a large half-bald rat was running around in the lobby.
Shakey Start
I bought my Mekong cruise trip from a small store-front agency called TSK Travel. After I paid my for the 3-day trip ($47), I got an inkling of what was to come: The office advertises free Internet service to all customers. When I went in to use the computer, one of the staffers said "Internet not working. Boss not pay the bill." Hmmm.
The trip also required that we be up at 6:00 everyday because of our full itinerary. The night before we left, I went out at 11:00 pm looking for a bowl of soup. I walked down to a place around the corner from my hotel. (I was still in the nice 3-star hotel). All the tables had people, but a young Vietnames guy motioned for me to sit with him. We ordered. We spoke a little. Our food came. He reached out and grabbed some greens in a condiment dish. He added some to his soup. Then he added some to my soup and said "good, good." I smiled, but wondered where his hands had been before eating. Then he grabbed some bean sprouts and threw them in my soup and smiled. I didn't want to offend him, so I ate and I'm still here to talk about it. The Vietnamese guy grabbed another passerby, a 50-something French guy dressed for Halloween. We were up till around 1:00.
- First day of Mekong trip: we were ferried around some islands in various size power boats and by canoe. At a stop called Unicorn Island, we drank rice wine, banana wine, and snake wine, the latter supposedly offered a virility boost for men. I didn't notice any effects. But the bottles of wine had cobras and scorpions in them and would have made nice coffee table ornaments. I was ready to buy some when my guide said that I wouldn't be able to bring them in to Australia, a country with some of the strictest animal import regulations. Apparently, importing deadly but dead snakes and insects is verboten.(Australia is my next stop and I wasn't about to mail a bunch of bottles)
- Then came unpleasant surprise #2:
I had signed up for a trip that included 3 meals. As we sat down for lunch, I was seated at the table with people who had to buy their own lunch. I asked our guide what was up. He said that my original tour didn't get enough people so I was switched to a different tour. I felt like I was being traded like a sub-prime mortgage. I had also prepaid for a private room with air-conditioning. I became an ugly American and demanded that our guide verify my room arrangements. Good thing I had kept my receipt and had asked the tour operator to write all details on the receipt. Things were a little tense, but I got my room. (It was still kind of a pit) We spent the night in a Vietnamese town called Can Tho.
- Best Reason for Taking Around the World Trip
On the trip I met a big, overweight Brit who was in his late 20's. His fiancee had recently dumped him for another guy and his parents had just moved to Spain. Sounds like his once full life was now feeling empty. He waited 6 months to get over his girlfriend, then he quit his job, and is now traveling. He had an eye-brow ring and was planning on trying sky diving. Still he always wore preppy, conservative clothes. I'm guessing he was trying a new, more daring persona that hadn't fully developed yet.
- the next two days we visited a bunch of touristy sites, including a candy making facility, a fish farm, and a villageof indigenous people. We spent the second night in a town called Chau Doc at another divey guest house. The locals were friendly. I was out looking for a bar, when it started to rain. An old woman stepped off her porch and motioned for me to sit on her porch until the rain stopped. A woman on our trip was walking around and passed by a wedding celebration. They invited her in and she drank rice wine with them all night.
New and Improved Gross Outs
- Snake Heart: For $30, you can eat a still-beating cobra heart. The "chef" grabs a live snake, aggravates it to get it's hear rate up, then he guts the snake except for the heart. He drains the blood, removes the heart. And tells you to wait 2 minutes. Then he returns with a shot glass filled with blood and a little heart that is still beating. You drink up. Down the hatch... (source: hearsay)
- Pig Toilets: In India, there are squat toilets that are just a hole. When you move your bowels, you can hear pigs grunting below you as they eat your waste. Yum. (source: hearsay)
- Picking Teeth vs Picking Nose: In Cambodia, people try to cover up their mouths when they are cleaning their teeth with a tooth pick. On the other hand, walking down the street people will flagrantly root around in their noses for a booger.
- Clipping Toe Nails in a Food Stall: The other day, I was eating soup in a food stall. I heard a familiar clipping sound behind me. A guy was working away on his toe nails.
- Rat in the Hotel Lobby: TSK Travel strikes again. At the end of my 3-day Mekong Delta trip, we got dropped off at a guest house called The King Guest House in Phnom Penh. How convenient. Obviously, the guest house director, Mr. Jerry, has some kind of arrangement with the travel companies. I was determined not to be taken, so I walked around the block to check other hotels. They were all full. Why was the King the only place with lots of rooms? I went out for dinner and came back to the hotel to get some money. In the lobby of the hotel, a large half-bald rat was running around in the lobby.
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