Bangkok to Ankor Wat - how hard could it be?

After a few MORE days in Bangkok (including more awesome pretzels and time at the Vietnamese embassy), we headed out to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia.  Our initial Thai Visa was only good for 30 days, so we had to get the heck outta there or risk being put in Thai prison.  Not really, but any situation even remotely involved with the phrase "Thai prison" is enough to send us running.  Our original plan was to go to the world-famous Angkor Wat,

SPOILER ALERT - we did.

but due to strangeness with Asian airlines, it cost about half as much to fly further and then backtrack to Siem Reap (home of Angkor Wat).  So we figured we could fly to Phnom Penh, spend a night there, and then continue to Siem Reap.  Since Phnom Penh is the capital and Angkor Wat is the main tourist attraction of the country, how hard could it be?  We'll see.

Arrival in Cambodia is an interesting experience to be sure.  As we have now traveled around most of the world, we are pretty used to the visa process by now and know what to expect, but Cambodia had some surprises in store for us.  First, when we de-planed and headed to the visa area, we were greeted with a huge mob of mass confusion and few signs.  We eventually figured out the line we needed to be in, but there were different lines for applying for the visa, paying for the visa, and passport control.  After a long time, we got our application processed, but we (strangely) had to hand over our passports.  We then figured out we might(?) get them back after we paid, so we waited in that mob.  It seemed for a while like nothing was happening, but then we noticed that the passport people were calling out random names to summon people to the front.  The visa process was an assembly line, where they would shuffle the passports down a line of workers who did something(?) in between the guy that got the paperwork and where we picked them up.  Our names were eventually called, and we paid, got our passports back (yay!), complete with visas, and set off for passport control.  All told, we exited the airport about an hour and a half after we landed.  New record!

So by then end of that process, it was about 5 p.m, we'd been traveling all day, and we got into our taxi (a Toyota Camry, just like my old one) to head off through the capital of Cambodia, in rush hour.  Cambodia traffic laws are what you would call non-existent, along with signs, stop lights, lines, blinkers, or anything.  So we started on the scariest ride of my life...

Hold on tight...

 With mopeds flying by at roughly double our speed inches from the car, headlights coming directly at us only to swerve and honk at the last second, and progress totally dependent upon the boldness of our driver, it seemed that there were only two possible outcomes: we would either be stuck in Phnom Penh traffic until the end of time, or dead in a matter of moments.  Fortunately we eventually made it, only to discover that the hotel we'd booked was incompetent and instead of sleeping in a $17 room of our choosing, would be in a $7 room we'd never seen.  The room was pretty much what you'd think $7 would get you, unfortunately.

So with a rough nights sleep in a dingy room, we were ready to head off on a 5 hour bus ride.  We'd booked tickets with the hotel, which was to include pick up at the hotel at 7:30 to get to the bus at 8:00.  After the shuttle picked us up at 8:15 and we missed the bus, we were left stranded at the bus station in a town we'd been in less than 24 hours, in Cambodia.  Yikes.  But we hung in there, harangued the staff for about an hour, and eventually worked our way onto the 9:30 bus, for a 5 hour bus ride across central Cambodia.

It started out normal, but as we left the city, things got interesting.  It was an incredibly beautiful and captivating ride, with something different to see every 5 minutes.  Emerald rice fields, houses on stilts, cows, goats, children bathing in rain barrels and swimming in flooded fields and canals, this was an astonishing side of Cambodia that we never expected to like, but was fascinating.

Our tickets were $7, this was the $2 option

Yes there was a looooongggg stretch spent on a dirt road.  The bus also stopped seemingly every 45 minutes, and in total the ride was closer to 7 hours (ugghhhhh) but it was really unlike anything we'd ever seen.  But we eventually made it to our guesthouse, and after a bout with some bedbugs (of course) that required a weary room change, we finally ended the roughest 48 hours of our entire trip.  But today we went to Angkor Wat, and it was incredible.  We have more to see there, so that will be the next post!

As a side note, the money in Cambodia is also very unusual.  There are 4,000 Cambodian Riel to the dollar, and so Cambodia has adopted the US dollar as part of their currency.  So things are priced in US dollars, but there is no change, so you get back a mix of dollars and Riel.  Fun!