Cambodia Ho!

We dragged ourselves out of bed at 5 this morning, and got ready to go by 5:30. Lada's mom drove us to the spot where the van picked us up. The van was taking us to Aranyaprathet, at the Thai-Cambodian border.

Augie, Lada, and I had discussed this off and on before meeting up. Pretty much the only big thing on my to-do list for this trip was to visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Everything else was debatable for me. Fortunately, that jibed with their plans, as neither had been, and both are avid backpackers. We talked it over, Lada sorted out details with the help of her parents, and we lined it up: three hours by van to the border, cross, and take a taxi or a tuk-tuk to Siem Reap, the town closest to the Angkor complex.

The van drove us up to the Thai exit point. We were immediately swarmed by poor-looking children, hands outstretched for food or money. They didn't look like they were starving; rather, they looked like rural kids trying to score a snack or money for one. Backpacks slung across our chests, my hands shoved in my pockets, we made the short walk to the exit.

฿300 each had gotten us to the border. This is apparently a bit of a deal, because the van is part of a promotion. Although gambling is illegal in both Thailand and Cambodia, the neutral zone between the border checkpoints has been loaded up with several casinos. Included in the price of the van was lunch at the casino. The van drove us to the Thai exit point. and a tram was waiting on the other side to take us to the casino. At that point we were technically free to walk away. As fools with money from which to be parted, though, Augie and I decided to linger and play some games.

I suddenly realized how badly I missed Texas hold 'em. In the span of ten minutes I went from indifferent to frantically walking the floor in search of poker to frustration and despair at not finding any. We settled for blackjack instead. We did pretty well early, which had me all ready to introduce myself as Mr. Pappagiorgio, but soon enough, gambler's ruin evened things out.

After burning the rest of our chips on roulette, we gathered our stuff and headed out. The opulence of the casinos gave way abruptly to squalor, with street urchins, tuk-tuks, and seedy-looking folks all over. We knew we had to purchase a visa, for which we'd taken pictures the night before, but we mistakenly walked up to the Cambodia entry point. Sent away, we found the official Cambodian Immigration office.

Posted above the window to the office was a sign that conveyed, in clear English, that a Cambodian tourist visa for a US citizen was US$20. Before we got to the window, we were greeted by a uniformed officer who told us the price was ฿1000 (≈US$30). We'd all been warned about this; it's apparently common knowledge among travelers to Angkor via Thailand. Augie and I kind of laughed and pointed to the sign. The officer not-unkindly repeated his original price. Lada wasn't having it, and made for the window, walking briskly past the officer. The clerk closed the window in her face.

By this point, my frustration at being screwed like this was balanced by the understanding that there wasn't much we could do about it. We could make a big stink about it, get upset and hoot and holler at the guy, but in the end, we'd be handing our passports over to him. Fear of them "misplacing" my passport (or, somewhat more frankly, giving me its shredded remains) led me to cave in.

Lada, unflappable, tried a different approach, claiming we'd only brought US$20 each. This brought the price down to $20 plus ฿190, which came out to about $25. We were haggling with the government of Cambodia over an entry visa. At some point, one of the officers explained that $30 would get us the visa in three minutes; $20 would get it to us in three hours. One man's highway robbery is another man's expedited bureaucratic processing, I guess.

We paid the $25, got our visas, and crossed into Cambodia proper. Just as sketchy as the in-between section, Poipet was dirtier and dustier. One of the border patrol officers recommended his friend's taxi. We decided to hear him out. The driver, Narin, quoted us at $45. This sounded reasonable based on all we'd heard from Lonely Planet, Seat 61, and friends who'd been. We piled into his mid-90s Camry and headed out.

Not two minutes after we started, we were stopped by a skinny older man on a motorbike. The guy had a wiry beard, was missing several teeth, and one of his pinky nails was about four inches long. I might have been reading him wrong, but he scared the hell out of me.

Anyway, he said something unpleasant-sounding to Narin, who reluctantly handed over some money. We started again, only to be cut off a few minutes later by the same sketchy guy. He yelled something at Narin, who followed him to a taxi office. This was beginning to bother Augie, Lada, and me, and we sat nervously in the car while Narin went inside. He came back a few minutes later, though, and we started off.

Lada found out that he spoke fluent Thai, so she got the lowdown from him. Apparently the sketchy guy was a lackey for the taxi office, and Narin was being accused of shorting the company on their share of fares. It felt a whole lot sketchier than that, but oh well. We settled down and started the two-hour drive to Siem Reap.