Siem Reap: The Gateway to Angkor Wat

Location: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Siem Reap has become a center of tourism in Cambodia because of Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples just outside the city. These magnificent ruins are classified as a UNESCO world heritage site. Twelve centuries after they were first constructed, they’re still standing and much of the hand carved stone statues and decorations on the walls are still intact, if faded. These relics are why I came to Siem Reap; it felt disrespectful to visit Cambodia without seeing one of the most important archeological sites in Southeast Asia. However, I didn’t know what to expect from the city, itself.

I’ve spent the past couple days exploring Siem Reap and it’s easy to see that a large portion of the city is built on and for the tourism industry. I’m a short walk from Pub Street, a gritty, flashy let’s-get-crunk zone for travelers looking to grind on each other under black lights. I’m also near the Angkor Noon to Night Markets, an indoor maze of cheap goods to fulfill all your souvenir needs. Goods are stacked floor to ceiling and you can get anything from still-flopping fish to paintings and statues of Buddha to rip-off Nikes. The market’s vendors are almost as persistent as the tuk tuk drivers parked outside, whose constant chorus of “Tuk tuk?” greets me every morning on my way to breakfast. And only a few blocks away is what the guys have dubbed “Massage Street” and its intensely proactive, touchy-feely mob of spa saleswomen, whose $3, hour long massages are nearly impossible to pass up. 

The streets are clogged with traffic at night and in the daytime tourists mill about, munching on overpriced Western food and shopping for knick knacks. It’s not a bad spot to be for a few days between trips to Angkor Wat, Siem Reap’s main attraction. If you wander down side streets you can find tons of cheap street food and even cheaper drinks: a mountain of pineapple chicken stir fry and steamed rice for $1.50, a mango shake for $0.50, and $1 Mojitos are all on the same block. 

The thick, constant layer of dust that covers Siem Reap and the city’s overbearing heat disappear during the breezy nights. It also helps the scenery that in the darkness the smoking piles of trash aren’t visible and the persistent sound of hammering and sawing and welding from construction work stops around sundown. At night, the city streets brighten up with lights. Metal posts decorated with strings of bulbs twisted into diamond patterns glitter over the streets. They give the city a golden hue and highlight the wide, highway-like, lane-less streets packed to the edges with cars and motor bikes. Headlights gleam in the darkness, neon signs flash all colors of the rainbow, the tuk tuks honk and cars rev their engines and it all feels tantalizingly alive. That’s when the city is at its best, just past twilight when all the signs start glowing and the streets become a mass of bodies crisscrossing in all directions.

An Interesting Travel Experience

Last night, I encountered a strange, semi-awesome, semi-nightmarish public transport system dubbed the “VIP Sleeper Bus.” It looked just like a standard bus, but inside I found myself staring at two double rows of bed-recliner hybrids in place of regular, straight-backed chairs. The brown, pleather seats were leaned back at a 145 degree angle and each one had a maroon blanket on it folded neatly into a square. I noticed there were seat numbers and I checked my ticket for one. An “A1” was scribbled on a dotted line near the bottom. I scanned the rows and saw a girl laying above it. I double checked the number written in permanent marker on the pleather. Weird, it had B1, B2 written over A1, A2. I leaned in closer, trying to figure out if I was reading it wrong and realized that what I thought was a space to store your bag underneath the chair-bed was actually a second row of seating. A line began forming behind me.

“Cass, hurry up.” Cody muttered.

I took a deep breath and ducked down, crawling on all fours and curling into the seat, my back brushing the row above me as I did. Cody’s hulking body came lunging in after me. He mashed himself into the seat beside me, his 6’3” frame so large his feet stuck out and hit the bus driver’s arm. 

That was the first time I’d ever felt claustrophobic. Cody’s body blocked my only fire exit; I couldn’t even crawl out over him. I stared up at the wood above me. A tiny, round, powerful air conditioning vent blasted cold air down onto my face. I remembered a rumor someone in Koh Rong told me - that people contracted tuberculosis from old, dirty vents on buses. I shook the thought away and stared into the dark. There were no lights down here. I practiced controlled breaths, knowing that I couldn’t switch with Cody- he’d never fit in this space. I barely fit. About six inches above my head was the bottom edge of a window. I lifted myself up and peered out of the glass. Those couple inches felt like my only connection to the world outside of my crevice.

I fidgeted around until I found a comfortable position, and after I’d gotten used to the idea that I was stuck down there, I was able to relax a little. It was actually sort of cozy when I wrapped myself up in the blanket. The bus driver blasted Cambodian ballads over the speakers but when I plugged my headphones in, I was able to drift deeper into my head and got lost in my thoughts. It was nearly 11PM and I could already feel myself beginning to get drowsy. After an hour I fell asleep (with the help of a sleeping pill) and ten hours later I woke up in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was 9AM when we arrived and I felt well-rested and ready to go. Overall, I recommend this form of travel over regular buses, where you’re forced to sit up straight in a hot, sweaty, uncomfortable seat. That’s if you can get over the tight squeeze.

Expenses: 

  • $14 Sleeper Bus Ticket
  • $0.75 Snacks (off brand Oreo’s, to be more specific)

Travel Tips:

  • When booking a sleeper bus, ask for the top row. If you have any discomfort in enclosed spaces, it’s going to be a real bad trip if you’re stuck in that bottom bunk, squished between metal wall and the possibly smelly traveler to your respective left or right. 
  • There are no televisions on these buses! Bring your own entertainment. And if you’re a light sleeper, definitely bring headphones or ear plugs. Cambodian bus drivers love blasting music and they don’t care if it’s 1PM or 4AM. 
  • Always bring snacks on long bus rides and make sure to pee before you get on! The buses usually stop, but it’s irregular and you don’t want to face that uncertainty for hours. 

Corruption in the Streets

Location: Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Today, a few friends and I rented mopeds to drive around the city. It was $8 per bike and $1 per liter of gas. I shared a moped with Cody. (Sidenote: in Cambodia, only the driver is legally obligated to wear a helmet.) We weren’t worried about learning the road rules; there really aren’t any in Cambodia. You kind of just drive wherever you feel like. There is no wrong side of the road. I was grabbing a couple of $2 takeaway sandwiches when one of the workers at the restaurant noticed the bike and warned me about driving around the city center. He told me Sihanoukville’s police scam tourists, pulling them over and fining them for not having an international driver’s license.

So I guess it was inevitable that when we made our way around the large roundabout with golden lion statues in the middle of city center, a cop stepped out in front of our bike and waved us to the side of the road. Cody and the other driver were pulled to the side and I saw the policeman gesture for their driver’s licenses. The cop then told them, as we had been warned, that they were driving illegally without international licenses and he would have to take them to the police station. However, if they gave him a bit of “friendly money” he would let them go and we could drive freely around the city. Cody told him that he could take him to court if he wanted, he wasn’t getting any money. After that blunt reply, the policeman let us go. We got on our bikes and rode off.

We were pulled over again less than an hour later. Cody and I had lost our friends and our map amidst the maze of city streets. As we pulled up on the main road, we saw Westerners being stopped by a man in a blue police outfit. He waved us down as well and we were taken to the side of the road, where a group of ten or so cops and military men were standing around, waving walkie talkies aimlessly and shaking people down. I looked around us; there was a group of several Western men opening their wallets, handing cash to one of the military men. I wondered if they knew it was a scam.

When the policeman told us we had to pay a fine for driving without a license, I asked how much it was. He told us it was however much we wanted. I told him no and Cody repeated that we had no money. The cop waved over a second man to try to intimidate us. However, he was just as  slack and barely looked at us as he asked us to pay the fine. He gestured at us, bored, and told us we’d have to walk the moped back to the rental company if we didn’t pay. Then a third policeman came over. He was a large man and he stared at us sternly and told us that we should pay the fine, whatever amount we wanted. We kept repeating “no money, no money.” Finally, they just let us ride off. I guess we weren’t worth the trouble.

After a long day of riding mopeds under the hot sun we decided to grab a big dinner. We stopped by the dreaded Sihanoukville beachfront again; the $3 barbecue chicken was too cheap and delicious to pass up. As we finished and began walking back down the side street, I felt a small hand wrap around my waist. I looked down to find the same little girl from the night before. She sipped a cup of Coca Cola this time and pulled on my arm, asked where I was eating dinner. I told her I was leaving and she said I was her best friend, held out her tiny palm, and commanded I give her a present. Her big brown eyes stared up at me, her gap teeth showing through her smirk. I couldn’t tell if she was naturally this precocious or if it was the caffeine diet. 

Finally, I reached into my backpack and pulled out a little threaded ninja doll that one of my friends had given me for the Christmas before last. I’d carried it all over Australia and now Cambodia. But even knowing she’d probably throw it away, I felt like this little girl, by some minuscule chance, could benefit from this token more than me. I handed it to her and she studied it. She held it tight in her palm, then turned to my friend and asked her for a present as well. I laughed - somewhere inside of me I’d expected that. My friend handed her a piece of durian to eat. When we waved her goodbye, we saw her sauntering back to her fellow urchins, carrying her gifts triumphantly above her head.

It’s not hard to say that kids selling stuff on the street is wrong. It’s not hard to say that buying the stuff they sell encourages the behavior. It’s not hard to say these street urchins are being used and abused by their bosses. But it’s hard to say how to fix this situation, how to send kids to school who have nothing and nobody to help them. 

Seedy, Seedy Sihanoukville

Location: Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Much of Koh Rong’s Khmer population has migrated from Sihanoukville; when asked why they moved, they talk of leaving the city for better business opportunities on the teeny island. It seems like a paradox; clearing out of the big city and heading to a remote island for prospects. But Sihanoukville is troubled. You can sense it from the moment you step into the dusty city. You can see it in the starving eyes of the street urchins, in the reflections of windows on half-built, abandoned buildings. There are miles of moldy cement fences surrounding empty plots of weed-covered land. Many areas look like they’ve been bombed out. Immaculate hotels cast shadows on nearby tin slums. The villagers of Koh Rong talk about the rampant ice (crystal meth) usage in the city, gang problems, violence, and poverty. 

The scenes painted on the beachfront reflect this pain; there is a seediness underlying the paradise fabricated for tourists. The beige sands, lapping waves, the mood lighting cast by red candles and the cheap food menus all feel a tad sordid when you realize that your waiter can’t be older than sixteen, the girl serving you food is maybe seventeen, and a nine year old boy is setting up your table and cleaning off empty plates. And every few moments while reclining in one of those comfy bamboo lounges on the sand a child will come up to you begging or selling bracelets and fireworks. 

One black-haired girl, maybe seven years old at most, slurped an iced coffee and shoved herself into my lounge and onto my lap. Her ankle-length skirt, once pink and white, was now a dirty gray, her stash of braided bracelets slung over her shoulder. She sang the first few lines of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” and gave me a high five. As the caffeine soaked into her system, she began poking me repeatedly with a fork and falling into giggle fits whenever I pulled back. We ended up buying a couple of bracelets off of her; they were pretty and she let us haggle her down to 50 cents a piece (I still feel uncomfortable that we bought stuff off her, perpetuating child labor in Cambodia). She was really bright; she could remember what country each of the eight people at the table were from off the top of her head. She was also so excitable I kept thinking I should pour out her coffee when she wasn’t paying attention. Another street boy was sitting at the table; he’d sold several bracelets and was now trying to get us to guess what countries other customers in the restaurant were from. He stayed until an older boy wearing a hat that read “I’M THE BOSS” across it came by and muttered something in Khmer to him. We figured it was along the lines of “make the sale or go away.” 

Then a boy in red pajamas with green buttons came by and asked us to buy bracelets off him. He was maybe eight or nine and already had a sour look on his face. When one of my friends told him we already had bracelets, he told her, “go fuck your mother” and wandered off. 

At the end of the night, the little girl in the dirty skirt hitched a piggy back ride from one of my friends back to the spot on the beach where her boss and the rest of the street urchins were stationed. She grinned and waved as we left.