Get Your Kicks On Route 6
We were all picked up early by the Mekong Express minibus, which had perhaps had better days. Rumbled around the back streets of Siem Reap picking up tourists until we pulled into the bus station. The Mekong Express bus company are recommended by all the guide books and were the recommendation of our guide Sanchey. Cost was $USD11 per person. The Mekong Express bus, which took 6 hours to rumble down route #6 to Phnom Penh, was comfortable enough but certainly nothing flash – it had a toilet and was certainly airconditioned, but it seemed a little tired. some of the buses alongside looked a little nicer, but I’m not sure whether they were going to Phnom Penh or longer trips to Ho Chi Minh or Bangkok.
We each recieved a bottle of water and a box containing a dried pork bun and a peanut cookie – Greg complimented the bun but Ally and I found the fiborous texture of the “pork” a little too disconcerting. I found the peanut cookie to be pleasant, although I think it consisted of little more than crushed peanuts and sugar.
Trip was flat and uneventful. One stop somewhere in Kampong Cham provence. To our dissapointment this was not a the village famours (notourious?) for its fried spiders. Rather it was a nondescript little place with a a couple of vendors and a large, very Chinese looking, restaurant which was doing a good trade with travellers on the road. There was one lady selling various bugs, including spiders, but she was very unhappy with tourists photographing her wares. I decided that, with another three hours between us and Phnom Penh and the flies around her fried delights being less of a concern than the Westerners wanting to photograph the spiders that I would wait for another opportunity to munch on an arachnid.
Arrived at the Mekong Express office in Phnom Penh and we managed to locate our bags. The touts were kept out the fenced off area, so we decided to take a moment to collect our thoughts. Literally before Ally and Greg could light a cigarette the fences dividing the taxi and tuktuk drivers and us, their prey, were removed. We were surrounded. We nearly provoked an ugly incident by agreeing to go with a taxi driver who had not been the first to shout taxi at us, but this was resolved by agreeing to go with whoever had called ‘Shotgun’ on us. I think the driver managed to pad out the short journey to our hotel, the FCC.
The Foreign Correspondents Club in Phnom Penh is a lovely little spot on the riverside. Only opened in 1993 it seems to have almost as much character as many of the grand old colonial hotels. It’s a bit of a charmer. On the second and third floors are the bar, with lovely views over the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. The four rooms are on the first floor (ours was just under the pool tables) and they are chic and elegant. The minibar contains all the journalist necessities; 750ml bottles of gin, scoth, rum.
In the evening Ally and I wandered up to the night market along the quay. The market, which was only just beginning, was very subdued and, to be honest, not particularly interested. Stopped off on the way back to the FCC to have a $USD2.50 campari and orange overlooking the Tonle Sap at one of the multitude of bars which line the riverbank.
Tune hotel was passable for a few hour layover. We paid about 50 cents for the room and about $5 for air-conditioning and another $2.50 for the comfort kit (e.g. towels). A deposit of twenty ringgit for each key and ten for each towel was required. The room was tiny, with just enough room to shuffle sideways around the bed and a small bathroom, with a standard shower cubicle. Tune advertise ‘5 star showers’ and the showerhead was good, if not exactly ‘5 star’. We ended up storing some of our luggage in the bathroom to create enough room to move about!
the Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur flight. Arrived in Siem Reap an hour late to be met which one of the most singular visions I had seen in my life. In the customs hall there was a large, half-moon sized desk behind which which were seated about 7 or 8 guards. Our visa application was passed along this line on identically dressed guards – all men – you all had one particular function to perform. After recieving our visas we got through customs without too much trouble, collected our baggage, smiled to the customs officials and prepared for the inevitable chaos beyond the airport.
Sala Bai, our hotel, is primarily a school. It takes in underprivilged (a family which earns less than $25 dollars a month) young Cambodians every year and trains them in the trade that makes this two tick – hospitality. It is primarily NGO funded. The young staff are amazing – always smiling and perhaps even more endearing in their occaisional mistakes and uncertainty. The restaurant looks equisite and we ordered lunch and some drinks – Ally had a coke, I had a freshly-squeezed lime juice and Jo and Greg each ordered a beer (which turned out to be a 750ml bottle!).
After a rest we hired a couple of tuktuks, intending to have a wander around Siem Reap and then to see sunset over Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakeng. After having to turn around to retrive Ally’s hat the two tuktuks ended up at different markets! After a short mobile phone conversation between the drivers we were all successfully reunited at the Central Market. We had a short wander round and the expert sales-people, whose high-pressure sales techniques can rival those anywhere, we were parted with about $20 for a selection of tourist tat. We met up with the tuktuk drivers who explained that it was now too late to see the sunset from Phnom Bakeng and suggested the Tonle Sap instead. Slightly incredulous, we consented to this plan.
When we arrived at the lake the ‘plan’ was to take a boat to view the sunrise over a floating village. However, it was immediately clear that quite a few tourists who had just returned from boat trips were rather disgruntled with what they had been charged and the length of the ride. The whole scene was rather unnerving and just smelt dodgy. We took a coupleo of photos, got hasselled by some amazingly cute kids and piled back into the tuktuks for the hold-on-to-your plastic handropes drive back into town. Got back to the hotel and, for the second time in the one day, needed some time to recover!
Went out for dinner an hour or two later and ended up at a tourist restaurant which did quite passable fish Amok, curries and more Western fare. Wanded around Siem Reap feeling slightly more comfortable as we realised that crossing the road between scooters and whathaveyou was possible. Just kinda thrilling!
