Leaving Cambodia

It was always our intention, after spending a few days in Phnom Penh, to head north back into rural Cambodia. Megan had her eye on an elephant sanctuary and some place where you can polish otters (or something). We reflected for a while and then decided that this would not be a worthwhile use of our time. We saw quite a bit of rural Cambodia both on the trip to Preah Vihear and also on our travels through the Battambang province. It is always difficult to write off areas or to conclude from only a short time in a country that you have the measure of it, but that has to be balanced against time and the practicalities of getting around. On balance, we decided to move on back to Vietnam and, more specifically, to the south.

In terms of what we saw and learned in Cambodia, it is difficult not to compare it to Vietnam for all sorts of reasons, but this is unfortunate since the country doesn't come off so well against its more mature neighbour. It is undoubtedly at an earlier stage of development and is in the grip of fevered construction which is always unfortunate. There seems to be something in the Cambodian psyche that could turn into a force for good or alternatively not so good. Interactions with locals are just a little bit more edgy and you feel you need to be that little bit sharper. Time will tell how this pans out. To be sure, Cambodia is more expensive than Vietnam, which we had been warned about, but is still a bit surprising. We met some other gringos who said they were quite disappointed by the country as a whole, but we wouldn't go that far. To be fair, we found the place to be quite pleasant and can forgive the locals a bit of cynicism given what they went through in their recent history. We had no problems in any of our dealings with the locals, with one exception.

In addition to the comparison with Vietnam, we had expected some Thai influence as well. We have not visited Thailand for quite a while so perhaps the hustle comes from there these days. Also from Thailand comes some culinary influence in the form of coconut soups and red or green curry. Unfortunately, these were lacking the explosion of taste generated by their Thai counterparts and were quite bland. In one restaurant in Phnom Penh, the strap line below their name was "Tastes better than it looks", which was probably an exaggeration. We did like Lok Lak, which is a beef stew served with rice or chips, salad and a fried egg. Like Thailand, the Cambodians don't use chopsticks so ordering this meal led to the strange experience of eating egg and chips with a spoon. Not something everyone can claim to have done.

Also related to food, we read in the Phnom Penh times of a man who died from eating dog meat. At his funeral, the guests were served the remains of the same dog... The answer to the question you are now asking yourself is eight!

The history of this country is littered with death, but it is worth mentioning that, in another incident, guests were served Lok Lak at a funeral. Five died and forty-odd ended up in hospital. The organiser claimed it was a dodgy batch of coca cola (which would be a first).

To summarise on the food front, pretty much everything we had in Cambodia could charitably be described as a bit bland. This we did not expect. At least we didn't go to any funerals.

Regarding the currency, this is the only place we have ever been where you can pay in local currency and receive US$ in the change. Normally it would be the other way round as the locals scramble to build up their stash of stable greenbacks. Here though, KHR and US$ are used interchangeably and sometimes you will be handed a fistful of notes containing a mix of both. It takes some mental agility to calculate whether your change is correct. If you are quick enough, depending on the sum involved, sometimes it is cheaper to pay in KHR and sometimes in US$ as roundings are applied liberally.

Whilst the exchange rate is some 6,000 to the UK£ which is far more sensible than the Vietnamese 33,000, they don't have the right denominations to support that, so you can end up with a massive number of notes that add up to virtually nothing.

We often had to barter prices, but this is to be expected virtually everywhere in Asia and was quite good natured. The guy we hired the motorbikes from in Siem Reap omitted to tell us that foreigners were not permitted to ride motorbikes here and that we could be fined by the police, but that was our problem; after all, he is a business man.

In common with everywhere in Asia, we found it useful to ask the same question of many different people and then to take the average of all the answers. Generally this leads to something approaching reality. Mostly people are not lying to us, let's be charitable and call it "enthusiasm". Of course, there is always the communication barrier and that is down to us really for not learning yet another impenetrable language.

A quick note on the weather. Hot, humid, hot. Even Megan has been heard to ask for the air con to be turned on.

Moving On

Having decided to leave, we activated phase two of the plan which was to take a boat out of Phnom Penh down the Mekong and over the border into Vietnam. This is billed as a 4½ hour journey by fast boat. Everyone we asked said that, yes indeed, the boat journey took 4½ hours and it was one boat all the way. Average that out and you get 4½ hours and one boat, so we went with that. You know what's coming right? and herein lies our one less than favourable dealing with the locals.

We should have been warned when the booking office told us the boat was not running. When we queried this, they made a quick phone call and found that, miraculously yes, it was running after all. To cut a long story short, our fast boat trundled out of Phnom Penh at about seven mph and proceeded to do this for the first six hours of the 75 mile journey. You don't need to be a mathematician to realise 4½ hours was not achievable. Repeated questioning of the boat driver solicited responses such as "the boat is broken", or "we are waiting for another boat", or "I have to get back to Phnom Penh". Eventually the driver forgot that he spoke any English at all.

After six hours, we met a boat coming the other way and exchanged passengers (and drivers, fortunately). The total journey time, end to end, was eight hours... Or it would have been had we not run out of diesel with our destination actually in sight. We drifted with the current for a while. Then a man in a little skiff turned up and towed us for a bit. Then a man with some fuel turned up, but we didn't have a funnel. We did have an empty water bottle though. After this, the engine would not start until the fuel man (now covered in diesel) connected the starter motor to the battery using a spanner. There would be more pictures, but we were at the other end of the boat by this time! We were told by the Vietnamese chap on the second boat that the late running was due to the Cambodians and that running out of fuel was due to the owners not supplying enough. We pointed out it was the responsibility of the captain to ensure he had enough fuel, but this doesn't seem to be policy here. Everyone blamed everyone else and no one admitted that this trip, despite being billed and sold as a 4½ hour journey, actually takes eight every day.

The fact that we have even bothered telling you about this event is actually testament to the fact that most things have been plain sailing so far and we have had it quite easy to date.

Chau Doc

It all felt rather as though Cambodia didn't want us to leave before our allotted time, but we did finally make it into Southern Vietnam and put ashore at the border town of Chau Doc. This is just an interim stop on our journey into the region, but it certainly felt like an achievement just getting here.

In Chau Doc we got speaking to an old fellow who used to be in the Vietnamese Air Force and who worked with the Americans as a helicopter engineer during the war. He was based at the Tan Son Nhat airbase in Saigon when the VC overran the place and the Americans "withdrew". He was, of course, left behind and subsequently imprisoned for three years. These days he waits for the tourist boats to arrive from Phnom Penh, which apparently occurs about 3:30 or 4pm every day. i.e. 8 hours after the published departure time. Funny that!

Chau Doc is very much a water-born economy and everything revolves around fish. This is good from a culinary perspective, as long as you don't spend too much time looking around the market... which we did. Previously we have bored you with stuff about railways. It is likely that the next few installments will feature a bunch of stuff about boats and fish (and mosquitoes), since we are now firmly in the Mekong Delta.

This is our first experience of Southern Vietnam and it immediately strikes us that they blow the horn on their motorbikes much more than in the north. Despite this not being a tourist town, there is also some hassle to buy trips from the local boat owners and a fair bit of begging, which we haven't seen before. We always expect life in the south to be more relaxed and laid back but, based on Chau Doc, it is quite a bit more frenetic than in the north. We shall see.

A bit of a mixed bag, this episode, but we wanted to take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year.