Day 19: Motorcyle Bar

It all started this morning with a two phone calls and a bang on the door.  Greg was in the shower, and I apparently was not prepared to wake up at 5am, as I managed to miss all three attempts to wake me.  Luckily, all the commotion finally woke me and I got moving.  Soon, we were checked out of the hotel and in the car on our way to Cambodia.  Greg’s friend Mark got us lined up with a nice car, so we had a smooth, comfortable ride to the border.  I slept a bit and finished reading the border crossing procedures, and in about three and a half hours we were at the border.

At the border, we were bombarded with help before we even left the car, though there was less than I expected.  We managed to fend everyone off and make it to the border.  Getting through Thai immigrations was very quick and easy, and soon we were in no man’s land.  Between the two countries, tons of people with carts were moving goods for trade between Thailand and Cambodia.  Many of the carts were stuffed unimaginably full of who knows what.  There were even several casinos between the two countries, where Thai people would go gamble after leaving Thailand, but before officially entering Cambodia.  The Cambodian side of immigration wasn’t bad either, we just had to wait in line a bit longer.  Soon, though, we were through and in Cambodia, having undergone not a single bit of security.

There were no taxis just outside of the border, instead, we had to take a shuttle to a “travel depot.”  This was a building in the middle of nowhere, with no way to leave but to take their taxi at their price.  At any rate, we got a taxi and soon were headed towards Siem Reap.  Or so we thought.  As it turns out, our taxi was out of fuel, and since the driver presumably had no money to fill up until we paid, we had to stop before we could get going.  Many of the vehicles in Thailand and Cambodia have been converted to propane fuel, and our taxi was one of them.  This meant there was a big propane tank in the truck that had to be refilled.  We stopped at a station, or should I say, we stopped at a shack with several propane tanks and a compressor, to fill up.  The driver and station owner spent about twenty minutes trying to attach one of the tanks before finally getting it hooked up and pumping, which almost immediately made the hose in the trunk come off, and the compressor overload.  Eventually we managed to get filled up without a single propane tank exploding, which is rather impressive if you ask me.

Refueling took a while at this station.

The fuel tank next to our bags.

As we got closer to Siem Reap, I noticed we had entered Siem Reap province, and I made a comment to Greg about how that was good, as I would need to use the toilet soon.  Of course, hearing this, our driver pulled over at his favorite cousin’s shop so that we could use the toilet, and, of course, buy something from the store.  We did so, but just before we left, our driver decided this was the perfect opportunity for a car wash.  So he pulled up to the giant bucket and compressor set up and proceeded to hose down his entire car.

After all this, we finally got into Siem Reap, and we were both very pleasantly surprised.  As we drove in, the town was full of many nice looking hotels, including ours, which has good rooms, hot showers, a pool, and good internet.  After checking in and seeing the guys carry our bags on their shoulders up three flights of steps, we took a walk downtown.  Like the rest of town, we were very surprised by the downtown.  The shops were quite nice, and there were many nice restaurants.  The people were not aggressive at all, though they certainly seem to think we need a tuk-tuk.  One interesting experience was the way they use money here.  The USD is the de facto currency, so everything is paid in USD, but they don’t use USD coins, so change is paid in USD until it gets to less than a dollar, with the remainder being paid in Cambodian reil, in which 2000 reil equals $0.50.

The area was much nicer than we expected.

The market.

How hygenic!

At this point, Greg and I split up.  Greg went to go get a $12 massage, which he says is much better than the $150 massages in the states, while I bought a couple of books at a nice little used bookstore before heading back to the hotel to cool off in the pool and read and relax for a while.  At dinner time, Greg and I walked downtown again and found a place to eat dinner and watch all of the bikes on the streets.  There are very few cars here, with almost everything riding either a bike or motorcycle.  For some reason, most of the cars we have seen seem to be Lexus cars.  As we were walking back from dinner, we passed a pool hall, where there were plenty of tables, including several open ones, so we decided to go in and play some pool for a while.  All of the tables were large 10-foot pool tables, which made the game extra interesting.  We opted for the more expensive air conditioned private room, where we played pool for an hour and had three drinks for a grand total of $6.  The best part about the bar was that everyone drove their bikes inside and parked them right in the middle of the room.  Thought I’m not that good at pool and lost all three games, I found it great fun.

Billiards!

We found something made in America!

The motorcycle bar