Mad Cambodia Part 2! July 15, 2008

Mad Cambodia again
Current mood: drained

I have time to write this because I am back in Phnom Penh, which wasn't according to plan. I was supposed to leave this morning for Saigon where I would have a day and a half to recuperate, enjoy the city, eat more street food before catching a flight back to wonderful San Francisco. However things didn't go as planned. I suppose, in this situation, it is because I am an idiot. I caught the bus this morning very early, like around 8 a.m., not feeling my best. In fact the last two days and today I have had something of an unfortunate stomach irritation, the details of which I shall spare my diverse readers, and which probably couldn't have been suffered in a more appropriate place than Cambodia. At least on this trip. Sadly, said ailment has stifled my ability to do as many here do in the evenings which is drink extensively and to the point or rip roaring night blindness. But maybe that is a good thing. I will say this, that before this ailment afflicted me I did have the opportunity to imbibe Cambodian beer at a bar really only noteworthy for its name -Heart of Darkness. But they didn't have shirts for sale anymore. Damn.

The bus trip to Saigon was going to take six hours, including an overland border crossing. I have a vivid memory of almost two months ago going to the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco with all my documentation, my visa photo and even a cashier's check for 130 dollars, the price of an extended 3 month multiple-entry Vietnam Visa. I received the visa the next day and thought nothing of it. Nor did I have reason to think of it at all this last month or so. After all, I made it to Vietnam, travelled around, went to a couple other countries, and put the thought of coming back to Saigon for my final departure at the very back of my head.

Twenty minutes into our bus ride we were asked to give our passports to the bus driver's assistant to facilitate the border crossing eventualities. Twenty minutes after that as we bumped along country ride just beyond Phnom Penh, the assistant in question came back to me with my passport and told me my Vietnamese visa was expired. And in fact, it was, much to my disbelief. I protested that I had go to Saigon at least by the 17th and he said I had to go back to Phnom Penh and get a visa and catch another bus. He said I should get off immediately. It would be easier that way. It was dirt road and little huts all around outside. Maybe, just maybe I could catch the 1 pm. bus if I made it back to Phnom Penh in time.

So despite being cordially kicked off a bus while everyone stared at me, the assistant was able to flag down a minibus taxi, actually just hitch-hiking with a small pittance a la Peru, to take me back to Phnom Penh. I was the only gringo in the ragged, hot vehicle and wondered where they were going to drop me off. And whatever part of Phnom Penh they did drop me off in, I didn't recognize it, except for responding to a general outlying city aesthetic of crumbling yellow villas wreathed with rusting barbed wire.

Anyway, long story short, I'm back in Phnom Penh at a pub-guesthouse on the river, feeling somewhat nauseous, exhausted, lonely but also humbled too, I suppose. My new visa won't be ready till this evening so I can't leave today. And yes for this final stretch Tim and I are travelling solo as you might have gathered. For completely mutually good reasons. And yes, I'm ready to go back to the city I love. I've tallied that with today's new and unforeseen accommodation we have stayed at a total of 17 guesthouses or glorified motels, slept on three overnight buses, one overnight train and spent one night on a boat.

But wait, I was going to finish the story about Poipet. Eh, that story takes too long. Needles to say we suffered the police-run taxi mafia, we waited for two hours, we were involved in a bureaucratic stand-off between one brave taxi driver and the police who wanted us to take a minibus instead, bulldozer roars and dust and exhaust and idle, tired corrupt officials gazing with beery eyes at us. We took the minibus for several more hours down dark, bumpy, pot-hole diseased dirt roads often plagued with piles of gravel too boot. The image of oncoming lights arcing in a mist of road dust. And waiting and bumping up and down. And then, one of the people we convinced to share the cab with us had the eagle eyes to spot on the side of the road a Finnish couple who had been at the taxi office. They were standing next to their now-idle steaming cab on the side of the road. It had broken down. And they had no idea when it would be fixed.

So our very optically astute cohort screamed for the driver to stop and we picked up the Finish couple much to our driver's bemusement. And then two hours later, and gradually approaching 11 hours of travel, the driver at 930 at night decided to have dinner and at a restaurant where he no doubt gets a cut of the profits. We're all rather incensed at the idea that the driver is postponing in such a dubious fashion our much-postponed entrance into Siam Reap so we all decide not to eat and he leaves us in the car, takes the key and sits down alone in a small alcove to a leisurely meal. The eagle-eyed German girl decides to jump into action and springs out of the car and we watch her verbally assail the driver with oaths and wildly-waving hands. She begs the help of one of the waiters to translate. But the driver is hungry and he wants to eat. He must eat. And really I can't argue with it. And frankly I find her screaming approach a bit counter-productive. But it is unusual for your taxi driver to take a dinner break while you're en route somewhere.

Finally he finished and we made it to Siam Reap at almost 11 at night and found a very nice guesthouse down a dark, unlit, dirt road....

All of you who I sent postcards too. Tell me when you get them.

Wish me luck. Two days left.