Thailand to Angkor, Cambodia Travel Report — by Nick Taylor, March 2009
After a weekend of hard partying on gorgeous Koh Phan Gan island in the Gulf of Thailand, where I had the pleasure of attending my very first Full Moon party, I was looking forward to the next inspirational item on my itinerary – the grand temples of Angkor Wat. What I didn’t count on is that I would have such an adventure on the way… As a self-proclaimed ‘traveler’ as opposed to the turistas we like to denigrate, I was fully prepared. I had read about the Thailand/Cambodia border bus scam well in advance. Not really wishing to spend 18 hours on a bus traveling down monsoon ravaged roads only to get ripped off, forced into exchanging currency at a crappy rate and sleeping in a rickety old inn, I opted to go the independent route.
Getting to the border at Aranyaprathet was easy, as Thailand has some of the best public transportation in Asia… About 100 M from the entrance, I was accosted by two snot nosed 10 year old kids who refused to leave me alone, which is never a good sign… A gangly ‘good Samaritan’ about my age interceded with some unqualified advice that I would later come to regret – ”watch your wallet!”. Being the ’seasoned’ traveler that I am, I reached for my wallet and switched it from my back to my front pocket, thinking there’s no way anyone can steal it now… Only to realize those two aggressive rugrats were no longer in lockstep with me & that I had been pickpocketed. Mr. Gangly kindly offered to get it back for me – for a price: all of the money in the wallet. I almost told him to suck it, before realizing that I had no leverage. To make matters worse, I had a photo in there I desperately needed for my Cambodian visa.
Within five minutes the wallet was back in my hands, the hucksters were 500 baht richer (I kept 500 and told him to get lost) and I was on my way. Well, not quite, as I still had to pay off a handler to pay off the border guards to get my visa. Yes, I tried refusing but being the only foreigner at the border was not exactly helping. Nor was negotiating for a taxi for ONE as there were apparently no other tourists brave (or stupid) enough to cross into Poipet at dusk. For 35 USD I would be delivered to Siem Reap by a toothless driver who spoke no English and had ample opportunity to rob me, shoot me and dump my body in the nearest rice paddy under the cover of the humid tropical night. Luckily he entertained no such thoughts.
The next day, as fate would have it, I entered the majestic grounds of Angkor. Built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, the temples are one of mankind’s most astonishing architectural achievements. All of the structures are believed by scholars to have been arranged to mirror the stars in the constellation Draco at spring equinox some 12 thousand years ago. Another mysterious fact about the Angkor complex is its location
exactly 72 degrees of longitude east of the Pyramids of Giza. This number is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. Needless to say, words and pictures hardly do justice to this place, reputed by scientists to have been the earliest preindustrial city in the world and capable of housing one million people at one time.
Inside the main temple of Angkor Wat, I went into a sort of hyper trance state… It was like a high octave spiritual frequency was pulsating through me… Angkor Wat itself was built to honor Vishnu, one of the main gods of Hindu theology… However, in an interesting twist, each temple was built according to the specific beliefs of the ruler at the time, so there are plenty of Buddhist statues to be found throughout the thick jungle canopy… The blend of the two religions evident in the statues and stories told through the carvings in the walls of the temples was captivating. It’s not like I really understood exactly what it was all conveying to me, but my imagination was running wild just the same.
Climbing up the small steps up the main building of Angkor Wat, it was like I was temporarily able to hear, see, feel, taste and smell its essence. I pictured the roar of the crowd, the king and his queen up there on a grand pedestal, wrapped in gold and surrounded by flowers, towering above clouds of incense, ministering to the tens of thousands of followers in the grass below who believed that their rulers were the reincarnations of deities. All that has remained of the Khmer are these structures made of stone, monuments to human collective consciousness that everyone should see before they pass on to the other side.
Ah don’t you hate the scammers in some countries?!? Especially when they outsmart even the seasoned travelers…
i had a similar incident in a border town in China. i had to actually buy back my own stolen passport! although i could have refused, i wouldn’t have been in a better situation without my passport!! i decided to just ’suck it up’ and get it back – cost me equal to about 30 quid, which was all i had in my pocket at the time.
It’s a shame about you being scammed, I know it’s not enough to put you off travelling but a slightly less seasoned traveller may be dissuaded from visiting entire regions again due to something like this happening to them.
The point is to take it all in stride… At the end of the day, I was out a little money and well shaken up, but I lived to see another day… I have an Australian friend who has (and this, just in the last two years!) been robbed by some street kids in Brazil followed by the policia in Colombia, only to get over to the Middle East and get beaten up & pickpocketed by the police in Kazakhstan and frightened to death by a mullah in Iran! The point is that bad things can and will happen, no matter what you do, it is useless to worry and generally pointless to generalize. IMHO travel, just like life, is a risk worth taking!