To my dear wife, for letting me go and for taking such good care of our little dragons:-)
2.5.2009 Silvi Marina – Pescara – Rome – Prague
On the way from the beach training camp to Prague I went through a car, a long-distance bus (Pescara – Rome) and a plane. At the airport I surprisingly ran into Bob Šedivý, who'd spent a week with his better half checking out the monuments of Rome.
In Prague Zuzka picked me up and on the way home we stopped by Bushman, where I kitted myself out for the tropics with linen trousers, a shirt and a hat, which turned me (as Patrik later put it) into Emil Holub himself:-)
Sun 3.5. 2009 Prague – Frankfurt – Bangkok
On Sunday our flight wasn't until the evening, so I managed to pack in peace, sort out the green, never-satisfied cows and even read up a bit about Cambodia online. I took the metro to the airport, just to feel the weight of that backpack. Given that the average temperature in SE Asia is 31°C right now, we don't need much and most of the backpack is taken up by the camera and shoes.
In Frankfurt we waited about 5 hours and the only highlight was the Singapore Airlines crew walking past twice. Around 10 flight attendants in gorgeous oriental dresses, each one prettier than the last. Patrik flew to Australia with them last year on the new A 380 and the level of onboard service matches the beauty of the flight attendants and has no competition.
Mon 4.5. Bangkok
we landed around two in the afternoon local time and outside it was, as expected, 30°C and 100% humidity :-)
Bangkok has about 7 million people, so a pretty decent area. The airport, which has only been standing for about 3 years, still has no rail link. We could go either by taxi, express bus or a regular bus with the locals. Currency note: the local currency is the Baht. 1 Baht ≈ 0.70 CZK. The taxi would have cost 300 Bt, the express bus 150. We decided to get to know the local situation and in two steps we managed to ride the airport bus for free to the bus station, from where buses go into town for about 30 Bt. Thais are incredibly helpful and gave us advice in decent English without even being asked. The bus station, even though it's only for city transport, looked better than Florenc. Bangkok is a city of contrasts, but generally it gives the impression of a civilised place. All public spaces look clean and well kept, relatively new cars in good condition drive around here. But sometimes you drive through a rubbish dump in the middle of the city and sometimes you meet a vehicle that wouldn't pass a roadworthiness test in a million years. For instance a motorbike with a cart attached to the handlebars, pushed in front of it, which during the day serves as a stall with goods. Roughly the size of a small caravan hung with goods from top to bottom and it's barrelling down the street, with just a tiny peephole through the goods at the front:-).
At the same time I have the feeling that they've taken the Czech complex of "The main thing is to have a good car so the neighbours are jealous" to the extreme. The dwellings in the district where we stayed looked at first glance more like a coal shed than a flat, but new cars in front of them.
We went to the famous backpacker district Khao San, where a few streets are closed off at night and turned into a promenade full of stalls with goodies of every kind. One after another we had chopped pineapple (10 Bt), chopped melon (10 Bt), chicken hearts on a skewer (5 Bt), chicken wings on a skewer (5 Bt), pineapple and melon and mango again (really good, they hacked it into a bag with a machete right in front of us), then a pan mix of noodles, meat and egg (25 Bt) and to finish a fruit cocktail in a little pub with a terrace on the first floor (mine with vodka, Patrik's without). Alcohol is the only thing here that isn't ridiculously cheap. A cocktail from fresh fruit cost 40 Bt without vodka, 140 Bt with! One more thing about the ride from the airport. We waited about 30 min for the right bus, then it drove us like a proper tropical lunatic, right up until we hit the first traffic jam.. And that one was a proper one, as befits Bangkok. Thousands of moped riders weaved between the many lanes of honking, crawling cars and the whole thing moved forward only very slowly. Besides the driver the bus also has a conductor, whose job, apart from rattling a metal tube for money, is to kick the confused white tourists off in time. Here they're not called gringos, but farang:.
When we got off the bus, we needed to cross a street of about 8 lanes. The traffic was directed by cops, so it looked easy, also because the light was green. To our surprise the cops shooed us back onto the pavement! Then one local explained that the princess was coming! That's when it dawned on me that the traffic really was completely stopped. BTW, they drive on the left here, which is why I nearly got run over a couple of times by a car coming from the weird side;)
after a while the motorcade really did arrive and I'd evidently grossly underestimated the local royal family. First came 10 luxury Beemers (you don't see them here otherwise!), then 20 motorbikes, then 5 limousines, then 30 red Mercedes, then 20 motorbikes, then 20 red Mercedes, then 20 motorbikes, then 15 vans, then 20 motorbikes, well we simply stood there for 10 minutes gawping at the parade of the princess's vehicle fleet, tearing through the city at 100 km/h.
We stayed in a Guest House type establishment. It's something between a hotel and a hostel. It cost 270 Bt a night for both of us. 2 clean beds, a bathroom with a relatively clean toilet, a running shower and a bucket. A European is surprised by the absence of a sink, but no worries. Only cold water ran, but at 30°C it wasn't cold enough. Without air conditioning, but with a fan we slept pretty well. The temperature here drops by 3°C at night at most.
Tue 5.5. Bangkok – Cambodian border – Siem Reap
In the morning we took bus number 3 straight from the hotel to the bus station (Mochit station), where the long-distance buses leave from. Some local, decently dressed Thai eagerly guided us through the market, "helped" with buying another batch of pineapple and melon, and led us into the station building to the information desk. The whole time we were waiting to see what scam would come out of it (fake tickets, a "friend" with a taxi, or a hand held out for payment for the "assistance"). Surprisingly he didn't want anything!
A ticket for the air-conditioned bus to the town of Aranya Prathet on the Thai – Cambodian border cost 200 Bt per person (including blaring local music, 5 hours of driving, a snack and water).
before departure (9:30) we also had an excellent mix with rice, meat, corn and bamboo shoots. The bus ride through the Thai countryside revealed an interesting and surprising thing. The countryside isn't poorer than Bangkok – solid two-storey houses, tidy gardens (not like in Germany, but tidy by tropical standards), a car fleet comparable to the Czech Republic and above all absolutely fantastic road conditions!
Once soldiers stopped us, one climbed in and walked between the seats. He wasn't very interested in us farangs, but he pulled out 3 locals, about 16 years old, and took them off into a booth outside. To my surprise the bus put it in gear and drove off and left them there! The next stop was for food. As is usual here, one hand washes the other and the driver stops at the only expensive restaurant on the whole route. The bus crew weren't sheepish enough and soon figured out that the food at the 50 stalls around cost 10 times less than in this restaurant. (We were all tourists there – Americans, Germans, Dutch and 2 rich Malaysians). The driver thereby lost his claim to the commission and took revenge on us by shortening the stop from 30 minutes to 10. Even so we managed to have 1 plate of rice with a pork mix and beans, 2 chopped pineapples and 2 chopped dragon fruits (about the size of a pineapple, white inside with seeds, less sweet). For all that (and it was excellent) we paid $5. The bus for those roughly 30 km cost $10.
We got to Siem Reap, the town near Angkor Wat, already after dark, around 18:30. They dropped us off at the supposed bus station (packed dirt by the road), where the tuktuk drivers were already waiting as arranged (Tuktuk – a motorbike with a trailer for 2-4 farangs with backpacks). The tuktuk drivers in turn get commissions from the Guest House they bring the farangs to. Ours was in cahoots with a place called Angkor Hilton. It was supposed to be $5 a night for a room for two with its own shower, so we took it. The shower was ideally cold. In the evening we first set out on a walking tour of the nearby market. The walk started by going through a very narrow and very dark alley with a burning pile of plastic bags. On the main street there was already a bit of light from the billboards and tuktuks.
Then we came back and took up the hotel's offer of a free tuktuk ride into the centre. He took us to a district that we characterised like this: "This district is built exactly the way an American imagines nightlife in Cambodia." That is, loads of very brightly lit bars, waitresses in livery, menus in English and in dollars, a drink for $2-5. Simply commercial crap. The only thing that distinguished this district from any other Americanised city (including Prague) was the constant shouting of "Tuktuk sir?" One tuktuk driver shouted loudly from afar "Tuktuk sir?" and then quietly up close "Young lady for you sir?" If he meant the one who was right then cuddling her son, then thanks but no thanks (even though she was beautiful, like many of the locals). In the end we had a mango cocktail there for $2 and it was super excellent. In my life I've spent $2 on far worse things many times:-)
Then we also went to the local night market. Wooden figurines, silk scarves, T-shirts etc. plus a little pool with fish that for $3/15 min. will nibble at your feet until you're miraculously healed:-)
Finally one beer at the acrobat barman's (1$) and off to meet up with our tuktuk driver and back to our Hilton:-)
I've just remembered how in front of one place lit quite red a tout offered us "Masage bum bum mister?" I would be curious what a bum bum massage is, but we didn't have the courage to try it:-)
