A "Flash Packer's" Guide to Cambodia, Pt. 1

I'm back in Shanghai after a crazy 2 weeks traveling around Cambodia with my high school friend, Alena. There's a lot to say about what we did and saw out there, so we've decided to break it up into three parts, beginning with our journey from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap.

But first I feel like I should start this off by putting all of my cards on the table... Alena and I are not backpackers. Surprised? So were we. Nonetheless, we spent the majority of our time in Cambodia trying to convince ourselves the contrary... but we failed... rather miserably.  Instead, we were later dubbed "Flash Packers" by our travel writer friend, Greg. A flash packer, evidently, is a sort of mutation of a backpacker... we do actually own backpacks and we do actually "backpack" around, but we also are willing to spend slightly more money than backpackers on certain "luxuries". For your typical flash packer, luxuries apparently include amenities such as not having to sleep in sheets stained with someone else's bodily fluids or not having to share a bathroom with Cambodian prostitutes and probable sex offenders (story to come). For your typical flash packer, however, (aka us) these small "luxuries" are maintained as our standard. Anyways, as you'll begin to see, this is story of the adventures of two flash packers. 

Our first night/day in Phnom Penh was pretty uneventful... pretty much marked by our attempts to master the art of negotiating with the tuk tuk drivers for a better price so they could take us on a five minute ride (don't judge, our backpacks were heavy) to various palaces and pho noodle joints. So, we headed off to Siem Reap pretty early in the day in order to make it there at a reasonable hour. It's a 5+hour "bus" ride to Siem Reap, and (we learned this the very, very hard way) said busses were not equipped with bathrooms. Deciding to purchase and chug fresh coconut water before squeezing into a small bus with a bunch of Cambodians for a bumpy ride across the country was probably our first Flashpacker fail. Lucky for us, one of our fellow passengers happened to speak English and she soothed us with her soft words of "twenty more minutes until we stop for bathroom" as we suffered onwards in the back of our bouncing "bus". The local Cambodians made no effort to suppress their stares and chuckles as two Western girls (the only ones for miles, I might add) with empty coconut shells ran from the bus and through a little local restaurant to the bathrooms. Thankfully, we barely survived, both almost suffering from renal failure. This experience became Flash Packer Tip #1: think before intaking fluids and expecting a readily available bathroom when needed. And DO NOT, under any circumstances, buy and chug a coconut before getting on a bus for five hours.

The coconut culprit

We finally got to Siem Reap, bladders traumatised, but nonetheless with a great picture of what the unbelievable Cambodian countryside was like (houses on stilts, rice fields, villages, Buddhist temples, etc). We spent an awful first night in Siem Reap; imagine sheets and walls beautifully splattered and stained with unidentified bodily fluids in a stuffy airless room. Our first morning was rather interesting as well. Breakfast included rubber eggs and stale rolls filled with ants (ant-free bread wasn't too much to ask, right?). And after getting our bodies massacred by mosquitos while doing a spot of open-air yoga (note, all yoga in Cambodia was unintentionally Bikram yoga), we finally threw up our white flags and decided to switch to a different guesthouse. We're-not-fussy-at-all-we-just-want-clean-sheets-and-air-conditioning seemed to scream "Flash Packer" to everyone but us. Lucky for us, (again the Flash Packing gods seemed to be with us) we found a great place for the same price. The sheets were significantly less-stained (to the point where we didn't have to mummify ourselves in sarongs to sleep), the owners incredibly friendly and helpful, and the room was cool and airy. So in the end, we were happy and comfortable. 

Beautiful monks

After spending an exhausting second day visiting the famous and stunning temples of Cambodia at Angkor Wat and hanging out with Buddhist monks (we're trying to reach enlightenment, duh), we finally plopped down for dinner at a local Khmer restaurant to replenish our worn-down bodies and minds. We felt totally at peace and down to earth from our productive day, (nothing could have ruffled our feathers, not even stained sheets).... but we found ourselves unable to focus on the relaxation at hand, as we were being given an interesting show by two young female travellers, such as ourselves, from an unnamed Western European country. 

A sample of some of their dialogue: "Eh excuse me, zees salad eez not fresh. Eet tastes like eet was made yesterday. We ate 'ere yesterday, zees eez ridiculous." "Eh excuse me. We order our food before zey [us] did.. we are een a 'urry" (they stayed for 2 hours)... We were rather shocked and embarrassed by these rude young ladies ("young ladies" was not my original description of choice, by the way). Once again, we were in a Cambodian restaurant where the only way to even order was to point to the pictures of the food we wanted... What did they expect? And for the record, we ordered the same delicious mango salad and it was awesome. 

I mention this story as a reference to what we are NOT... we're lovers of clean sheets, maybe... but we're certainly not snobs. Despite our desires for certain "luxuries", we still were completely aware and sensitive to the fact that we were in a developing country. Unlike Thailand, Cambodia is incredibly raw and barely even has a hospitality industry. For us as travellers, that was all a huge part of the charm. But we learned from this instance and several others that many tourists who come here really do like to naively believe they can expect the same comforts from home in Cambodia (our question was, why come to Cambodia if you're coming with these western expectations, i.e. nightclubs with house music and happy hour and Khmer restaurants with five star service). No wonder western travellers get such an unfortunate reputation out here in the east. As mentioned, it was indeed embarrassing for us. The waitresses were obviously startled and we could tell that for the rest of our meal their disposition towards us had totally changed as well. Anyway, these two lovely girls were nowhere near as bad as the American teenaged girls humping each other on our boat ride the following week, but there's more to come on that. This brings us to Flash Packer Tip #2: keep an open mind when travelling in a developing country... and don't be a dumb asshole about stupid things. It wont get you anywhere.

The stunning Angkor Wat

Originally we had planned to stay in Siem Reap only for 2 or 3 nights, but we found ourselves there during the Khmer New Year holiday. We really appreciated all the blessings and colourful bracelets we were given, but unfortunately this also rendered it quite difficult to get around the country that week. In the end, we were fortuitous to get out of Siem Reap without having to take the 12-hour overnight bus down south. I'd rather spare everyone of the details, but our journey back to Phnom Penh ended with us being chauffeured around the  city in probably the only BMW to exist in Cambodia. (Side note: we are "Flash Packers" not millionaires. We were helped out by some nice friends). Funnily enough, the entire time in the car Alena and I kept laughing to each other about how we missed the tuk tuks and smog. We were still clearly at the point in our trip where we were pretending to be backpackers, despite the flight and beamer. We are very good at kidding ourselves, but, as they say, if it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck... I suppose what we got from this experience was what I'll call Flash Packer Tip #3: there is no sense of urgency in the developing world, so when planning your domestic transportation, take that into consideration and either chill out or rearrange accordingly. Who knew that neither buses nor taxis would be available around the Khmer New Year? Not us. 

We spent another night in Phnom Penh (getting to know the city from a resident expat's point of view) before bussing it down south to the underworld that is Sihanoukville and the heaven that is the island of Koh Rong... this time without any coconut-related incidents, thank the kidney gods. 

Our experiences down south will be posts of their own, as we have a lot of commentary about them... but let's just say that within one week we ended up in both the worst and the best places I've ever seen in my life. So, until our next post (which will be written when Alena makes her way out to Shanghai next week), I'll leave you all with Flash Packer Tip #4: don't trust a traveller wearing ankle bracelets. Ever.

More to come on that soon.......