Do we go to Cambodia?

I was too stubborn. Beth wouldn't let me go to Cambodia by myself, and I wouldn't let myself miss Angkor Wat. Beth relented, and I whisked her to the travel agency (Vista - recommended by LP). They seemed way out of date, but in fact booked us on a flight to Ho Chi Minh that stopped in Phnom Penh for $220USD return on Thai Air. We were both a little relieved - me that I was going, Beth that the "schedule" was more or less sorted out. And even though Beth was worried, she looked like she'd gotten away with stealing a box of chocolate from the corner store. Amazingly, in the Bangkok Post that day, the cover story was the crash of a Vietnam Airlines Tupolev (Russian plane) at Phnom Penh the day before, killing all but two people - Beth amazingly didn’t even comment on it and I wasn’t about to bring it up!

It was fun to be one up on the tuk-tuk drivers the second time around. Last time (two years before) we'd been taken for a ride - the old "I take you to a gem shop to get my gas certificate, and then I take you to three temples" (and I leave you at the first temple ha...ha...ha!) scam. Of course lots of travelers knew about the high-pressure gem scams, some travelers (including a co-worker in Japan) get sucked into those "incredible deals". If you knew, sometimes you could get a cheap ride from a tuk-tuk, but you were better off not using them in the city, especially since the cabs were metered. When the tuk-tuk drivers yelled at me "5 Baht" (hmmmm... I didn’t remember telling him where I was going....) I would yell back "yeah, let's go get some cheap gems eh?" - I'd either get a blank stare or the knowing (a-la Yogyakarta) smile - either way they left us alone.

The six of us needed to buy more souvenirs/gifts etc, so we crammed into a cab and headed to the weekend market. The place was huge. Beth and I walked down one side and back up the other (without stopping) and it took about 45 minutes - but amazingly they didn't have what any of us were looking for. They did have the following: high temperatures, milling throngs of people, pet world, plant world, smelly food market world, used-just-about-anything world, book world, painted fruit world and the excellent flora and fauna world - yes, for the most part, the place was a dud. We were lucky to escape without having our pockets picked!

We had a spare day before our flight to Phnom Penh, so we convinced Kylie and Andrew to take a day trip to Kanchanaburi (scene of the "Bridge Over the River Kwai" - the AmericanWWII atrocities that went on at the hands of our Japanese movie that first told the public of the friends. Chad had recommended it, and surprisingly (Chad was usually pretty reliable), it was pretty crap. (I seem to remember that he went in the minibus with six Swedish women, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with his flowery praise of the trip). We ended up driving more that anything - "OK - 10 minute to see bridge", "OK - 20 minute to see waterfall", "OK - 30 minute to see museum". It was just lame, and there wasn't that much to see and do – if it wasn’t for the war museum, the trip would have been a total bust. If I were to do any day trip, I'd probably do the Ayuthaya one, but that could easily be done without going through a tour operator.

It was time. We took the airport minibus organized by the hotel (70 Baht) and arrived at the airport with giddy anticipation. There was a post office that operated 24 hours a day and let you call Home Country Direct free of charge. We mailed our toy tuk-tuk present to Chad (only somebody who'd been there would appreciate it) and phoned our respective parents, telling them nothing of our little adventure we were about to embark on. In the boarding lounge, we were surprised to see half of the seats full of fellow travelers, though I could count on one hand (I did - two) how many other backpackers there were. The flight went a quick one hour and five minutes, and we landed in what would turn out to be our favourite experience of the trip.