Last Day in Cambodia

On Saturday, the day before leaving, we got up early and Sohka and his other moto friend took us to the embassy. We handed our passports to a grumpy clerk, and he proceeded to set them on his desk and start reading a newspaper. After 15 minutes or so, he set the paper down, stamped our passports and that was that. Six days to wait for bureaucratic dinosaur to simply stamp our passports! Of course, we smiled, and walked away shaking our heads.

We wanted to beat the heat so we had the drivers take us to a hotel and a sports facility in hopes that they’d let us swim, but they were both over $10 a person – we chose to suffer. We went to the Wagon Wheel for breakfast (near Happy Herb’s) and soon discovered were all the expats hung out. We treated ourselves to whole wheat pancakes, lots of fruit, yoghurt and fresh squeezed orange juice – just like home – you needed that every once in a while.

All we had energy for the rest of the day was the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, a beautiful place that, like most poor countries ruled by some form of dictatorship for decades, showed where all the wealth of the country had ended up. Pure gold statues, a huge emerald Buddha, silver carvings and decorations – it was really kind of sad. The booty from one room could have probably solved all the problems of the entire country.

Despite looking for a decent Khmer restaurant we could afford, we ended up gong down the street to Baggio’s Pizza, where one choice of pizza was “happy” (I guess Herb had competition in the illicit food category). The place was good too – the calzone was awesome – but we felt a little guilty for not trying more Khmer food – next time I guess. On the way back, Beth and I hopped on one moto – a nightmare experience at best. As we drove home, I did a double take as I noticed a familiar restaurant… wait a minute – it wasn’t Pizza Hut but Pizza Hot! - Classic (they also used to have a “Rock Hard Café” in Phnom Penh).

For a souvenir, we picked up a coffee table book on Angkor called “a passage through Angkor”, a great pictorial book by Mark Stanton. When I looked at the jacket cover, there was a picture of the author, credited to… wait a minute…. Lap Tek! I then saw in the credits that Lap Tek had guided and translated for the author. Our Lap Tek had briefly mentioned something about helping a photographer over a period of 18 months, but this confirmed to us how lucky we’d been to have had Lap Tek as our guide.

The airport waiting lounge was surprisingly full, and before we knew it, we were off to Vietnam, with few expectations and not much to go on.

9/8 – 9/14 – 7 nights

Accommodation $6 / day

Travel $14 /day

Meals/snacks $23/day

Misc $52/day

Book $52

Ticket – Siem Reap $220

Visa $40

Ticket – BKK – PAN – SGN $424