Day 5 - Land Mines, Street Urchins And Massages

Remember how in my last post I mentioned buying $200 worth of Cambodia Riel? Well, here we were in our second day in Cambodia and we hadn't really used any of it. We were only planning on being in the country for about four-and-a-half days and I had over 750,000r to get rid of in that time. I'd been in countries before where you could use the U.S. Dollar pretty easily, but I've never seen such a huge preference for our money over their money. Usually the government agencies at least make you pay in their currency to try to keep it strong, and will even have that rule for hotel payment. Not in Cambodia, at least up to this point. Our visa fee was charged in dollars, as was our hotel and our tickets for Angkor Wat.

We stopped at a food stall one of the sights to get a bottle of water and a can of Diet Coke, I think he asked for a dollar. I asked if we could pay in Riel.

"Do you have any Thai Baht?" the kid asked.

Damn, their money wasn't even their second choice. He reluctantly agreed to take his country's money, though I'm pretty sure we had to pay a little more.

We ended up doing that the rest of the time we were in Cambodia, asking if we could pay in Riel just about every time we bought something. It was the only way we were going to get through all of it. I some cases though, the answer was no.

Our driver, Mr. Ya, picked us up in morning at our hotel for another trip out to Angkor. For our second day we were going to go a little farther out, to Banteay Srei, which means Citadel of the Women. A small temple when compared to Angkor Wat, but so much more well preserved. Carvings are more distinct and colorful than any of the other temples we saw.





We did have to deal with even harder selling tactics than the day before when we arrived at the temple. Almost a dozen kids, average age probably around eight or nine with several younger than that, surrounded us when we got out of the car. A girl about 12 or 13 wanted to sell me water, but I told her I didn't need any until I got out of the temple so maybe I would buy some then. I knew for sure she would remember that, so I knew I had just committed to buying water from her when I got out.

As we walked down the path to the temple the younger kids were all over us, probably four on Lisa and four on me, trying to sell us these little paper figures on strings. They were colorful and in shapes of stars, fish, birds and the like.


The kids were dirty and shoeless and hard to say no to, and not just for those reasons. They kept holding them up in your face and telling you how much they were, which kept changing depending on your level of resistance. They would even say that if you bought them they could buy some shoes. They really knew how to work it.

I kept trying to defer to Lisa, since it looked like she was already buying some, by telling the kids around me that my wife was already buying some so I didn't need any. The answer would be "but she didn't buy them from me."

And if you said you would buy some when you came out they kept saying that they had to go to school soon so they wouldn't be there.

We finally got to the temple entrance, after buying several of these things already, walked up the steps and the little boy (most of the rest were girls), about 7 or 8 years old I guess, started to outright cry. Man, this was too much.

Of course none of them went to school while we were in the temple, what a shock they weren't being completely honest with us. Before we got back to the car Lisa bought a couple of scarves, and I think a shirt, as well as a hell of a lot more of those paper ornaments.

The sky then broke open and it started raining like mad, so we ran back towards the car, all of the kids keeping up to try to sell us more stuff. On the way, getting doused with rain, I then had to deal with the older girl who I told I would buy some water when I came out, which she promptly reminded me. She also tried to rip me off by telling me it was 10,000r for a bottle, about $2.60.

"It doesn't cost that much to buy water in New York," I told her. I don't think she was expecting me to do the math in my head while I was trying to rush to the car. One of my hints for international travel is to always have in your head what one of the more common bills of that country's money is worth. She lowered her price, I got the water and jumped in the car.

It stopped raining on the way and we stopped at a place called The Cambodia Landmine Museum. A small, unimpressive looking building but a really amazing experience. It was started by a guy named Aki Ra who had been a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge, as well as for Vietnam after he was captured and forced to fight for them. As an adult he has made it his life's work to rid his country of land mines, and is personally responsible for clearing over 50,000 of them on his own. The museum exhibit is basically a huge amount of empty shells he dug up and deactivated, along with information about him, the history of land mines and the wars in Cambodia

He and his wife also take in children who are injured or orphaned by land mines. Needless to say it is one of those places where you are happy to spend money in the gift shop, which includes crafts made by the children. I bought a t-shirt and we dropped some money in the donation box. You can read more about Aki Ra, his wife and the museum here and here, as I can't completely do it justice. I was moved and somewhat embarrassed about being from one of the only thirteen countries left that haven't renounced and stopped producing these evil things.


Ta Prohm was next. Probably my favorite sight in Angkor. Unlike all the other temples, when Ta Prohm was rediscovered they didn't rip out all the large trees that had started to take over the temple, so you have this incredible look of stones and walls being taken over by large roots.





I also loved it because the rain had made it flooded and muddy that you had all these Western and Japanese tourists jumping around from rock to rock trying to stay above it.


After that we went back to Siem Reap, walked down to Pub Street and the alley for dinner at the Khmer Kitchen again. Then we went back to the hotel for our scheduled massages.

We got them at the same time in adjoining rooms in the little massage hut next to the pool. I'll say one thing about getting a full body massage in Cambodia, they seem to have less hang-ups about the body than in America. Whenever I get a massage at home, you get under the sheet while he/she is out of the room and they make sure not to expose anything and are real careful about not accidentally touching or grazing anything. This guy just had me strip, jump up on the table and lay face up. and when we was giving my thighs a good rubdown he had no concern about brushing up against my junk. In fact, at one point I guess I was leaning in the way of a spot he was trying to massage, so he just grabbed it and moved it to the other side. He didn't even flinch.

I was completely comfortable with the guy, but I couldn't help but think about what kind of lawsuit this would cause in the States.

We ended the night sipping tea by the pool, wonderfully relaxed and worn out.


Next - Boat to Phnom Penh and floating villages