Show and Journey to Cambodia (Nov. 29, 2014)

I had so much fun last night. Ian and I went out to the Disco Club around 10:30 got there in perfect time to get a place to watch from, and it happened to be right in front of the fan and air con. A few minutes later, the place was almost packed, and it was really hot if you weren’t next to the fan or air con. The show wasn’t a Ladyboy Show, but instead a cross between Lip Syching and Karaoke. There were some go-go dancers accompanying some of the singers, but for the most part, it was a singing show with amazing costumes. I really enjoyed it and the performers were clearly having a lot of fun doing it.

Performer #1

Stage at bar for show

Performer #2 Whitney Houston

Performer #3 and Dancers

Performer #5

Performer #4

View of clubbers dancing

The one wearing the veil and heavy makeup (performer #4), danced and sang a kind of Indian music and went into the audience and grabbed people out of it, and brought them on stage. Then he proceeded to embarrass them, in a fun way. Everyone laughed and it was in good taste.

Then we danced and danced and danced. There were a lot of men right by where we were standing and I had interesting conversations and dances, all night. We met a couple from Halifax that are going to Siem Reap, on Sunday, so I’m sure I’ll run into them because I will still be there, and it’s pretty small. I met another guy from Russia, and a really nice older (my age…lol) guy from Buenos Aires. He now lives in New York and works for the Argentinian Embassy in New York. His name is Claudio Rodriquez and he said to look him up at the Embassy if I am ever in New York. I think that would be possible. Who knows, but it’s always good to have contacts all over the world so that when you visit various places, you have some options.

Anyway, we danced until 2 am, then went to another bar to visit Ian’s friend and have a last shooter, but the friend had already gotten off work and was gone. We had a drink anyway, so that was fun. Then we stopped for a bowl of noodles on the street, which were great. I didn’t think that the food would be that great on the street at that hour, but it sure was. We walked home after that, I took a shower, and then went to bed. I think I got about an hour and a half worth of sleep until I had to get up to leave for the airport. It was great though, because I thought I would take the Sky Train to the last station and then have to take a taxi to the airport. I thought the airport bus didn’t run until 9 am. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that indeed, the A1 bus to Don Mueang Airport was running already. So I got all the way out to the airport in great time, and for about $3.

I arrived in Cambodia and cleared Immigration and got the Visa on Arrival, for $20 US. I brought some US money with me as I knew that Cambodia and Vietnam deal in US as well as their own currency, but prefer US. Here they use the Riel currency and you get 3500 Riel for $1 Canadian, or 4000 Riel for $1 US.

Line up to get into Visa section

View walking from tarmac to airport

Official section where they were all serious and processed visas

My hostel claimed to have an airport pickup service included, free of charge, but I wasn’t sure they would be there because they hadn’t confirmed with me. I sent them my flight times on Thursday, just as a reminder, but still hadn’t heard back, so I was prepared to take a taxi. I knew more or less where the hostel was as Siem Reap is pretty small and not too far from the airport. When I got out of the arrival hall, there was a nice young man standing on the other side of the gate holding a paper up with “Susan” on it. I was very happy and thought, this to be a great start. Once out of the gate area, he said that he had just been called at the last minute by the hostel to pick up one person, me, and that he had only his motor scooter with him. I looked at him, me, my backpack and my suitcase and asked how? He said it wouldn’t be a problem, put the suitcase between his legs, resting on the running board, and said, “Get on, please.” I thought for a moment and realized that this is very typical in Thailand, though I hadn’t ridden a motor scooter, and probably all over SE Asia. I made a judgement call to get on, and was not scared at all once we got started. He drove in the shoulder lane as many motor scooters do, and didn’t go very fast. We made it in one piece though I was skeptical at first. He was very careful and chatted to me when it wasn’t busy, and focused on the road when there were cars. It wasn’t very busy and kind of small townish, so it was fine. We got to One Stop Hostel and I was thrilled with the accommodations.

Common area

As you walk into the hostel

Street view with Mini Mart attached

Common area

Just inside the front door

Upon arrival, at 11:45 am, I was told that check-in wasn’t until 2:00 pm so they could clean the room before new guests checked in. Fair enough I thought. Cleaning is good. So the nice guy at the desk invited me to put my luggage in the holding area until it was time. This is usual protocol so I wasn’t bothered about it, just happy to have arrived without any fuss. At the same time, another woman about my age and a solo traveller arrived as well. She seemed cool and asked how I was doing so far? She told me she had just arrived from Thailand as well. I asked where she was from and she said Toronto. I told her I was as well and we laughed. She used to live at Yonge and Eglinton until she quit her job, got rid of her apartment and started travelling for a year. Her name is Stella and she is Korean Canadian. A really nice woman who is also staying for about the same length of time that I am. We decided to go for some food, got into a Tuk Tuk and asked the driver to take us to a Cambodian restaurant to eat where there were no tourists. He did, and we had the most wonderful lunch of rice, and two different dishes that we chose by lifting off the lids to these huge pots on burners, to see what was cooking. It cost us $3 US dollars and we were stuffed. It was such an authentic place with only locals, except us. We walked back to the hostel and took a look around at parts of the city, on our way back.

Market view #2

Market view

Market view #3

Market view #4

Sitting in the Tuk Tuk going for lunch

Lunch dishes

Pots you checked for what you wanted

Outside of restaurant

Walking back to hostel

No 7-11's here, but this was funny

Once back, I started looking at all the temples to see, which is why everyone comes here. I decided to book a few more nights here in order to see the temples fully, the waterfall and the floating market. There are more things to see as well, but I will start with 6 nights here. This hostel is really clean and quiet and has a sitting area with a TV that they play movies on all the time. They also have a kitchen that you can get a variety of breakfast sets from, ranging from 1-2 dollars for a huge meal. I thought that it might get booked if I didn’t act fast, so I am now booked in for 6 nights. That should be enough time to do what I want to here. 

The city looks really nice and is small enough that you can find your way around very easily. No transit required so far, but I have seen busses so it’s available if needed. I think I will start going to the temples, likely with Stella, tomorrow to see the sunset. That is one of the famous sights as is the sunrise at another temple. That’s an early one that I can’t imagine doing tomorrow, but would like to do another day.

All in all a great day. Now just having a little lie down as I am pretty tired from my fun but late night and navigating to find my new digs. More excitement tomorrow.