Tales From a Female Traveller

TICKET FOR BAG!!!!

The day after we met the sliding boys in Phnom Penh we took the 7:30 bus to Siem Reap. We booked a little late so we got stuck with the worst seats on the entire bus.. right at the back, which has considerably less room than the rest of the seats on the bus.
We stopped for lunch at around 11:30 and when I got back on the bus, I found my seat had been taken over by ants.. so I sat in the isle until the stuardess moved me to another seat for the rest of the trip where I am quite positive I drooled on the man next to me, who, god bless him, didn't have the heart to wake me up to tell me. He probably felt sorry for me because the ants took over my seat for a free ride... and here I was paying a whole $9 for that seat!!
We arrived at the bus station in Siem Reap just after 1pm and getting off the bus took an unusual amount of time. There are so many beggars and Tuk Tuk drivers crowding around holding signs with your name (they make a deal with the Guest Houses back in Phnom Penh) that it's just impossible to move. When we finally did get off the bus we couldn't find our bags, they had already been offloaded into the crowd of people... which was really un-nerving. I managed to squeeze my way through them to my back and grab the handle, but before I could lift it a really persistent guy grabbed hold of the other end and started yelling at me in Khmer.
Naturally I can't understand him so I ignore him and pull on my bag, but he pulls back, holds up some piece of paper and yells "TICKET" at me.
"No" I say back at him, but he keeps pulling.
"TICKET.. YOU HAVE" he yells again...and by this time the people around us have closed in and there was nowhere to go...
"No ticket" I say trying to keep my calm. (Khmer's and Thai's alike consider losing one's temper to be a loss of face)
By this time I was getting worried.. he wouldn't let go of my bag and was trying to tell me that I should have recieved a ticket for my bag when I boarded the bus back in Phnom Penh.. but Í wasn't born yesterday and I decided to stand my ground..
"TICKET FOR BAG.. NO TICKET.. NO TAKE BAG!!!"" He yells at me some more...
By this time I was losing my own temper with him and wasn't going to be spoken to like that from him.. so I yell at him "LET GO!!!"
"TICKET" he shouts back at me.
"LET GO NOW!" I shout back...
It was about to get ugly when Byron steps through the crowd and pulls the guys hands off my back and lifts it up onto the table for me to get a better hold. It's really an intimidating sight when the avergae height of a Khmer (Cambodian) is about 5 foot and then suddenly a 6 foot something blonde muscly westerner throws his weight around and they all back off. Which is exactly what happened.
At this point a policeman had arrived to try and disperse the crowd... you really couldn NOT move and inch.. and I manage to push through, go to the first Tuk Tuk driver who wasn't yelling at me, point to him and say "YOU...". He got the picture.. nodded, and took us straight to the Jasmine Lodge. It was the most chaotic experience we've had so far and it could have ended in tears had I not stood my ground. It was lucky I did too because it's a complete scam.
They pull into the bus station and pretend they are waiting for a space to park, meanwhile the "ground" staff are unloading your bags and tagging them with their own little labels. So when you get off the bus into all the chaos, you can't find your bag, there are too many people to even step one step, they're all yelling at you to use their Tuk Tuk and when you finally find your bag they don't let you have it because you don't have the "ticket" you were "supposed" to get when you boarded the bus back in Phnom Penh, and considering the confusion of it all it's easy to see how people fall for it. Not me though...
It was such a relief to get to the Jasmine Lodge that we took the $12US a night room (argh) and settled in where we stayed for 5 nights.

posted by Lucyspeak @ 9:30 pm