Gnom Peng
Cambodia
Shortly after sunrise, we suddenly heard loud pop music and had to blink as bright headlights displaced the darkness. A moving disco ball came screeching around the corner—it was the long-awaited bus that finally relieved us of our suffering from the cold. We hurriedly squeezed into the brightly colored interior. However, the elation only lasted until just before the Cambodian border. There, completely different problems were waiting for us than an ambitious air conditioning system.
Suddenly, the bus stopped, and a couple of stern-looking guards ordered us to get off in a gruff tone. The reason for this was not given, and so we stood helplessly in front of a small restaurant. A particularly bad-tempered man approached us. “Give me your bus tickets and passports!” We suspected nothing bad and pressed the requested documents into his demanding hand without resistance. In return, he slammed a form with which we were to apply for a Cambodian visa for 50 dollars onto the rickety wooden table in front of us.
We eagerly started to fill it out when a group of Americans intervened. “Girls, haven’t you been warned? This is a scam to get your money. Just apply for the visa at the border. It shouldn’t cost more than thirty dollars. And no matter what you do, never hand them your passport.”
We looked at each other in panic. That was already going very well. We immediately stormed the men, one of whom looked grimmer than the other. We already saw ourselves being held in a Thai prison, with no way of identifying ourselves, when one of the men finally showed us mercy and gave us our passports back. Only the bus tickets remained missing. The bus also didn’t seem to want to take us any further to the border.
Dana finally had had enough. She asked one of the guys standing around what was going on. “You wanna order?” he laughed and pulled out his notepad. He was obviously the waiter at the restaurant. Dana gave him a withering look. At that moment, the plump cook ordered us all to sit down, no one was allowed to stand. “Why?” asked Christa, perplexed. “No English!” she shouted across the stuffy room. A swarm of flies jumped up in fright. The stern men grumbled in agreement. Defeated, we dropped onto the small stools.
In the meantime, most of the passengers had dutifully filled out the form and paid the fee in cash. One by one, they were picked up by suspicious looking vans. However, we didn’t give up and continued to ask for our tickets. “You wanna order?” was the only answer we got. Finally, we caught sight of the culprit who had taken them from us. We hastily jumped up from the uncomfortable stools. Mine, of course, couldn’t resist falling to the floor with a loud thud.
Now the cook had really had enough. “Sit down!” she shouted indignantly, waving her wooden spoon in front of our noses to emphasize her words. Suddenly, she was able to speak English again.
“Can we have our tickets back?” we asked the man desperately. He looked at us with relish and rubbed his impressive mustache. “No have. Tickets on way to Bangkok.” “What?! Why are our tickets on their way to Bangkok?”
“You wanna order?” The waiter with the pad eagerly jumped in, only to start laughing out loud. The cook also joined in. We gave up and, for better or worse, had to live with the fact that our tickets were gone. However, we dared to doubt that they had traveled to Bangkok. We joined the small group that had also refused to pay and shouldered our bags.
Just like the security guards, the sun showed no mercy. Sweat poured down our bodies, and our luggage felt heavier with every meter. We didn’t even know how far we were from the border. Shortly before giving up, we finally saw the gate that saved us, and only had to pay thirty dollars – just like the Americans had assured us.
However, we were no longer quite sure that it had been a wise decision to want to save twenty dollars. Especially as I still had to pay a surcharge because I didn’t have a passport photo. However, a photo was not taken anyway.
We stepped onto Cambodian soil as three sweaty heaps of misery. Without much hope, we looked for our traveling disco ball. After all, we had booked until Siem Reap. But as our tickets were having a great time in Bangkok without us, we teamed up with a couple and hired a cab for the remaining three hours. At least we only had to pay ten dollars per person, and the vehicle turned out to be reasonably comfortable.
The journey took us through green, untouched landscapes and made up for the rather turbulent events of our trip so far. There seemed to be only one rule of the road for the driver: to press the horn as much as possible. He honked so enthusiastically that a motorcyclist almost drove into the next ditch. Desperate insults were shouted after us. However, this didn’t bother our driver in the slightest, and he now honked energetically at a herd of cows, which behaved much more calmly. However, the trees, which were next, showed no recognizable reaction. After all, half of Cambodia now knew that we were on the move.
Siem Reap turned out to be a beautiful little town where the French influence was still clearly noticeable. It was clearly basking in the glory of having just been voted the fourth-best city for tourists by TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Awards. But the judges probably hadn’t chosen the bus for their journey.
With the help of a tuk-tuk driver (the motorized rickshaws really were named after the noise they make), we found a clean and central hotel. We were immediately told the most important rule: “No local girls in your room.” We could just about cope with that. The friendly driver was even waiting for us, and after our luggage was stowed safely in the room, he drove us to a French restaurant, where we were served the best banana milkshake yet. That should really mean something, because Dana and I had declared ourselves the banana milkshake experts. Not a day went by without us trying at least one new one.
The way back to our accommodation took us through the Old Market area. There were food stalls everywhere, offering all kinds of delicacies, from maggots to scorpions and spiders. The elegantly furnished restaurants and stylish, trendy bars formed a sharp contrast.
The next day we wanted to visit one of the two floating villages in the area with the sonorous name Kompong Khleang as it was supposed to be the more beautiful of the two. We even managed to hire a tuk-tuk driver for the day. After the long drive, however, we were in for an unpleasant surprise. It was going to cost 50 dollars to paddle through the floating village on a tiny, half-rotten wooden boat.
All our tried and tested negotiating skills proved fruitless, and we decided to try the other village with the no less sonorous name of Kompong Phluk. The driver made it clear that he didn’t think much of this idea. As soon as one of the many holes in the asphalt opened up in front of us, he pressed particularly hard on the accelerator and steered briskly towards the chasm, causing us to bang painfully against the ceiling of the rickshaw. But even in Kompong Phluk, the ticket seller quoted us a different price to the one advertised in the brochure.
When Dana pointed this out to him, he simply said: “Different boat.” “And why can’t we take the different boat?” “Too dangerous” was the dry reply. “Why do you even offer such a tour when it is too dangerous?” He just laughed in response. This tour was probably offered in case the alligator food ran out. We gave in and paid the higher price as we at least wanted to see one floating village.
Our guide was younger than us and beaming with enthusiasm. The water was incredibly dirty, and the houses were mainly small huts perched so crookedly on their stilts that you had to fear they would plunge into the deep water at any moment. On the inside, however, they were all colorfully decorated, had a television and the residents were relaxing in their hammocks.
The alligator farm turned out to be a small pool with more garbage than alligators.
After the obligatory time in the souvenir store – where, of course, everything was made from crocodile skin – the guide told us that many had died in a big flood and that they had founded an orphanage. However, we shouldn’t give the children any money, as they would only use it to buy alcohol and cigarettes – in Cambodia nobody asked how old they were as long as the money was right – so we could buy food instead.
We got a 50-kilogram bag of rice for 50 dollars and a few sweets to hand out to the children. But they seemed quite unimpressed. Apparently there were some generous tourists after all. Our guide, however, was all the more pleased, took one photo after another and said that next time we should definitely bring our “boyfriends” with us.
After another rather rough ride home, we decided that we had more than earned a massage. As I only wanted a foot massage, I decided not to shave beforehand. Unfortunately, the eager masseuse included my entire legs. She raised her eyebrow sternly and looked at me critically. “Where do you come from?” “Germany.” “Girls don’t shave in Germany? You are very hairy.”
Now that a trusting basis of friendship had been established between us, I was able to relax and indulge in the massage. Dana and Christa tried more or less successfully to suppress a laugh.
Our still bad-tempered tuk-tuk driver picked us up from the hotel in the early hours of the morning. Of course, we couldn’t miss the huge temple complex for which Cambodia was so famous, Angkor. The complex stretched over 200 km² and contained the remains of the Khmer Empire from the 11th to the 15th century. One of the most famous temples, Angkor Wat, was the largest religious building in the world.
For just 20 dollars, we were able to marvel at the really impressive temple complex. You felt like you had been transported to completely distinctive worlds, as each temple was designed differently. Ta Phrohm had served as a film set for Tomb Raider and exerted a very special magic with its ruins, which were held together by huge tree roots.
Unfortunately, we lost a considerable amount of time looking for our tuk-tuk driver. The driver in question used every break, no matter how small, to park as far away as possible and take a nap in the small hammock he had brought with him. We would have been quicker if we had explored the complex directly on foot. Every tuk tuk was just like the next, and with dwindling motivation, we walked along the long lines until we finally managed to find our driver, snoring loudly.
Arriving at our hotel in the evening, he suddenly quoted us double the price. Was he charging us extra because we had disturbed his naps? We steadfastly refused to pay more and made our way to our room. However, we had not reckoned with the driver, who suddenly had an incredible amount of energy and rushed to the reception desk to talk to the employee and point at us with wild gestures. The receptionist didn’t hesitate for long either, jumping up from his chair and blocking our way to the stairs. After a fierce discussion accompanied by fortunately incomprehensible insults from the driver, we gave in and paid the additional amount.
After that, only one thing could help us: banana milkshake!
On our last morning in Siem Reap, a car with a manageable amount of storage space picked us up to take us to the bus to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The name alone promised elegance, charm, and glamour. The vehicle was already well filled when it stopped in front of another hotel. No problem, after all, two people could squeeze into one seat. But with the best will in the world, there was no room for Dana. As she wasn’t allowed to stand, she squatted down in the middle aisle with half a buttock on each of the seats to her side and had to spend the rest of the journey floating rather than sitting.
When she finally arrived at the bus, she let herself fall onto the next seat with a sigh of relief. Bang! With a loud sound, it snapped backwards, and Dana fell after it with a small cry of pain. The bus must have belonged to the older generation. Not a single seat was in an upright position; they were all leaning tiredly against each other and presented an extremely sad sight.
During the eight-hour journey, the driver stopped even at the loneliest corners and kept letting people on, so that the bus filled up quickly. At some point, my fellow passengers even had to make do with the broken chair in front of me, and their weight was comfortably distributed over my legs. At some point, my armrest also got tired of the never-ending journey and fell off, bored. As if that wasn’t enough, the sky wanted to do its bit too. It started to pouring buckets of rain, and ever-increasing amounts of muddy water bubbled up from the leaky window next to me and dripped onto my legs. At least they were no longer hairy. Who needed a television when you were offered such live entertainment?
Cars loaded with cages in which either dogs or rats were stuffed passed us. In the middle of one of the rat cages, a woman was sleeping peacefully with her children in her arms.
We were actually just waiting for the bus to finally give up on one of the numerous bends and fall apart, but surprisingly, we arrived in Phnom Penh unscathed. It was really not easy for us to remember the name, so we came up with all sorts of different word creations, from Plomh Plemh to Gnom Peng.
The hotel we had already booked was pleasantly clean, even if it was in a somewhat dubious area. Piles of garbage piled up decoratively next to the gloomy streets, and a muddy river flowed directly in front of the hotel, which, judging by the smell, served as a public toilet.
However, we stood helplessly in front of an empty reception desk. There was no one to be seen for miles around. “Hello?” we shouted into the darkness. Silence. Finally, we found a bell that made an extremely sonorous, shrill sound. With a thump, the head of a small man suddenly appeared. He had fallen asleep under the counter. Fortunately, he didn’t hold it against us that we had woken him up and showed us the room with a broad smile.
On the penultimate day, we went on a city tour in a tuk tuk and saw the Wat Phnom temple, the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Royal Palace. The Genocide Museum was the former S-21 torture building of the Khmer Rouge. From 1975 to 1979, between 14,000 and 20,000 people from all parts of Cambodia were imprisoned there. Photos of these people were displayed in the rooms, including women, children, and frail old people.
Other rooms contained the cruel instruments of torture. Photographs of the murdered were everywhere; their final agonizing struggle was all too clearly recorded. Large bloodstains on the floor bore witness to the atrocities that had taken place here. Several thousand skulls were kept in a small hall.
At the exit sat a survivor who sold books and kept pointing to an old photo and muttering, “That is me.” We spent the journey to the Royal Palace in silence. What we had seen could not be put into words.
In the palace, knees and shoulders had to be modestly covered; otherwise, we were given a nice outfit that was very reminiscent of pajamas. However, the guide was very enthusiastic and never tired of emphasizing that the king was still single and also very good-looking. So had the long wait been worth it after all?
The next day began with the harmless plan to have breakfast in a café whose lovingly decorated shop windows had often made our mouths water as we drove past—it promised the most delicious desserts. As a precaution, Christa had saved the exact directions on her cell phone, and the driver assured us, nodding euphorically, that he knew exactly where to go. We drove and drove and drove. The area changed from beautiful to not so beautiful to not beautiful at all. This was no longer Gnom Peng.
When the driver finally slowed down, our fears were confirmed. He also had no idea where we were. At least, he admitted defeat and started asking the other tuk-tuk drivers for directions. But they didn’t have a clue where the dessert café was either. We finally asked him to let us off, but didn’t want to pay him the full price as he had been driving us around for almost an hour for no reason, and we were now further away from a slice of cake than ever before.
Relatively quickly we found a new driver, but as soon as we sat in the rickshaw, the previous one arrived and blocked the way. We were gruffly ordered to get out again. Slightly worried, we set off in search of a new ride, but the two tuk-tuk drivers kept close on our heels and stopped everyone from letting us in. The situation was getting dicey, and we decided to hide in a small side street. When the road was clear again, we set off on foot in search of the café and, to our amazement, found it before the sun set.
When we saw the sweet creations, our hearts beat faster. The odyssey had been worth it. Christa delightfully bit into her tartlet, only to drop it back on the plate with a sharp cry. It was completely moldy inside. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had had trouble finding the café, and the delicacies had been waiting too long for hungry visitors.
With empty stomachs and a slight feeling of sickness on Christa’s part, we took the ferry to Silk Island. There, however, we were lucky enough to meet a driver with local knowledge for the first time. A very nice woman was selling silk fabrics she had woven herself, only the beach turned out to be rather disappointing.
On the way to the hotel in the evening, we realized that detailed directions were superfluous. “Just follow the smell,” Christa said as a joke, and indeed, the driver knew exactly where to go this time. Again, it had turned out to be a questionable decision to book the cheapest accommodation. Men waved cheerfully at us as they urinated in the river in front of us.
The Nap Queen at reception had also disappeared once again. Even the bloodcurdling sound of bell didn’t help. At some point, we knocked on the boards of the counter, and sure enough, with puffy eyes, the eager receptionist slowly climbed out. This time he wasn’t smiling quite so brightly. We asked him for directions to the airport, as our flight back to Bali was leaving the next morning. He looked at us helplessly for a while before suddenly shouting cheerfully, “No have!”
