To Cambodia? Never again!!!
To Cambodia? Never ever......
If you are not an avid traveler in Southeast Asia, then going on this trip, you should mentally and physically prepare...
Excursion from Pattaya to Cambodia starts early in the morning. From five in the morning, an old, "worn out" minibus, popularly called a "minibus", collects sleepy tourists from hotels and, with the first rays of dawn, finally enters the track. Famously maneuvering between fuel trucks at a speed of 130 km / h, every now and then moving down to the side of the road, risking falling into a ditch, our driver smiles in bewilderment in the rear-view mirror in response to the exclamations of frightened passengers to death. But our call to the transport company calms him down, and we finally drive up to the border..... Cambodia meets us with an unbearable stench, dirt, heat and a huge queue for fingerprinting. Having been on the road for more than five hours, we finally get on the bus and we are surprised to learn that we have another two and a half hours to get to the place of deployment, the mood is colored by the guide's provocative story about this "wonderful country", where there is no medicine, no traffic rules, no law, and it is better to buy cannabis from the police... After having lunch, without stopping at the hotel, we go to the largest lake in Asia, Tonle Sap, inhabited by unfortunate, impoverished Vietnamese living right on boats, fishing and begging. An unexpected discovery was the presence of life jackets on a pleasure boat, because the prospect of being in the abyss of sewage waters of this really huge lake was not particularly pleasing. Rumbling and coughing with a powerful engine, our boat glides along the muddy surface of a boundless reservoir, proudly overtaking the miserable vessels of local grimy beggars, shaking dead snakes in front of our nose and trying to sell something. Having "enjoyed" observing the life of the natives stuck somewhere in timelessness, apparently to enhance the contrast, we go to a jewelry store, where helpful sellers "on a blue eye" give out silver for white gold, and green quartz for emeralds. There is little time for shopping, which, apparently, is also part of a plan to fool our naive tourists, and with the confidence that we bought everything real with relief realizing that this day is finally over, we arrive at the hotel, "not frightening" our luxury and splendor.
At 5.30 am the next day we go on a tour of the temples of Ankor, located very close to the place of our overnight stay and find ourselves in a completely different world, infinitely far from our yesterday's impressions. Feeling ourselves inside the stunning landscapes familiar to every more or less educated person, with difficulty without losing a sense of the reality of what is happening, we timidly begin to realize that maybe yesterday's hard day was not lived in vain and will be erased in memory, displaced by new unforgettable impressions.
Then, tired and shocked by what we saw, we are taken to a crocodile nursery, loudly called a farm, where lazy, mud-covered crocodiles lying among fetid cement slabs tear a live chicken for the amusement of tourists. rows of WFC, we visit a leather goods store that surprises with its assortment and prices.
And finally, our tour comes to an end and we leave this hot, sweaty, rubbish-filled country, perplexed about the need for fingerprinting of incoming foreigners. Would anyone ever want to stay here.... .
