Random Cambodia Stuff
A few things I forgot to mention in my earlier posts:
Monkeys:
We saw several monkeys out in the wild, and got as close as we dared to one of them. Looked a lot like the guys I worked with in college, Macaca fascicularis, the Crab-eating Macaque. The one we saw was a male, and just hung out at Angkor Wat (maybe waiting for someone to toss him some food?) He gave the impression of being used to people, but in our lab in college, we considered them quite dangerous, so we kept our distance. (Ask me what the four rules of working with non-human primates are.)
Monkey army:
One of the reliefs at Angkor Wat is a depiction of the battle Prince Rama had with the demon king (whose name I don't remember). Prince Rama sent his monkey army (MONKEY ARMY!!!), headed by his general, the monkey god Hanuman, to battle the demon army. Lots of monkeys carved in stone, in full armor with weapons. (MONKEY ARMY!!!) This really was a lot of fun to look at. My knowledge of Hindu mythology is laughable, but now I really want to know more. Why aren't there monkey armies (MONKEY ARMY!!!) in western mythology? Huh? Why?
Birds:
There aren't any. This bothered me for awhile until I realized what was missing. Angkor is at a very favorable latitude, with plenty of rain. The jungle here should be a bird paradise, but you hardly see any. I expected to see dozens of species I had never seen before, and I only saw two new (to me) birds. And not many of those. Looking at the ruins, and the surrounding terrain, you really would expect the ruins to be covered in a foot of bird poop. But, they were quite clean (there are some bats, which we saw, and a little bit of guano.)
I suspect, but without more research can't prove, that in addition to the millions of tons of bombs we dropped, we sprayed rather nasty defoliants all over the country. Our stated purpose (well... stated once congress forced Nixon to confess that we were indeed in the midst of an illegal war on the country) was to keep the VietCong from hiding out in the jungle across the border, so I suspect that defoliants were used just as much as bombs. One suspects the ongoing chemical burden is supressing the bird population. Disappointing, since I was looking forward to seeing what a country so much closer to the equator (with so many more calories per square meter of insolation) could support in terms of bird population. Seriously, there were way fewer birds than Seattle.
Toyota Camry:
When you get into the country, and ask for a taxi, you don't say "taxi", you say "camry", and everyone will know what you are talking about. This is becuase every single car here, bar none, is a ten year old Camry. There are some SUVs, and I once or twice saw a sedan of a different brand. They all run on natural gas. I discussed this (mostly in that universal langugage, gesture) with the taxi driver, and he indicated that gasoline was way too expensive. I tried to convery to him the price of gas in America, and I now realize I told him the price per gallon, but he thought I meant price per liter. So, he thinks that gas is 10 or 12 bucks a gallon here. (Let's hope this comes true.)
If riding this road in a Camry does not convince you that your next car should be a Toyota, nothing will. I can't imagine a Ford or GM truck lasting a year on this road, and I can't imagine one of their sedans lasting a week. This Camry of his had 120k miles on it, assuming the odometer hadn't been messed with.
Currency:
The de facto currency of Cambodia is the American dollar. As such, you should show up with dollars in your pocket. The guidebooks warn you that you will get any change in the local currency, the riel, but what they mean is change in the coin sense. We always got even dollar change in dollars. I wouldn't bring too many 50s or 100s, but 10s and 20s will be just fine. Eventually, you'll get a pocketful of riel from the non-even dollar change, and this is also legal tender. Get together 4000 riel, and you have a dollar, and can afford a bottle of water.
Everything here tends to cost an even dollar. As I mentioned earlier, a bottle of water that would cost 5B (about 17 cents) in Thailand is a dollar here, and you aren't nearly as confident in its quality. It doesn't taste nearly as good as the water you get in Thailand. It claims on the label to be filtered, ozonated, and UV-treated, but it still doesn't taste so good. You don't realize it until you spring for a western or Thai brand, and realize how much better it tastes. Carefully check the seal when you buy water from the kids at the temples - we found it's possible to open the cheap local brand and not break all of the little connector thingys. Which means you can replace the cap, and have a few of them unbroken, which makes it look good. (We also bought water from them that we could not open with our sweaty hands, it was so well sealed - it's not all bad.)
Thai baht is also widely accepted here, and you may want to use it, as it's a lot easier to get hold of than American dollars. I didn't try any ATMs in Cambodia, so I don't know what they dispense. But your card should work fine in Thailand. Bring some baht with you. They will give you an exchange rate that is about 5 percent off from the real rate (they gave us 40B/$, instead of the proper 37B/$).
Malaria:
According to all the guides, the cities in Cambodia (including Siem Reap) aren't a concern for malaria. Just in case, and just in case you wind up in a more rural area on your trip, go to your doctor ahead of time, and buy some anti-malarial medicine. (Group Health in Seattle has a dedicated travel nurse who was quite helpful.) The new new thing in anti-malarial is called Malarone, which is a commercial combination of some chloro-quinine derivative, and something else I can't remember. It's about 5 dollars a pill here. You need to start taking it the day before you go to the malaria area, and keep it up for a week after you leave. The alternative, which most of the world takes, is doxycycline, which is pennies a dose, but has several side-effects, the two most interesting of which are: increased sensitivity to sunlight (this is a big deal here), and increased risk of urinary tract infections. Spring for the expensive stuff - you can afford it.
Transportation:
You'll need to get out to the ruins somehow. It's about 6 km from the town to the outskirts of the ruins. You could walk it, but it's a bit of a hike. You can also rent a bike for not too much money. If you want a tuktuk, especially if you've just come from Thailand, you'll be a little shocked at the price. You would think there will be a large number of tuktuks just waiting for you at the ruins, trying to get you to ride back to town with them, but there aren't. The thing to do here is hire a driver for the whole day. This will cost about 10 dollars. Consider hiring the taxi you rode in with - our driver offered us 25 bucks for two days, and we told him no since it sounded so expensive. You would think the market would solve this problem, and that people would be pestering you for rides everywhere. Anyway, if anyone offers this service to you, see if you can talk them down to around 10, then if they've been nice, give them a few dollar tip at the end of the day (it's a lot of money here, and will mean a lot more to them than to you.)
I'm not sure (I meant to ask our driver, who was quite happy for our custom both days, but never got around to it) if these guys tend to own their own tuktuks, or if they're working for someone else. These rigs aren't exactly tuktuks like in Thailand. The Thai ones are actually tricycles. The Cambodian ones are two-wheel trailers attached to the back of a motorcycle. I have loaned money through Kiva to several Cambodian entrepreneurs to purchase their own rigs (and so should you.) I imagine (hope) that in a touristy town, this is a path to self-sufficiency.
Siem Reap
This is pronounced "SEE-em ree-EP". Not "seem reep". Just so you know. It's not like you would be asking to go anywhere else from Poipet, so the chance for confusion is minimal.
Monkeys:
We saw several monkeys out in the wild, and got as close as we dared to one of them. Looked a lot like the guys I worked with in college, Macaca fascicularis, the Crab-eating Macaque. The one we saw was a male, and just hung out at Angkor Wat (maybe waiting for someone to toss him some food?) He gave the impression of being used to people, but in our lab in college, we considered them quite dangerous, so we kept our distance. (Ask me what the four rules of working with non-human primates are.)
Monkey army:
One of the reliefs at Angkor Wat is a depiction of the battle Prince Rama had with the demon king (whose name I don't remember). Prince Rama sent his monkey army (MONKEY ARMY!!!), headed by his general, the monkey god Hanuman, to battle the demon army. Lots of monkeys carved in stone, in full armor with weapons. (MONKEY ARMY!!!) This really was a lot of fun to look at. My knowledge of Hindu mythology is laughable, but now I really want to know more. Why aren't there monkey armies (MONKEY ARMY!!!) in western mythology? Huh? Why?
Birds:
There aren't any. This bothered me for awhile until I realized what was missing. Angkor is at a very favorable latitude, with plenty of rain. The jungle here should be a bird paradise, but you hardly see any. I expected to see dozens of species I had never seen before, and I only saw two new (to me) birds. And not many of those. Looking at the ruins, and the surrounding terrain, you really would expect the ruins to be covered in a foot of bird poop. But, they were quite clean (there are some bats, which we saw, and a little bit of guano.)
I suspect, but without more research can't prove, that in addition to the millions of tons of bombs we dropped, we sprayed rather nasty defoliants all over the country. Our stated purpose (well... stated once congress forced Nixon to confess that we were indeed in the midst of an illegal war on the country) was to keep the VietCong from hiding out in the jungle across the border, so I suspect that defoliants were used just as much as bombs. One suspects the ongoing chemical burden is supressing the bird population. Disappointing, since I was looking forward to seeing what a country so much closer to the equator (with so many more calories per square meter of insolation) could support in terms of bird population. Seriously, there were way fewer birds than Seattle.
Toyota Camry:
When you get into the country, and ask for a taxi, you don't say "taxi", you say "camry", and everyone will know what you are talking about. This is becuase every single car here, bar none, is a ten year old Camry. There are some SUVs, and I once or twice saw a sedan of a different brand. They all run on natural gas. I discussed this (mostly in that universal langugage, gesture) with the taxi driver, and he indicated that gasoline was way too expensive. I tried to convery to him the price of gas in America, and I now realize I told him the price per gallon, but he thought I meant price per liter. So, he thinks that gas is 10 or 12 bucks a gallon here. (Let's hope this comes true.)
If riding this road in a Camry does not convince you that your next car should be a Toyota, nothing will. I can't imagine a Ford or GM truck lasting a year on this road, and I can't imagine one of their sedans lasting a week. This Camry of his had 120k miles on it, assuming the odometer hadn't been messed with.
Currency:
The de facto currency of Cambodia is the American dollar. As such, you should show up with dollars in your pocket. The guidebooks warn you that you will get any change in the local currency, the riel, but what they mean is change in the coin sense. We always got even dollar change in dollars. I wouldn't bring too many 50s or 100s, but 10s and 20s will be just fine. Eventually, you'll get a pocketful of riel from the non-even dollar change, and this is also legal tender. Get together 4000 riel, and you have a dollar, and can afford a bottle of water.
Everything here tends to cost an even dollar. As I mentioned earlier, a bottle of water that would cost 5B (about 17 cents) in Thailand is a dollar here, and you aren't nearly as confident in its quality. It doesn't taste nearly as good as the water you get in Thailand. It claims on the label to be filtered, ozonated, and UV-treated, but it still doesn't taste so good. You don't realize it until you spring for a western or Thai brand, and realize how much better it tastes. Carefully check the seal when you buy water from the kids at the temples - we found it's possible to open the cheap local brand and not break all of the little connector thingys. Which means you can replace the cap, and have a few of them unbroken, which makes it look good. (We also bought water from them that we could not open with our sweaty hands, it was so well sealed - it's not all bad.)
Thai baht is also widely accepted here, and you may want to use it, as it's a lot easier to get hold of than American dollars. I didn't try any ATMs in Cambodia, so I don't know what they dispense. But your card should work fine in Thailand. Bring some baht with you. They will give you an exchange rate that is about 5 percent off from the real rate (they gave us 40B/$, instead of the proper 37B/$).
Malaria:
According to all the guides, the cities in Cambodia (including Siem Reap) aren't a concern for malaria. Just in case, and just in case you wind up in a more rural area on your trip, go to your doctor ahead of time, and buy some anti-malarial medicine. (Group Health in Seattle has a dedicated travel nurse who was quite helpful.) The new new thing in anti-malarial is called Malarone, which is a commercial combination of some chloro-quinine derivative, and something else I can't remember. It's about 5 dollars a pill here. You need to start taking it the day before you go to the malaria area, and keep it up for a week after you leave. The alternative, which most of the world takes, is doxycycline, which is pennies a dose, but has several side-effects, the two most interesting of which are: increased sensitivity to sunlight (this is a big deal here), and increased risk of urinary tract infections. Spring for the expensive stuff - you can afford it.
Transportation:
You'll need to get out to the ruins somehow. It's about 6 km from the town to the outskirts of the ruins. You could walk it, but it's a bit of a hike. You can also rent a bike for not too much money. If you want a tuktuk, especially if you've just come from Thailand, you'll be a little shocked at the price. You would think there will be a large number of tuktuks just waiting for you at the ruins, trying to get you to ride back to town with them, but there aren't. The thing to do here is hire a driver for the whole day. This will cost about 10 dollars. Consider hiring the taxi you rode in with - our driver offered us 25 bucks for two days, and we told him no since it sounded so expensive. You would think the market would solve this problem, and that people would be pestering you for rides everywhere. Anyway, if anyone offers this service to you, see if you can talk them down to around 10, then if they've been nice, give them a few dollar tip at the end of the day (it's a lot of money here, and will mean a lot more to them than to you.)
I'm not sure (I meant to ask our driver, who was quite happy for our custom both days, but never got around to it) if these guys tend to own their own tuktuks, or if they're working for someone else. These rigs aren't exactly tuktuks like in Thailand. The Thai ones are actually tricycles. The Cambodian ones are two-wheel trailers attached to the back of a motorcycle. I have loaned money through Kiva to several Cambodian entrepreneurs to purchase their own rigs (and so should you.) I imagine (hope) that in a touristy town, this is a path to self-sufficiency.
Siem Reap
This is pronounced "SEE-em ree-EP". Not "seem reep". Just so you know. It's not like you would be asking to go anywhere else from Poipet, so the chance for confusion is minimal.
posted by Kenneth at 8:03 PM
6 Comments:
would the 4 ways of working with a non-human primate be helpful when I tell a children's story? Cassie
Four rules:
1. Non-human primates bite.
2. Non-human primates bite hard.
3. Non-human primates bite fast.
4. Don't get bit.
A large proportion of them test positive for hepatitis C, which is no more serious in them than hep B is in us, but is fatal to humans. There's only about a 1 percent chance of contracting it from a bite, but all bites are scrubbed out with bleach for 15 minutes. I knew people who'd had to go through it, and their eyes would glaze over describing the pain.
Don't get bit.
I've had hep c shots already - would you believe Massachusetts required it for seminary. Cassie
No trouble believing that Massachusetts seminaries are populated by monkeys...
:)
Sure it wasn't B? I've had that vaccine as well, but I had read that for C there is no vaccine.
I'd be interested in knowing more about the lack of bird life in cambodia. There should be hoards. It is a bit of a wonder the cambodians will allow americans into country.
As for monkey bites...my sister and I were given an infant capuchin (new world, prehensile tail) to raise by the Houston zoo when I was 13. My mother volunteered us for the "adopt an orphaned baby monkey program". I was so happy when we were able to give it back to the zoo 12 months later. You wouldn't believe how much time and attention a baby primate takes! (I kid of of course. I think some high schools have baby classes were you have to care for some sort of surrogate baby for an inconvenient period of time). Most monkeys start biting at a very young age as one of their basic defense mechanisms. When well-fed and clean they are happy and snuggly, make cooing noises, and do interesting things with that prehensile tail. But they scream, scratch and bite when things aren't going their way. I think maybe my scars go deeper than just the cuts from those incisors. I never gave hepatitis a thought, just peroxide and bandaids. The four rules sound like good advice. I'd recommend staying the hell away from any wild monkey. Vonage is running a great commercial starring the hokkaido macaques and the archetype american tourist.
The monkey army is legend. I hope you got some good pictures. Frank Baum didn't just dream that up for the "Wizard of Oz" ya know except maybe the wings.
I'm glad you had a close look at the different types of personal transportation as it's likely our local version will converge in this same general direction over the next 40 years or so.
Our monkey lived to be about 25 and the zoo sent us annual updates with recent pictures sort of like the reverse the christian relief organizations.
I'm glad you made it home safely.
p.
correction: the hokkaido macaques are featured in a Group Health" TV commerical.
p.
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