The Great Cambodian 'Bus' Scam

All aboard the "Luxury VIP Coach."
Pay no more than the absolute minimun to get to Siem Reap from Bangkok. This is the best you are going to get unless you fly (which is dull).



Calm amidst the storm


En route to Siem Reap


It's workers like these that are most in danger of the landmines.


I knew one of them would collapse! The driver just drove into the field around it!!



“Are we going to get on the big bus now?” We were all asking. The whole group was a little riled because they had conned us out of 300 baht extra each for our visas. We were told that we'd get a bigger bus on the other side.

It was bigger...I'll give them that. But it was the oldest and most clapped out bus I have ever seen. It seated about 16. The door was broken and the windows were plastic - most of which were stuck open. The broken curtain rails were banging against what was left of the windows. There were no curtains. The road from Bangkok to Siem Reap is notorious. Apparently Thai Airways have been bribing Cambodian officials for years not to get it fixed. We had a very amusing six hour journey. Some people were getting annoyed, but I found it all hysterically funny. Luxury bus indeed! Holidays over, back to the travelling then.

The road was so full of massive craters we were bouncing around all over the place. If no-one was suffering with a bad back or whip lash before they got on they were by the end of it. Suspension? Never heard of it. Not on this route anyway. (We found out later that they will not allow their decent coaches to do that road because it is so bad). We kept on having to go over rotten wooden slack bridges. 'I'm sure these are going to collapse!' 'Don't be silly' replied Tim. Sure enough we arrived at one which had indeed collapsed. No worry at all for the driver. He just drove the bus into the field and around it. So much for not straying off the official path!

It got dryer and dryer and so dusty and then dustier. The scenery and the good spirit on the bus made the journey go quite quickly though. We couldn't stop laughing about the poor sods who had paid an extra 200 baht for a VIP service. Twats. There are warnings all over the guide books. Luckily, they saw the funny side of it too.

As soon as we crossed the border into Cambodia and cleared the first town, everywhere looked like we were in ‘Apocalypse Now’. It's the trees that do it. I had just read a book called 'First They Killed my Father' about a little girl who survived the Pol Pot massacres. It was exactly as she described it. Everything covered in red dust (including all of us), tumble down shacks on stilts and those fantastic trees that you always see in Vietnam war movies. Lots of very thin cows and lots, and lots, and lots of huge holes. After six hours of the bumpiest road ever we were glad to reach Siem Reap to a clean bed and a warm shower.

Travellers yet to visit Siem Reap take note: Part of the bus scam is that the company makes sure it arrives after dark and then takes you to his mate’s guest house. Well, in our case ‘mate’s guest house’ was actually really nice. We got a huge, really clean room for $3 each with a private bathroom and hot water. The guide books will also tell you that the hotels they use are out of the way. Ours was about two minutes walk to the rest of the backpacker hotels. I wasn’t about to complain.

The rocky road to Cambodia

Question: How many people and bags can you cram into one 8 seater minibus?
Answer: 14 plus two at the front.




The queue at the border




Not sure what the mask is about.


Just a few metres away from Thailand and suddenly all the streets are littered with rubble.



January 2005, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

I liked Cambodia from the moment we got to the border. The 300 Bhat luxury bus that was due to pick us up from our hotel in Bangkok turned out to be a mini bus for 8 people. They loaded it with 12 people and 12 sets of luggage and took us all the way to the border.

Once there I was virtually attacked by kids asking for food. I remembered that I had bought some doughnuts for the ride and pulled them out. Big mistake. Within seconds I was surrounded by about fifteen children all dressed in rags and covered in dirt shouting 'yam yam' at me and signalling their hands towards their mouths. It was heart breaking. I didn't have enough for all of them and soon enough a local adult came and shooed them all away. I’d bought the doughnuts knowing that I’d be able to give some away. OK, I caused a bit of a riot, but when else will those kids get sugared doughnuts? Tim really had a go at me. Not in a bad way. You could see his heart was going out to them too, but he feels strongly that we shouldn’t give to kids. I don’t give them money, but a bloody sugared doughnut?

There was a girl sat outside the passport office aged about 15. She was thin as a rake, with short, curly hair and her face was smeared with dirt. She was stunningly beautiful. Her clothes were in tatters. As the kids continued to hassle people for food and money, she just sat there staring ahead of her. My heart stopped beating when I saw her. She was obviously no older than 15, but her face, her expression, was one of a 60 year old. I tried desperately not to let her see my face because I was holding back tears. I didn’t want her to see my pity. I know she saw me though. By this time I’d given all my food away. As we left, Tim waited for the kids to run away and then gave her a bag of crisps that he’d forgotten we had. The local police get really angry with them and are constantly shooing them away because they pick pocket tourists on one side of the border and then run to the other side where they can’t get arrested. It was the first time I had seen misery like this since Peru. I assume she was Cambodian. Just a taster of what was to come.

Running low on money and patience.

6th January 2005, Bangkok.



Outside out apartment in Ko Tao on New Years Day. I spent the whole day thinking I
was about to throw up, but never did. Considering we are 4 months in and this is the worst its been so far, I think I'm quite lucky.




I took this photo not realising it was actually Pete walking across the sand.



Sariee Beach Ko Tao.



This is the beach that belonged to the apartments where we were staying



And here are the fish you could see in the water before you put your mask on. One of them bit a scab on Tim's leg and made it bleed. Yeuch!



We hired a boat and went around the whole of Ko Tao stopping off to snorkel in all the bays. It was a fantastic day. Tim saw a turtle. I missed it because it was in Shark Bay and I just couldn't cope with the idea of going out of my way to meet a shark in my bikini, vegeratian or not.



Ko Tao - another lush sunset. I've seen so many on this trip, but I'm never going to get complacent about them.



Even Buddha gets old. Bangkok



Khao San Road



I'm going to miss Pete and Sal when they go



This is Mr Shaky Shaky Man. He lives just outside our hotel in Bangkok and gave us breakfast every morning. He serves fantastic smoothies with ice made from mineral water "because I love you guys" for 20 Baht.



I'm still having trouble getting used to these things. Tim just won't do cars anymore - even to the airport, which means backpacks on our knees all the way.

6th January 2005, Bangkok.
We are in a guest house just off the Khao San Rd. We moved from a hotel near Nana after Tim blocked the loo so badly we couldn't unblock it and dare not tell the owners in case they charged us. (There is a 1000 baht fine for putting loo roll down the toilet, when will he learn??).

We are running out of money fast and we have just been completely scanked on our India Visas. We paid way 800 Baht each for them. We found out they are doing them on the Khao San for 400. It isn't a lot of money, but we've got 4 months left and barely any money to live on. Its been hard because Pete and Sal were here on holiday so they were spending English pounds earned at home. I so wish we could keep up with them. I feel like we held them back from doing things at times, because we simply could not afford it. I'm realising we didn't plan the trip well at all when it comes to money. We just gathered as much as we possibly could and went for it. Anyone planning to do a trip - make sure you take into account alcohol - it costs a fortune when you want it - and trips - like hiking, snorkelling etc. There's no point coming to all these amazing places if you cannot afford to experience them properly and you WILL pay tourist prices for them unless you stay for an age and really get to know the locals. Unfortunately my desire to see as many places as possible on this trip means we can't really do that.

We left Ko Tao shortly after New Year. Its such a beautiful place. Really chilled and nicer than Ko Pha Ngan - the snorkelling is amazing. It feels like we've had a three week holiday away from travelling. The beaches are very resort like and what with having Dani, Zak, Pete and Sal around too. I remember when we first spoke about meeting up with people before we left England. Back then I was a bit against it because I didn't want to be reminded of the real world for the whole trip, but it hasn't been like that at all. I've really enjoyed seeing both Dan and Zak and Pete and Sally and I'm missing them all already. I just wish our bloody cash hadn't ran right the way down. We had a fantastic time in New Zealand and Oz, but I have to say Tim was right - it drained us out completely. I'm not quite sure what we are going to do. There is absolutely no way that I will even consider going back early.

Khao San is nowhere near as mad as I expected. It's certainly colourful and all the traders of fake everything are there, but it's actually quite chilled. I wish Dan and Zak would have met us here instead. I’m sure they would have liked it, despite Zak’s horror of other backpackers. I much prefer it to where we were on Sukhumvit - the only other tourists we saw there were overweight 50 + men who I could not help but sneer at. In our hotel there was a sign up saying that if guests did not ensure that their 'Thai lady friends' left ID at reception they would take no responsibility for theft from the rooms. If I have to be with thousands of other tourists, I’d much rather they were back packers than paedophiles and dirty old men. Zak – you’re wrong on this one.

Tim has been doing my head in quite a lot lately. We have been together a long time, but I am finding out many things about his personality on this trip that I am not liking one bit.

I knew he was bad with money, but I always thought it was because he didn't have much. I now realise that he is completely irresponsible with it. All he wants to do is buy stuff...mainly junk. And we are skint. I'm sure he thinks that I'll come up with a reserve of cash, but this time he is wrong. The emergency budget was spent a long time ago. The whole £5,000 has gone and I am left only with the travellers cheques I have left. Money is just disappearing like water.

He's also being really pushy about everything. Where we go, what we do and even where things are put. On Christmas Eve we had a massive row because he refused to let me put my comb on the dresser. The rooms we have barely have any furniture. There is never anywhere to put anything. The one time that we were given a room with a dresser and shelves, he insists on having a whole shelf for the walkman and speakers and nothing else. It's so ridiculously childish and unrealistic. On Christmas Eve I disliked him so much I was desperate to be at home as far away from him as possible.

I have also noticed that he can be really rude and condescending to people since we have been away. I don't think he realises how he talks down to people sometimes, but he has left me cringing with embarrassment on several occasions. On Boxing Day, the day of the biggest natural disaster the world has seen for a century, my Dad was desperately trying to call. It was a bad line and Tim was saying in that nasty Mr. Superior tone, ‘look you'll have to move your mouth away from the receiver or I won't be able to understand you.' Then he put the phone down. He knew full well it was a call from home. My Dad was so scared at hearing such a bad, crackled line with a voice he couldn’t understand that when the phone went dead he started to cry.

That day I not only disliked him, but utterly despised him. He tried to make out that he didn't know who it was. He would never have given up on the call so abruptly if he didn't know it was from my parents. He thinks they call too much. There’s just been a massive tsunami and 240,000 people are dead. We are in Thailand for fucks sake. Even our friends were calling never mind our parents. I think it’s because he’s secretly upset that his Dad didn’t bother to call. I think his contempt or jealousy or whatever the bloody hell it is will eventually mark the end of us. I can't believe he made my Dad cry.

I think both of us are a bit down at the moment. Not anything like being down at home – that’s impossible – we are just way too relaxed and happy to be out here. But it’s been a weird time. The tsunami was horrible, and now Pete and Sally have gone we are feeling a bit lonely stuck in Bangkok waiting for our Visas for Laos and India. It’s about 38 degrees here and polluted as hell. Sometimes the smell is so bad it makes me gag. We are fast running out of cash – so much so that I am starting to think that we might have to go home early. So we are just hanging in our hotel room, trying to save our cash for the rest of the trip rather than wasting it here.

There are so many people in the Koh San area with bandaged up legs, arms, bruised faces. All of them back packers. The lucky ones. At the top of Koh San Rd, just by the police station there is a huge barrier up with lists of names and photos of thousands of people that are missing. It’s horrible. It reminds me of Ground Zero. I know I should take a photo of it, but I can’t bring myself round to doing it. I think Pete might have taken one. I feel as if we should be doing something, but they don’t want any more people over there unless they have medical skills or are builders. We’ve heard so many stories. Apparently the Thais on the islands have been amazing. Treating the tourists still out there as if they were their own. Feeding them, housing them. I’d like to think the Brits would do the same. I’m not so sure though.

Christmas pre tsunami. Ko Pha Ngan, Thailand

Hat Yao Beach, Christmas Eve 2004



Ko Pha Ngan - our room



Pete and Sally are here! Christmas Eve 2004



The Pirate Bar - Hat Yao




Dani and Zak mid way through far too much Thai whisky



Oh no, it's those buckets. Bang goes all the culture stuff then.


Christmas Eve at the Pirate Bar


Christmas Morning at our beach huts.


The owners prepared us a huge fish BBQ.


Christmas night. Dean has turned up too. Its nice to have so many familiar faces tonight. For the first time on this trip I'm missing home a bit.



Dean put on a great display for us. He burned himself silly tho!



Ghecko porn anyone?



Blissfully unaware. 26th december 2004 11am, Hat yao Beach. We were just about to hear the first rumour that 150 people had died in Kho Phi Phi

Bangkok with Dani & Zak 18th December 04

Its so good to see Dani...and odd too.





Spot the Palamara



Hello Boo

Disaster. The whole world knew except for those of us on the lucky side of Thailand

Pete took these pictures when we got back to Bangkok









The lucky ones.

1st January 2005, Koh Tao, Thailand
It's New Year's Day. We are in Koh Tau in the Gulf of Thailand. Pete and Sally have been with us since Christmas Eve. They are here on a two week holiday. We met up with Dani and Zak as soon as we got to Bangkok. They have just started a three month trip of SE Asia. We all spent Christmas together which was really nice.

Right now Tim is in bed after taking our stash of emergency antibiotics and is feeling really bad. Pete and Sally have popped up to the town. Sally is a bit pre-menstrual and as a result Pete is driving the poor girl mad. Dani and Zak have gone to Malaysia. I have been up half the night wondering if I would ever be able to get off the toilet and get back into bed. I'm feeling a bit better now. Damned white Russian from last night. I think it might have been the ice.

Doesn't sound like a great start to the new year, but we are grateful. Very grateful.

Tore, the guy, who is staying in the bungalow next-door got back from Koh Phi Phi yesterday. He arrived with his best friend....a Norwegian girl called Celia and her boyfriend, Chris.

After spending a very chilled Christmas day on our secluded beach we were enjoying Boxing Day sunbathing on Hat Yao and looking forward to the full moon party on Ko Pha Ngan. Meanwhile Tore was waking up to shouting and screaming outside his bungalow. From where he was ...up a steep hill....he looked out to a scene of people running and screaming covered in blood. He had no idea where his friends were. He decided all he could do was wait for them.

Chris was wading through a meter of sea water, debris, dead bodies and screaming people while desperately trying to get back to his bungalow to find out whether his girlfriend, Celia, was still alive. On the way, glass that had smashed from windows had severed two tendons in his foot.

Celia was clinging to a ceiling fan. Her bungalow had filled almost to the top with water leaving her head space only to breathe and ponder whether it would keep rising leading to a certain, slow death. They both seemed amazingly calm when they arrived, but that has got to be a head fuck of the most violent kind. I am certain it has not hit them yet.

The earthquake was one of the worst in 90 years. It measured 9.0 on the Richter Scale. The epi-centre was in the Andaman Sea, just off Indonesia. According to news reports the Tsunami was 30 feet high and travelled at 500km an hour. It took two hours to hit and virtually wipe out Phuket, Koh Phi-Phi and Krabbi. Sri Lanka, The Maldives, western Malasia, Southern India and even Somalia in Africa were all badly hit. The last I heard the death toll stood at 120,000 with still thousands unaccounted for. Tore said he saw bodies lined up on the beach. Disease is adding to the casualties.

It's a disaster of an unimaginable scale and it makes me go cold thinking that if Tim had not insisted on us all meeting up in Ko Pha Ngan for the full moon party we would have been either on Ko Lanta or Ko Phi-Phi. It doesn't bear thinking about.

It rained the night of the full moon party and as much as I tried to remind myself that this drunken, spiritless, cash motivated mess had probably saved countless lives ....boatloads arrived on Christmas Eve for it from all over Thailand .... I did not have a very good time.

Yesterday I sent off the last of the 'we're ok' emails and finished them off with 'time to celebrate life'. I meant it at the time, but I found that very hard to do last night. While the fireworks were sounding and the Chinese lanterns were floating all over the sky Celia and Chris were in the tightest embrace ever. That made me smile at how relieved they must have felt to be seeing in the new year and I was happy for all of the survivors, but I couldn't stop thinking about the newly married couple whose 8 month old baby was swept out of the father's arms. Another Dad with two kids, one of three and one of five. He managed to keep hold of the five year old.

Dani and Zak are stuck in Kuala Lumpur. They were supposed to be going south but there are Monsoons on the coast. I am worried about them. Mum and Dad are up in arms. I got an email from Nella begging us to come home. I felt really bad, but I told her in no uncertain terms that we would not even consider it. I think I have managed to convince Mum that we are out of danger. Hopefully she has calmed down and is worrying less. Last night though, amid the New Year's celebrations I found myself checking that the tide was still lapping on the shore.




This was the exchange of some of the emails after the Tsunami. I'm copying and pasting this journal that was written while we were there long after the actual event. We had no idea how bad it was at first. Even though we were talking to survivors. Thai television were not showing the same pictures and volunteers were being turned away and told to go back to Bankok. I've only seen the worst of it since coming home.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: danapalamara@tiscali.co.uk [mailto:danapalamara@tiscali.co.uk]
>Sent: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:37:26 +0700
>Subject: Not so merry Christmas


Hello all,

Thanks for all your texts and emails and sorry it has taken me so long to
get to an internet cafe. I can't believe that this is the second time during
this trip that I am writing to everyone seriously assuring them that we
are safe. I have tried to reply to as many of the texts as poss, but since
I lost my address book when my phone was stolen I do not know who most of
them are from - thanks for thinking of us. Pete and Sally brought me a new
phone and sim card over. It would be great if you could send texts to my
old number and let me know your names so that I can build
my contacts list up again. In the mean time I still have the Thai phone
number that I sent you last time and that’s the one I am using most of all
because it is dirt cheap..

We are on Koh Tao - an island off the Eastern coast of Thailand. We are
miles away from the disaster, safe and not moving anywhere for the time
being. We were on the beach in Koh Pha Ngan when we first started to hear
the rumours of an earthquake in Phuket. Dani and Zak were about to board
a ferry heading there. Tim had to drive miles in order to get a signal on
his phone to stop them getting on the ferry. We were due to join them the
next day. Obviously those plans are scrapped now.

I can't believe how lucky we have been. I keep seeing the pictures on the
news and it makes me feel sick knowing how many people have died and that
we all could have been there. Thankfully, we found out that there was going
to be a Full Moon party on Koh Pha Ngan on Boxing Day so we all decided
to meet there.

I didn't like the Full Moon party. There was no spiritual
vibe at all...just drunk people trashing the beach and islanders cashing
in on it by selling mushroomless tea and shakes at extortionate prices and
all sorts of nasty stuff passing for whisky or vodka. People were so paranoid
you couldn't even have a joint on the beach. I found myself thankful for
it though because every month, people, including loads of Thais, leave from
all over Thailand to come to them. On Christmas Eve, boatload after boatload
were arriving from Koh Tau, Koh Phi Phi and Phuket. It saved a lot of lives
in Thailand this time round.

We had a nice Christmas.The owner of the bungalows we were in made us a
huge fish and seafood BBQ on the beach and then lit us a fire. We had a
very chilled one. Once again...sorry I couldn't text anyone.. I hope you
all had a lovely day.

Koh Tau is lovely. A snorkelers Paradise where you can see the fish at
the waters edge before you even put your mask on. We are going to hire
a boat and sail round the islands tomorrow and hopefully go shark snorkeling.
(I am assured there are only whale sharks in these waters who are VEGETARIAN.)

We will probably spend new year here and then head towards Cambodia. I'll keep you all up to date when I can.

Wishing you all a fantastic new year.

Love and kisses,

Dana
XXXX



Original Message
From: "nella"
To:
Subject: Re: Not so Merry Christmas
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:35:36 -0000


Hi Dana Tim Danni and Zak

Ive have just read this email and we are all thanking God that you are
all ok. I know you dont want to hear this and I know that you are nowhere near
the disaster but please, please, please will you consider coming home ?

Nearly 100.000 people dead. The disease is rife and so many more thousands
might die from the disease. Please at least think about coming home.
God has blessed us all and you are all safe and well and I pray that you will
do the right thing and all come home.

We all love you very much and pray that you will all come home
All our love
Nella, Mum, Dad, Emilio and Lukey xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx






From: danapalamara@tiscali.co.uk Add to address book

To: "nella"
Cc:
Subject: Re: Not so Merry Christmas
Send: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:41:59 +0700

Hi Nella,
Thanks for your message. I know you guys are worried, and you have every
right to be, but please rest assured that we are away from danger. Earthquakes
happen in earth quake zones. We are not in one...miles away from any of the
plates......nor are we near one where water could affect us. That kind of
scale earthquake does not repeat itself very often. We are safe Nella, I
promise. If we weren't we would get the hell out. People are arriving here
from the disaster area to spend New Year. We are right the way over the other
side of the country in a completely different sea. The disease cannot get
to us. What they are talking about when the say disease is the villages in
Indonesia and India that have been flattened and have left people homeless.
The tourist sites that used to be there are now all closed or flattened.
Please trust me that I will not venture to unsafe places. That’s a promise.
Sorry, but I am not going to consider coming home. We are leaving Koh Tau
in a few days to go to the mainland and into Cambodia. No sea there. Please
explain to Mum how far we are. I know it sounds scary to you, but everything
is totally normal here ...people are carrying on as if nothing happened.

Have a fantastic new year. I will try to stay awake and call at 7am our time
which will be midnight your time.

Lots of love always,
Dxxx




-- Original Message --
From: "Zoey Ingarfield"
To: danapalamara@tiscali.co.uk
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:49:45 +0000


God, had forgotten that you were there already. Was imagining you still
in Australia. So glad that you are both ok, but what a hideous thing to have
happened. Can't believe it. Is there anything that you guys can do on
the ground there? The devastation must be just unimaginable... Anyway,
thinking of you and your fellow countrymen at present,

xxxx


From: danapalamara@tiscali.co.uk Add to address book

To: "Zoey Ingarfield"
Cc:
Subject: RE:
Send: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 14:47:53 +0700

Hi Zoey,

We are trying to find out if there is anything we can do over there, but
it seems they only want people with medical skills. Survivors have started
to arrive in Koh Tau from the West coast and we have resolved to get them
all as drunk as poss for new year. Sounds weird but that’s what they want.
They are shell shocked. I don't think it has hit them yet. They've seen
children swept out of parents’ arms and bodies on the beach. It's horrible.
One girl who arrived today shut her bungalow door on the oncoming wave and
within ten mins found herself alone in two meters of water holding on to
the ceiling fan to keep her head above water and having to wait for the water
to subside. I can even begin to image how scared she must have been.
I thank our lucky stars Tim forced everyone to go east.
Time to celebrate life.

Have a great new year my love. Love to Fred and love from Tim,
Dxxxxx

Hurrah! Sunshine at last. Thank you Oz! Dec 05

Finally!!! A suntan!!! On Bondi with Ali and Damien



A sunny day in Sydney



We went to the club with the blue neon light. Everything that London has plus a beach and 'good weather'



Bondi Beach



Sydney by the sea

We met up with Ali and Damien and had a fantastic night out. Sydney really is a stylish city...some parts are a bit plastic fantastic, but it's got a good vibe. And you can get salad!! Oh salad!!! Juice bars too. After weeks of burgers, potatoes and Kiwi breakfasts in New Zealand I was virtually tripping over myself for vitamins. Bondi beach was cool to experience, but I'm glad we only decided to spend a short while there. I looked at my bank balance and thought that someone had duped my card and taken a good two grand out. Unfortunately I realised that in fact I had spent it. Damn. Hurried recalculations of our budget and we're leaving the 'West' for Thailand.