Cambodia: Ups, Downs and now way up!

After a great couple of days in Sinphandon (southern most part of Laos) we hopped over the border into Cambodia. We spent our first night in Kratie about 2 hrs south of Laos and had a great introduction into the warm Cambodian culture. We only had one night in the north with the desire to head south to Phnom Penh and eventually Siem Reap.

We arrived in Phnom Penh with an email confirmation at a guest house and word that they would pick us up at the bus station. Well no pick-up and no way of communicating where to go? Our first tuk-tuk driver says "Yeah I know the place" and of course after ten minutes of driving, we haven't found our guesthouse. So we ask for to stop at an Internet cafe and we can get an address. We get the address and call the guesthouse he gives instructions and says he will pay the second tuk-tuk when we arrive. We arrive and the man at the door pays the tuk-tuk after we exchange some words about the current level of service. That settled we go in and a young man at the bar says that he doesn't have a room as per in the email. He shows another room not at all what we asked for but at same price (hideous). Then two more rooms (also not what we asked for and at different prices). At this point we are frustrated (to say the least) and demand to talk to the person we communicated with on the email. They say 5 minutes we will get him and during this time Patti starts looking around the area at other places (and finds lots of other places). Then a new man enters and says that he doesn't have the room he stated in the email. At this point we have had enough and decide to leave. As we are heading out man at the front demands that we pay the tuk-tuk to get us here since we aren't staying. We say no (since we were out the money for the first tuk-tuk and the money for the internet and phone call)! He grabs my backpack and re-demands. I push him backwards after saying we aren't paying and you lied. He get really offended and starts the rich tourist thing while raising a fist. Patti says you lied and we aren't paying. Man raise fist and heads her way. I get very angry and push backwards again (while two of his friends are closing in) and say we aren't paying you lied!! He yells a lot of profanities and tells us " you pay now! people get hit by cars all the time in Cambodia@$%ing tourists" and lets got of my backpack. We walk off a little shaken and find a nice place down the street.

We decide that night that we need to start fresh with Cambodia and catch a bus the next day to Siem Reap and to explore the beautiful temples of Angkor Wat!

We have loved every minute of Siem Reap and Angkor, I've taken 600 photos in two visits and will go again tomorrow. This has been a true highlight of the trip. We will be posting photos soon.

Don't get worried about us, this is our first real tussle while abroad and we are pretty sure we are still decent people. To make up for the potential bad karma, we've been extra generous with any nice Cambodian who serves us or helps us out.

Colin and Patti