February 26, 2024
We’re at the airport in Saigon waiting on a flight to neighboring Cambodia.
Vietnam is a great place to visit. The people, from our experience, are very kind and patient. It seems 80% of the population was born after the end of the war so, for them, it is long ago in the past and something their grandparents remember.
The country seems flush with money and new construction is everywhere. High-rises, bridges and freeways. A lot of visible wealth. And all in a communist country.
It seems like a very safe country. No crime in the north. Some warning about pick-pockets in Saigon. I’m sure the penalties for criming are severe. And I can only guess what their justice system is like.
The locals complain about many things and at the top of their list is their “salary”. It’s very low. But everyone here has a government job which is the source of their salary. So, they have to hustle and have a side job (private job) which they refer to as “income”. Businesses are taxed very low because everyone hides their books and under-reports their income.
For their government jobs they clock in and take off. It’s almost like the concept of universal basic income except you have to show up daily somewhere for your job to get paid. No one goes hungry. No one is homeless.
For the poor, they are given an apartment in a newly built high-rise and if they live there for 5 years, they take title to the property and then can sell it for a lot of money.
At least these are the stories we were told. The truth could be very different and I’m sure if you live here for a while, you learn more about both good and bad. But it certainly seems to work for them.
For me, the lack of McDonald’s would kill me. I’m an American afterall.
I rolled over and opened my eyes. Buddha stared down at me, smiling. The bright ceiling light adjacent made me blink twice. Time to get up from the quick nap and head into town for dinner.
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We arrived in Cambodia at noon and were met by our new guide and driver. The excited young man approached me, his hand-held sign with “Hildebrand” properly spelled. A rare treat.
“My name is Rida”, he said. “Lovely!”, I replied. Surely he understood the joke.
He introduced us to his driver, Mr. Mau, and, after loading our luggage, we headed into town from the brand new empty airport and brand new empty highway that the Chinese recently built and opened in October.
On the way into town, now an hour long drive, Rida told us about himself and his life in northern Cambodia. Born in 1979 just as the Cambodian/Vietnam War was winding down (wars are as common as soccer matches around here), he explained the current political reality. He described a political system that is democratic. They vote for their members of parliament. The prime minister is all powerful except for the king who can do anything at anytime. So, therefore, according to Rida, they are communistic.
Looking it up on Wikipedia, Cambodia is described as having a “unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy under a hereditary dictatorship”.
Whatever. We’ll leave it at that.
We finally arrived at Siem Reap and headed to our hotel, occasionally passing royal palace compounds.
Pulling into our hotel, we were met by the hotel manager. A slender bare footed young man, he bowed down, hands folded, and said he was “Kim”.
We passed some ponds with koi fish, mouths agape, and pots of lotus flowers (nice touch, I thought) and headed to our room overlooking the pool filled with old German tourists, mouths agape.
After napping, we went back to the lobby and asked Kim for suggestions on where to go for dinner. “Pub Street”, he quietly said and went outside to hail a tuk-tuk.
The tuk-tuk, pulled by a motorized scooter, took us a few blocks down into the city center. The setting sun casting long shadows.
We hopped off and found ourselves at the equivalent of Bourbon Street in New Orleans with a bunch of drunk partying Buddhists and a surly large Khmer man in a ball cap selling Ray Ban sunglasses. “Pol Pot Puleez!”, I said, brushing him aside.
The scene was totally tourist, western style, with signs hawking “supreme pizzas”, “hamburgers” and “four wheeling adventures”. Off to one side sat some tired looking tourists with their bare feet in water filled aquariums. Fish nibbling on their toes. “Piranhas”, I secretly hoped to myself.
I spotted a Tex-Mex-Cam restaurant and told Teresa we were going there. I ordered empanadas.
Whatever I ate was not empanadas.
February 27, 2024
After a long day visiting the temples of Angkor Wat (there are so many … the place is huge), we returned to the hotel. At sunset, we sat outside by the hotel’s private pool briefly before heading out to find a place for dinner.
Leaving the property, we headed east towards River Street, or at least what I officially declared to be River Street in my best Yul Brynner imitation (it helps to be bald) while folding my arms and wearing pajamas. “Etcetera!”, I pronounced.
We found a nice tropical chic restaurant called Sokkhak River Lounge (សុខ:រីវើឡោញ in Khmer) and were seated quickly.
Scanning the menu it appeared that the place catered to western tastes. I ordered the Seafood Fried Rice while Teresa had the Fried Chicken with Fire Ants.
“Gosh!”, I thought, “I haven’t had fried chicken and fire ants since that disastrous school field trip back in 1965 at Lake Blackshear in south Georgia.”
We finished dinner and headed out and hailed a tuk-tuk. I showed the driver our destination on Google Maps.
We hopped in the back and the driver got us back in no time after sailing past Pub Street, the scene of last night’s activities. Exiting the tuk-tuk, I thanked the driver, folded my arms and said, “Etcetera”.
I don’t think he saw the movie.
February 28, 2024
We end our too short visit to Cambodia this morning and are waiting on Lovely Rida and Mr. Mau (aka “Chairman”) to take us back to the local airport for a flight to Bangkok, the final stop on our 2024 Chasing the Dragon Tour.
A quick hour long trip back on a mostly empty new highway, we arrived two hours early for our flight (as advised) to the brand new Chinese built Siem Reap International Airport. And it was empty, again. We hopped out of our van and said our farewells to our guides.
After checking in and getting through customs and security we headed to our gate. The last gate after a long line of empty gates and glass enclosed jetways.
Descending two floors we found ourselves at a ground floor waiting area with a bus parked outside. 99 new gates and jetways and, just our luck, we are heading to Bangkok on a bus. I suspect the airport we passed through is like a Hollywood stage set, all for appearances and built from plywood.
Next stop, Bangkok!
