Hunter Thompson would have loved Phnom Penh. Between it’s recent history and current reality, the town perfectly exemplifies Hunter’s often quoted, “When the going gets weird the weird turn pro’. I mean seriously, forget Disneyland . . . why bother when instead you can offer a series of day trip options to revisit the killing of a few million of your fellow countrymen. Or, for a measly $500 you can offer lucky touri the chance to use an RPG to blast a live cow into a million bloody bits. Gotta love Cambodia.

Now being an experienced SE Asia traveller, I know that as you move down the list of third world countries you need to respect that efficiency moves in the same downward direction. So I was somewhat surprised at how efficient and quick the immigration procedures were upon arrival at the Phnom Penh airport. At least it is if you are at the front of the herd. Confronted with a long counter with numerous officials waiting patiently to ignore assist you, turns out the furthest left area is for part A of the immigration procedure, where you hand over your passport, do not hand over the $20 visa fee, but do hand over the $2 fee for a photo if you didn’t happen to bring one with you (not that I ever saw a camera or the picture of my lovely mug I’d paid for). That’s if you have American dollars to pay with. Your other option is the Thai baht. If you pay in baht, the visa fee is 900 baht. Because at the current rate of exchange of 30 baht to the dollar, 20 US$ = , oh wait. Who did this math?

Part B is to the right of Part A and is where everyone patiently lines up pushes and shoves to stand in a mob waiting their turn to be laughed at cuz they arrived in the back or middle of the herd and missed the whole Part A requirement. Part B is also where you pay your visa fee as the official calls out the name of each lucky winner and fortunately also flashes the picture page of your passport since your name will not sound anything like what you foolishly thought it should sound like. Then it’s grab you bag(s) go through the typical dour faced immigration official stamps your passport routine (so what was that whole Part A Part B thingy about anyway?) and within about 15 minutes you’re outside musing over your transportation options into town.. Which is taxi or tuk tuk.

A Brief Interlude: Which means as is typical of me, I’m going to digress from what I’m sure has already been a digression. After passing through immigration on any international trip you get to make a decision about how much of your hard earned cash you are going to exchange at exceptionally bad rates at the airport. For the experienced that usually means just enough for transportation into town and a tip for the bell hop at your hotel. In Cambodia, the US dollar is king, and the preferred currency throughout the country. Their dollar, the riel, is only used for small change (and by stupid touri). It holds such little value that the hands full you collect as change on your trip is good for nothing more than buying off the scum sucking little brats who swarm every tourist related destination in the country begging for a hand out. It is amazing how many travellers don’t bother to find out that there is no need to get riel upon arrival and instead line up at the exchange booth to cash in $100 bills for about a five pound stack of worthless riel. So upon arrival you really need to stop for a minute and laugh at these fools. Hunter would.

Normally I’m a taxi kinda guy. As in air conditioning. And for a whopping $7 compared to the $5 tuk tuk fee . . . come on! I have to give Cambodia major points for having a fixed fare at the airport, which avoids the whole tourist scam rip off thingy most SE Asian countries allow as a welcome to their land. My driver decided to go for the windows down approach rather than use the air conditioning, which I decided meant I could smoke along the way so it was an even draw. Thanks to the traffic and the locals’ attempt at driving, it takes about 30 minutes to get into “town”. And the sights, sounds, and smells, of Cambodia’s capital city on the ride are a good preparation for your upcoming experiences in Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is dirty. Not the dead animal/ dead human/ animal and human feces piled up in the street dirty of India, but rather the ‘it’s not monsoon season so there is a thick layer of fine dirt constantly blowing about and coating everything in town’ kind of dirty. You quickly realize how wise the locals are in wearing those checkered scarf thingys which can be pulled up over one’s nose and mouth to keep the dirt out. You’ll debate whether you’ll look like you are trying to go native if you wear one. Though what you honk out of your nose and throat the next morning during shower time should convince you: looks be damned.

Every tourist who arrives in Cambodia is obviously going to spend a few days travelling about, even if it is only within the city, and as such is going to need transportation. In Cambodia, because it is so cheap to do so, you typically hire a driver and his vehicle for a day rather than finding transpo from place to place. So regardless of whether you are arriving via Phnom Penh or Siem Reap, your driver into town is going to try and secure your patronage for the entire trip. How much that costs is going to be up to your bargaining skills regardless of whether it is the airport driver, the hotel’s driver, or one you allow to accost you on the street. I ignore the price quoted (‘cuz that sure in the hell isn’t what I’m gonna pay) and instead hone in on the driver, his looks, his English skills, and his personality. Maybe his driving skills, but since they are uniformly deplorable that’s last on my list. If my airport driver doesn’t qualify (surely, scowls a lot, can’t speak English, or is just plain ugly) I’ll smile pleasantly and ignore his pleading for work and wait to see what the hotel can serve up. If the hotel’s offering also sucks, then there is a gaggle of willing contestants just outside the hotel’s doors to pick from, and failing that even more to choose from pretty much anywhere on the street.

I was in a tuk tuk frame of mind on this trip, or maybe I should say my wallet was. So the airport guy was outta luck (and would have been anyway as his car sucked). The next morning I stepped outside my hotel to see what offerings were available amongst the crowd of drivers vying for my attention. And realized picking a driver for the day, or the trip, in Cambodia was a lot like picking out a bar boy in Thailand. While ultimately you are going to be concerned over skill, personality, and maybe price, you start with looks. Both of the driver and his machine (uh, no, I mean the tuk tuk). And I wasn’t impressed. So instead of hiring a guy for the day I hired for a quick trip to the riverside to spend a few hours sitting in a streetside cafe, one of my favorite activities in third world countries.

So here’s a travel tip. The cost for a tuk tuk from your hotel to the river is gonna be between $1 and $3 depending on your skills at haggling. You may not be in the mood to go for the throat BUT the same group of drivers is going to be at the hotel’s entrance every day and they talk with each other. So if you chicken out and agree to the $3 fee on trip #1, you’ll never get a cheap price on subsequent trips as you already have established you are willing to pay the top price. So my advice is to bargain hard, ignore their pleas of poverty and sickly kids at home in dire need of lifesaving operations. Those kids are all going to die young anyway and obviously your paying an extra $2 isn’t going to matter one bit.

Riverside is where all the action is in Phnom Penh, or at least it is where all the street side open air cafes geared toward white folk are. A pleasant breeze blows in off the river, the food and drinks are cheap, the service is surly, and you’ll be constantly harangued by strolling vendors, most of whom will be selling books. But the petty annoyances are minor compared to the joy of people watching a street-side seat will afford you. And if the book sellers get to be too much, you can always stop one, slowly go thru their offerings asking a million questions and then make a ridiculously low offer that would never qualify for acceptance. This will piss the sucker off and the vendor will walk away muttering, immediately passing the word to the other vendors about the asshole sitting over there, which means they will all cut a wide swath to avoid you for the rest of your stay. Nice. I love interacting with the local folk!

If you have still not selected a driver for the day, the hours you spend at the cafe will also offer you an opportunity to check out a whole new group of potentials. And without them realizing you are doing so. So you get a whole different perspective on their personalities as you watch them being turned down and/or ignored by your fellow touri.

I’d had my eye on a young studly shirtless driver, for obvious reasons. He was hot, and knew it. And that attitude didn’t put me off in the least. But the scowl and anger boiling off him as he got turned down again and again . . . well, keep in mind that this is a country that decided a mere few years ago it was perfectly normal to round up large groups of their fellow countrymen, torture and kill them because of a major life-infraction, like that they wore glasses. (uh, which I do). So hottie became a nottie.

I finally zeroed it down to a twenty-something chubby guy with a beautiful smile who seemed to be quite enjoying himself regardless of the lack of business. His ride, while not totally ancient, wasn’t one of the newer tuk tuks. And it was pink. Not normally my choice of colors, but for some reason the idea of being driven about in a pink tuk tuk by a fat Cambodian just seemed right. So an hour later when I thought I’d taken enough time up in the cafe, I caught his eye and he came running.

Time to check out his English as well as establishing what kind of a deal I could get outta him. “Where you go?” he asked in broken, but understandable English. “Jockey Hotel, how much?” I replied. “Ahhh, Jokey Hotel (the official Cambodian version of the hotel’s name). Can I get $3?” The ‘can I get’ was endearing as was his smile. But business is business, so I countered with, “No, but you can get $1”. He laughed, said OK and reached in to smooth out the covering over the tuk tuk’s seat for me.

Once underway, it’s difficult to carry on a conversation with your tuk tuk driver as they are mounted on a motorcycle in front of you and are wearing a helmet, as required by law. But Nok, as his name turned out to be, did his damnest, pointing out sights along the way and asking where I was from, how long I would be in Phnom Penh, uh, come to think about it, the typical speil you hear from Thailand’s bar boys. He was friendly, and full of laughter. And while not an English major, seemed to know a good deal of the language and I could actually understand him. Once we got to the hotel I mentioned I needed a driver for a few days. And his eyes lit up. As did his face. We haggled a bit over the daily fee, though we both knew I wasn’t going to over pay, finally mutually satisfied with a rate of $15 a day for the next five days. BTW, that’s for a twelve hour day starting whatever time you want. Did I mention Cambodia was cheap?

Nok was an excellent choice and made the trip memorable. I started calling him Nok Nok, and explained the whole knock knock joke thing to him which he not only totally got and enjoyed, but became a daily requirement that I had a new knock knock joke for him ever morning. And whenever we were in a mass of tuk tuks and I couldn’t find him easily I’d just yell out “Knock, knock!” to hear the laughing reply, “Who dere!” come floating out of the crowd as he’d push his way to the front to greet me.

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