Pattaya - Phnom Penh...and back! - part 1
PTY - PP...and back! - part 1
Couldn't post the pics yet because my chip needed therapy but hopefully will have it rehabilitated and accessible tomorrow, at which time this section can be updated.
But first the Characters:
Me.
A, 72, Moroccan living in UK around 25 years, fluent in Arabic, Spanish and French but weak in English, never a moan, just gets on with making the best of any unpleasant cards coming his way.
J, 62, former Israeli commando before turning well connected wheeler dealer, not afraid to cross lines and with no end of anecdotes, used to the high life but now just another travelled and experienced hasbeen which means ever ready to gripe but with a good sense of humour; being a lady's man plus domestic strife in UK adds another novice expat to the list, great guy to have around in an emergency if you can cope with zeroing in on every imperfection.
Mohamed from Yemen, 58, living in UK about 30 years, well off Jack of all trades, invites 2 of his brother-in-laws for their first travel experience beyond a couple of horizons from home.
Bil1, Ahmet, Palestinian living in the Lebanon, very little English, not used to travel but as most places are upmarket from his world one imagines he shouldn't be complaining as much as he does, self-excommunicated from anything to do with Palestine since witnessing his brother shot in the back after being manouevred into a sandwich by Pal snipers between themselves and Israeli military, longer and more involved but this is a trip report.
Bil2, Yusef aka Flintstone, Jordanian Palestinian, not a word of English, fun guy in the right vein otherwise a headache.
Michael, Pole, 36, living in UK 18 years, wealthy by most standards but without airs, heaps of energy and also personable, massive dongle and a barrel of laughs even without it, has a weakness for women and cars, 4 high enders in Holland, 6 in Poland, with a 928i, Mustang and BMW in London plus a 30-something-year-old in mint condition for which Volvo is prepared to give him a fully loaded model of his choice, but he's holding out for 2 of the same, separated by 3 years, fully insured and maintained...One life and he's living it.
Sami of another thread, Moroccan living in London some 20 years, barely manages in English, easily confused and doesn't mean to screw everything up but has a heart of gold so is routinely forgiven. He it was that strapped in last summer for the BKK-LHR Eva Air flight, only to discover through no intellectual contribution of his own that he was on China Air and moments from wheels up to Beijing - with little money, no visa, weak in English and easily confused it could've been a whole new experience. As we're into lighthearted reminiscing, some years ago I called him urgently in London to book two tickets to Budapest where we had been a couple of months earlier, and then meet me at the airport because I was involved elsewhere but we needed to get there pronto and I couldn't do the booking myself...Sami did as instructed, and we also met at the airport at the appointed time, it turning out that between my call and his booking he must have heard the word or seen a poster for Bucharest, and you've guessed the rest.
Thursday 20th December. We finally made it, minibus at 0300 to arrive at Suvarnabhumi around 0430 which turned out to be 0500 after domestic delays but that was fine. 1600 baht but A was in charge of payment and cannot resist tipping so he handed over 1800 baht.
Walked warily to checkin because nobody else was queing, but the reason for that as we discovered later was the crowds couldn't find it because the two AirAsia counters were buried in a line for other destinations...as I handed over the 6 passports and turned around to help heave the bags through it suddenly felt very claustrophobic because literally hundreds of passengers had found it and their nearby checkins at the same time. Good start, marred by the absence of Michael, who is well travelled in Europe and USA but first time out to these parts. He had arrived late on the 18th and was picked up by Sami + betrothed and stayed in Bkk, so by this time had actually enjoyed only one full day in Thailand, and as Sami's betrothed is a pharmaceutical rep and early on the road, the responsibility fell upon him to deliver Michael into our hands at 0500. And I bet you thought he would foul up, right? Wrong! Sami got it spot on this time, they arrived around 0430 and also by some miracle at the same airport.
At around 0515 our phones started hyperventilating. It was Sami. He and his charge had somehow ended up somewhere downstairs for the best part of the last hour though this did include a coffee break, but now it was getting late and could somebody go down and rescue them or at least give them directions. As Michael later said, once he realised that Sami's suggestion for a coffee break was a play for time during which he might find a way out without letting on he was on the verge of panic, he decided to take over the rescue effort and give his good friend a break by leading from the rear. Thus we ended up together.
Uneventful from there to PP immigration where we arrived ahead of the masses. I was about 3rd or 4th in the scrum to hand in the paperwork for all 7 of us, and then went to the other end of the counter where I exchanged nods and a smile with the offloader who recognised me from previous encounters. I would stay there until all 7 passports were processed, and handed the thief a $100 note for the $20 visa when my passport came through. By this time I could see that everybody before me had paid their $20 visa fees with 10s and 20s, with no 100s handed over before mine, so the thief definitely had enough change...but he kept me waiting about a long minute, no big deal, before his Oscar performance...scrambled together a couple of 20s and two 10s, then picked out another two 20s, paused momentarily like he was flustered before dropping one and then the other in exchange for two 5s and a bundle of 1s with one note holding together the rest, a common enough tool - based on trust - that saves having to count lots of notes, which he thrust into my hands before turning his attention to the other mundane matters waiting around for their passports. Rewind: I was there before the first passport came through, can testify that no 5s or 1s had crossed that counter towards him, and the moment he brought a 5 into view I turned to tell J that I was about to be shafted...sure enough, it turned out to be 9, not 10 ones in the bundle, which of course I found out en route to luggage retrieval since it would be considered offensive in the extreme to stay at the immigration counter counting them. Immature, but social engineering worthy of a $.
Tip: If you have a 20 give it to them, rather than take the opportunity to break a 100.
Around 0830 and taking in the changes as the Flamingos driver led to the minibus. Coming out of customs, the previous void on the left is now a spacious coffee shop; the outside bureau de exchange offers around 6% below the going rate with 3800 to the $ instead of just above 4000, and from there we're distracted by two Thai stunners happening along to wind up J+Michael, till their ancient sponsor arrived to spoil the challenge, or fantasy.
Next stop after the usual noisy dusty obstacle course into town was my humble abode ever since deserting the Royal Highness on principle years earlier, for upping my concessionary $10 rate to $12. The Flamingo Hotel, then $16, has since upped its rates to $18, $20, and now $25 for the same mediocre facilities that haven't been upgraded since the enterprise was born, though they do have the same location, which may be the reason it has managed to stay afloat. The moment we entered the lobby I feared the worst, surly faces that were once embellished with happy smiles. At some point I cornered one of the original staff to ask why everybody was noticeably less happy than before, and it seems Kim, the owner, has been happily raking in the extra $$ through higher rates and healthy occupancy, but without handing over any of the bunce to his staff, who are expected now to provide not just the same level of service but to a greater number of guests and with more complaints due to the degrading original infrastructure, aircon and TV problems, internet advertised as high speed ADSL that can still take 5 mins to open a page, vermin, insects and whatever else that travellers prefer not to have to deal with.
Checkin was easy enough, just a name per form and a passport copy. 3 rooms were ready and allocated to us, leaving 4 of us and a couple of disgruntled co-travellers sitting in the lobby for the next 3-5 hours. Granted that checkout is at noon, but they were still waiting for their rooms at 1400 and getting mighty pissed off.
Entering my room was a cinch, just open the door and in you go if you don't need to breathe. Otherwise take a deep breath, go lie down and watch TV during slow exhalation, then come out and inhale and repeat. Or, put the air and fan on max, leave the door open and return in 10 minutes to see if your lungs can cope with the remaining insecticide. No way, get me another room, but my porter the fat guy knows he's in line for a $ tip and assures me this is the best room and the others are far worse, as confirmed by a roar from J upstairs and rumblings from Michael down the hall.
Sorry but I wasn't having this. Where's Kim? Yeah sorry indeed, and 3rd World staff know better than to trouble the big cheese with trivia that they should be able to handle without adequate tools, so pumpui has a brainwave, tells me to wait as he trots off, I go to choke-test Michael's room and sure enough it really is worse, and by the time I return to pumpui's truimphant smile he has already hidden parts of my room behind a cloud of air freshener.
I went to reception and asked them to instruct the cleaners not to spray any of our 7 rooms for the duration of our stay. They duly relayed my instructions to housekeeping and read through our (thre) room numbers, so why wasn't I surprised just a bit when next day the cleaners sprayed as trained? Yes I did complain again, but on the third day it was same same.
Day one, not even settled in, and far from impressed, though within an hour Michael is already on a test drive with two of the natives and between now and returning PP-BKK will have at least one and as many as 4 good looking ladies looking after him.
Next step, each to his own for what the Flamingo calls breakfast. I opted for the pancake with syrup and Lipton tea, whilst sitting at the end of the bar watching J and Michael in their neverending quest to smite each other at snooker. Waitress arrives with two pancake plates on a tray, each with a knife and fork, though for some bizarre reason one fork is not resting in the syrup. She plonks a plate in front of me dropping its (sticky) knife, lays the tray onto the bar, transfers the other knife to me by the very tip of its handle, as though she senses any other grip might result in sticky fingers, gingerly stoops to pick up the fallen knife as I switch forks like greased lightning, carefully wipes the fallen knife then takes it to the kitchen to return with two clean knives, the fallen one and one that I called after her for, gave me one, laid the other to rest just like its predecessor with handle in syrup, and off she goes to deliver some sucker's breakfast. Welcome to PP.
Showered and watching NatGeo, Yusef knocks on my door, I can understand little more than the occasional word and that's only because of his gesturing and body language, but I obviously got it wrong because it seems he wants to go back to Pty and me to book his ticket. He calls for Ahmet so I equalise by calling Mo who tells me not to get involved they're both fvckwits but family, and as nicely as one can he tells them to grow up and fvck off back to their rooms, but Yusef has been in PP an entire couple of hours and has had enough and wants to return to his gf in Pattaya. Mo tells me has an ogre of a wife in Amman and never otherwise gets his leg over, so his gf in Pty is, well, yes, one could say a lifesaver. Mo then suggests I go through the motions and then tell them flights are booked, Xmas and all that. He then has a raised voice exchange with them, they seem a bit confused but turn and trudge back to their respective rooms like scolded children. It seems he explained to them, you're gonna like this, that they should stop being stupid because we're all returning to Pattaya in another two days anyway, which set them off protesting it's another week not two days, but he gets around that with on-the-hoof logic I thought was reserved for Thais - today is Thursday and we've just arrived so it doesn't count and tomorrow's our first real day before the weekend takes us to Monday which is Xmas Eve and Tuesday is Xmas and everyone knows these days don't count so there's only tomorrow and next Wednesday as the two days to go through before we all return Thursday afternoon. It worked.
I am elected transport minister and first task is to organise a couple of tuktuks but seems they think we just fell out of a tree and ask for $25 per day from early morning to whenever the last one of us collapses. The word quickly got out though that our drivers rarely need to put in more than an hour or two in a morning and are then usually free till late afternoon or evening, then dinner and a couple of bars before we're either at or close enough to Flamingo to not need them anymore. We're not demanding but do expect them to return on time after being released. We settled on two tuktuks for $15 each daily, which I arbitrarily upped to $35 for the pair because that's easily divisible by 7, and of course this triggers a revolt because now they think I'm trying to rip them off...
We give the transport contract to Ceea and Hern, next stop the mall by Central Market, walkaround, some bits of shopping, stocked up in the supermarket and took turns changing $100s for our meagre purchases which caused delays to everyone because 100s have to go through the usual checks, lots of flirting, A finds some fruit and hovers on and off screen then vanishes and is located much later at the fastfood place on the top floor, which for some unmentioned reason is the eventual instinctive gravitational point for all bar one. Mo tells me he wants sandals and disappears with the bils - I can feel some tension - and we remaining 3 visit the food hall after which Michael buys a pair of denim shorts for $43 which we tell him is prolly available for $7 somewhere else on the same floor but he doesn't care because they're all cut up and look like he was born with them, then he goes AWOL. After 6 of us have merged again and it's democratically time to return, Michael's well gone and finally located in the rollerblade rink on the roof with about 20 others, mainly kids, that he's treated and a throbbing queue of invitees waiting to get in through the narrow entrance; lots of noise and happy faces and Michael's fallen head over heels for Cambodia.
Cheea is AWOL so we took Hern and a freelance tuktuk to Flamingo, but he continues to take the piss till it falls on me to show him a yellow and then off him in exasperation after two days, for sniping a $1 fare that had us waiting 30 minutes. He was devastated when he saw we had taken on Sabon, a real nice chap, and sorry and all that but we need reliable drivers even if we rarely use them. Now we had two good drivers, neither of whom seemed comfortable outside the mainstream areas but they were there when needed and could follow instructions whenever the group were dispersed at more than two locations, which was frequent.
Michael was the minister of communications with the only working simcard, and A had nominated himself film director and had his camcorder running most of the time, even on the 4.5 hour run to Sihanoukville. Tonight he also became minister of food, having seen a Lebanese restaurant advertised, and that's our venue on the first night, the Cedre, which I thought was a bit pretentious, at Number 1 Street 360, Norodom end.
Phone Tip: One company now allows farangs to now own sims in Cambodia, they're valid a week.
Phone Tip: If you're having difficulty connecting on an international call from Cambodia, try using the plus sign instead of 00.
At the appointed time we're mustering in and around the hotel lobby, Michael's new love decides she needs to change and will be back in 5-10 minutes so he sends her off with Cheea (not yet fired), no response after 15 then 20 mins, he's pissed off, calls to tell her not to bother returning, then calls him to leave her and come back pronto, we take the other tuktuk and a paid one to the Cedre, with Cheea due to follow.
Hern is very lost, even with the address. In fact Hern is so lost that instinct takes over and he drives like nothing's wrong but randomly turns left or right till we know the score and stop him for a new reading. He may have misheard Monivong instead of Norodom, two major roads in Pnom Pehn, because though he eventually found the street it was the wrong end he was sweeping back and forth for a clue to the whereabouts of number 1. I wondered how Sami was faring, wherever he was.
The Cedre's a pretty well laid out restaurant in its own grounds, with an outside covered section seating around 40 and 30-40 in the aircon interior, mostly NGO types. J plonked himself next to me complaining this looked like $50 a head, I reckoned 15 or 20 at most while Michael asked wtf difference it makes. Yusek asked me through A if I had managed to switch his return flight to tomorrow, Ahmet said he too, then Mo conceded he would also return if they were going because as he said before they're fvckwits and need looking after. I wasn't quite sure what he wanted me to do because I had already relayed the message of non-availability on the next day's flights, as per his instructions.
Anyway, white is the dominant colour at Cedre, can't speak for the kitchen but the loo and restaurant areas are sparkling clean, lots of friendly service staff but don't let that fool you, far from assuring quality service this is one area that the owner should be paying attention to, because their English is poor and as demonstrated several times over our two visits it seems they scurry away when something is put to them that they do not understand, and let's face it making good service staff takes more than the best of intentions.
My separate requests for lemon juice, olive oil, and chilli, had to be repeated several times with increasing urgency and to more than one waiter/ress before these items finally arrived in single-serving quantities, too small for sharing, which meant further requests for more, and frustration on both sides till I told the most helpful of the lot to ignore all other orders till he brings me the manager, a pleasant enough chap, whom I then asked for six more of each of those items so that we could all have some. He got the message and for the rest of that meal we had enough of what we should never have needed to ask for in a Lebanese restaurant.
Orders were placed in Arabic to the owner, which pleased him and the Arabic speakers but left the rest of us, me and Michael, in a quandary. No plobrem, four of us opted for the 4-person meze consisting of 10 non-meat items + shwarma + 8 pita at $10 per head. Turned out the schwarma was just a single portion in a pita, shredded and burnt and inedible, and the pitas were also a bit suspect but acceptable for where we were, though the salads were tasty enough and the decor and eagerness to please of the staff, even if they constantly needed prodding, added to the overall 7 rating...but that's if you don't want meat and can manage on salads, which lack substance. Mo + bils had stubbornly gone a la carte on account of it being cheaper, and our bills came to $63 for the 4 of us (4 and a bit actually, because Michael's gf turned up though she didn't eat much) with drinks, and $84 for the three of them, despite the fact that the meats they ordered were either undercooked or burnt like our schwarma, and possibly enhanced by the ouzos the owner had been plying them with. Good quality stainless steel cutlery and decent glasses.
Martini is Martini, and by the time we left, having handed over my regular $10 to the midget, Yusef had both arms full and was in love with not sure which one but no longer thinking of Pattaya, Michael with several on the hop had great difficulty settling for only two, Mo also felt the need for some harsh treatment, and A and I were sorted, leaving J alone and determined to demonstrate fidelity to his love from our previous trip a year ago. Only plobrem, she wasn't actually there and he didn't have her number and couldn't even remember her name, but kudos to him if no legover, for adamantly refusing to accept that by now she may be with someone else. So that's 16 people and two tuktuks, easy enough, though some miscalculation left us with 9 in one and a mere 7 in theirs. No matter, our drivers were men of gold and took it in their stride.
The newbies had earlier asked and we did establish going rates of $10 short and $20 long time, even though I was the only one paying any attention to these guidelines. Mo, Yusef and Ahmed were happily paying $50 or more whilst publicly insisting only $20, then conceded 30 after we trapped their girls into revealing their real wages, Michael settled for a very reasonable 40 considering what they had to put up with 4-5 times a day, J pretended to pay 30 which turned out to be 40-50, and A unashamedly confessed to $30-40, though none of the above remunerations take into account shopping for clothes and other extras.
Next stop Flamingo and each to his own to end the day.
