Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch….I am starting to see it everywhere. When I bought the bus ticket to Siem Reap the clerk at the desk told me that they had a sister hotel in Siem Reap. They offered $6 rooms that were as nice as the ones in Phnom Penh, plus a pick-up at the bus station and free internet to boot. I wondered what the catch was, but I agreed to it. Maybe the guesthouses in Siem Reap have to offer so much to stay competitive. When I arrived I was taken to a large room with two beds, on the ground floor, with a cold shower. I asked if this was the $6 room. He told me it was the $8 room. The $6 rooms were in the other building, but they had all been taken…..sorry. The ride from the station was worth the extra $2 that I had to pay for this room, but still, it didn’t sit well with me.
After I got settled, I took a stroll to become better acquainted with the town. Siem Reap is just too lovely to have a bad attitude. I enjoyed walking around the old market area, even when I got lost and I was a little worried that I was going to burn to a crisp. This town has it’s share of tourist traps, but off of the well-beaten path it has the same look of the other towns that I passed through to get to it. The tiny shops selling cheap snacks and cold drinks out of a cooler. The mandatory mobile phone shops that are almost too numerous to count. The Pepsi bottles full of pink fuel that are set up inside of a shed. I don’t even know what those are used for. In a lot of small towns, I saw driving schools, which cracks me up because Cambodians do not observe the rules of the road.
I was strolling along the canal that cuts Siem Reap in two when a young Cambodian man asked if I knew of any good books about writing essays in English. I didn’t think too hard on it because I figured he just wanted to practice his English a bit. I told him that I was completely stumped because the only thing I could think of was something like Essay Writing for Dummies, and I didn’t know whether or not he was familiar with the series. I can imagine if you have never heard of the Dummies series, you would be pretty insulted if someone recommended one to you. He started talking about how he had just finished high school and how he was going to college in the fall, but he was taking some time to volunteer at an orphanage. He wanted to help the other orphans get educations. He pulled out pictures of them to show me. Oh boy… I thought. Ultimately, he did make a request first, for volunteers and then donations, both of which, I had to decline. The young man was sincere and his cause was just, but I am starting to get cynical towards Asian people when they approach me. I don’t want to be that way. Alert, yes. Cynical, no.
If anyone is interested in checking out the organization that helps Cambodian children whose parents have been taken by landmines he gave me a website www.procambodia.com/samrong
