Soooo, after having our last bits of traveling rained or "flooded out" we decided it was time to end that part of our journey and head back to Thailand to see about finding work. If we went back to Thailand directly by bus, we would have been entitled to a 15 day tourist visa. With this, we would have had to find a long term job immediately, and then have our employer fill out some forms so that we could get a Working Visa. We've started to realize that it is never a good idea to be in a rush in Southeast Asia, since eeeeverything takes at least 5 times longer than is reasonable. From the 100 kilometer van rides that takes 6 hours, to the extra 50 minutes of waiting time for the skytrain, while watching the 3 scheduled, sardine-stuffed subway trains stop at the station, absorb one lucky person from the waiting subway platform into the mass of bodies, then close and go on.
We knew that with 15 days it would be near impossible to find a suitable job, and get all of our paperwork taken care of, so we decided to head back to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to apply for a 60 day Thai tourist visa that would give us more flexibility with the job hunt. It would also give us the chance to work (under the table) with some of the interim English camps, that are held between school terms in September and October, instead of signing a year long contract as soon as we got back to Bangkok.We took the bus back to Phnom Penh and got in late Saturday night. Our spirits were high, and we were getting very excited to go back to Thailand and start the next phase of the journey, with jobs. We thought we would have to spend one night in Phnom Penh, but we found out on Sunday morning that the Thai Embassy would be closed until Thursday.... terrible news. This meant that we couldnt even apply for our Visa until Thurs, and that we wouldnt get to Thailand until the next Monday. We were going to have to spend another 8 days in a place that:
A) most travellers spend 2 days in
B) We'd already spent 5 days at the start of our Cambodian travels
Needless to say we were pretty crushed. Our (my) money was really dwindling, and we didnt want to have to waste any more of it staying in a city that didnt have anything to offer us. After going place to place talking to different travel agents it became clear that we were going to have to wait out the Embassy. We went to bed defeated. Since we were going to be staying in a place for an extra week that we hadnt budgeted for, we settled for one of the cheaper hostels we could find, that seemed to be in a decent area. Scraping the bottom of the barrel with hotels isnt always the best idea when traveling we've found. If its dirt cheap, and you hvent found any reviews of the place, there's usually a reason for it. Bad things only got worse when Melissa woke up at 4AM that night scratching all over with bed bugs. I didnt have a single bite on me, and she must have had 30. She's been the one to get all the mosquito (and other tropical bug bites) since the beginning of the trip, but this seemed ridiculous. There wasnt much we could do at 4AM, so she angrily had to get back into bed and scratch herself to sleep that night.
We woke up and packed our bags in the morning and headed to another place. After a hellish night, we decided to spend the extra few bucks and get a decent place. We found an amazing guest house, in a quirky old building. Each floor of the place, seemed to have been cut out of a completely different building, with different tiling, lighting, window sizes, height from floor to ceiling, and doorways. We ended up on the top floor with a corner bedroom, with a balcony overlooking the city and two big walls of windows. We werent paying much more than before (probably because we had to climb 7 flights of stairs to get there) but the room made the the rest of the week much better. Meliss nursed her bites and I got into some reading. Later that day I went to get a hair cut and a shave... Cambodian barbers probably dont deal with heavy ginger beards too often, so it took him a half hour to buzz my beard off, and he shaved parts of the beard in the weirdest order. After about 10 minutes I looked like this, and in the end he left me with some long chops: K Sleaze (after his questionable work on the beard i passed on the haircut). Melissa was throwing up in her mouth during the whole thing.
It was a Monday, and the first real day of the holiday that was keeping the Embassy closed. We didnt exactly realize how much the city would clear out, but it slowed down dramatically. All of the people closed their shops and went back to the countryside to stay with their families for 3 days. Malls and markets shut down, and the streets lost their some of their constant buzz. Imagine Canal Street in New York, emptying out. It was cool to see this side of Phnom Penh, since all we had known was the craziness from our first visit. Also, once the city cleared out a bit we were able to pick up on some of the more subtle things that were hidden in the madness of the bustling streets; Cambodian beggars recycling paper and plastic (amazingly fast and efficient).
We actually had friends passing through Phnom Penh, and were able to meet up and go out for drinks at some cool new places. We felt like we were locals there since we had spent so much more time than most travellers, and it ended up being kind of cool to really soak in a city and get to know a few of the local spots. I spent a few hours on the riverside one afternoon reading by myself, and met a few older local guys who wanted to chat and practice there English. Older Cambodians learned French in schools, so I even got to try out a few of the French words I know. They were excited to get me to eat some of the real Cambodian food that they get from the market; sticky rice with coconut shavings. And soon enough Melissa and I were getting it for ourselves. In the end, we had an amazing time in Phnom Penh. Cheap guesthouses, cheap food, interesting markets, happy people, and less hustle than in Bangkok.
Killing time in Phnom Penh actually ended up being something of a treat. We had no agenda, no schedule, we had seen the sights, and so we got to really slow everything down and relax. We could take the afternoon off and sit by the river, or take the night off and catch up on emails without feeling like we were missing anything. We didnt have to bring a camera or guide book around either.
We had told a tuktuk driver of our visa troubles and he told us that his friend was a travel agent who could get us an expedited visa quicker than the embassy, and that we wouldnt need to book a flight out of Thailand for proof of onwards travel. (This would have cost us an extra 150 bucks at least). The "travel agent" plan sounded kind of sketchy, but we decided to go meet the guy at his place. I wouldnt exactly describe it as an office. It was more like a family living room under construction, with an empty desk at the front. Alex was the agent and he told us that he could call someone he knew that worked for the Embassy, and that he could get us our Visas by Friday evening. That would save us from having to stay for an entire extra weekend in Phnom Penh, so we figured it was worth looking into. We did some google searches and looked in forums for travellers who had gotten visas this way and it seemed sort of "legitimate". Cambodia has a lot of corruption, and it sounded like everything functions with different sorts of payoffs and through connections with friends. Trusting this, we decided to give Alex the travel agent a shot. Trying to form a logical decision in a time of desperation, makes shady things seem like bulletproof plans. We gave him our passports and some photos and trusted him. Against all odds, Alex came through. The very next day, we had shiny visas glued into our passports and we booked the overnight train to Bangkok the same day. We payed a little bit extra to get them expedited, but by doing it through an agent and not having to book onwards travel (which we would have needed had we done it through the Embassy, we saved over 100 precious dollars each). I had come down with some pretty bad virus, and getting on a 9 hour train ride terrified me, but it was time to get out of Cambodia.
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