To Cambodia

The Thai flag flies beside the Skytrain rails. Beyond, the city of Bangkok.

The train to Chong Nonsi.
The reception desk at the Thong Lo Dental Clinic.

The lobby of the Thong Lo Dental Clinic. The man in the frame is the doctor who fitted my tooth.

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After a breakfast of bread with jam and butter at the hostel, I found my way to the Ekkamai Train Station, past stands selling whole chickens and sweets and smoked ribs and bags full of what looked to be white entrails. I took the green line to the dark green line, and took the dark green line to Chong Nonsi. My goal: withdraw enough cash for my immediate dental bills and my imminent journey to Cambodia.

I've learned something about asking for directions, and this applies especially to countries where English isn't necessarily well known: ask more than one person before you commit to a route. I walked up to one man, and said "Excuse me. Could you tell me how to get to the Citibank?"

He stared at me blankly with mottled brown eyes. I had an idea. I pulled out my wallet and slipped out my Citibank card far enough for him to see the logo.

He gave a little cry of recognition and then pointed down the road in the direction I had just come from. I was incredulous. "What? Really? It's not this way?"
He shook his head and kept pointing. Now, I was reasonably sure I had been heading the right way, since I was reasonably sure that's where the station attendants had told me to go. So I walked around the corner and had the luck of spotting an Indian restaurant with patio seating. Indians seem to speak fantastic English as a rule. The waiter was, as I had hoped, Indian, and he spoke excellent English. He took me outside and pointed over the top of the opposing line of shops to an imposing office building with shiny blue-tinted windows. "Right there," he said.

Ten minutes later I had my money, but my appointment was close at hand and time was short. My bags became oppressively heavy as I ran through the suffocating humidity and heat of Bangkok, back to the station. By the time I caught the train I was dripping sweat. Thanks to a combination of luck, common sense, and a half-remembered map, I made it to the clinic on time.

And so, the morning after my arrival in Bangkok, I was seated on the plush cushions of a new-looking couch in the sleekly modern and impeccably clean lobby of the Thong Lo Dental Clinic, waiting for the doctor. It was just after eleven thirty am.
Five minutes later, an assistant in a pale yellow uniform called my name and led me up two flights of gleaming white stairs to the dentist's office. We discussed my options. Either I could have the standard procedure done, or I could opt for an immediate-load implant. In a standard implant procedure, the implant is sutured over and allowed to gradually and safely integrate with the bone over a period of several months. An immediate-load implant, on the other hand, assumes that the bone is healthy and strong enough to immediately support a functional implant with a crown.
Several factors made me a good candidate for the immediate-load procedure, including my age and the fact that implantation would immediately follow extraction (meaning the bone around the socket would not have time to deteriorate). We decided it was probably worth the risk to have an immediate-load implant procedure performed to replace the broken tooth. However, I decided at the doctor's urging that, instead of a permanent crown, I would have a lower-quality temporary crown cemented in place- the reason being that after extraction of a tooth (even with immediate implantation) the gum line will inevitably recede slightly around the base of the implant. It seemed like a good idea to fit a permanent crown after the gum (not to mention the implant itself) had stabilized.
After the consultation, another doctor took a complete mold of my mouth and matched my natural teeth for color against a palette. It would take three days for the lab to prepare for my surgery. And that was that. I was off to Cambodia.

I gathered up my bags and made once more for the Skytrain, which I took to Mo Chit. From Mo Chit Station I was to hire a motorbike to take me to the bus station. I approached a gaggle of orange-vested men lounging under the train station footbridge with their scooters. One of them walked up to me with a smile. I said "Morchit 2 Bus Station."
"Fihty Baht. OK?"
"OK." And I was handed a helmet.
This was my first experience as a passenger on a two-wheeled vehicle, and on that little bike, screaming through highway traffic on uneven roads with the speedometer hovering around 90 km/h, all I could do was hold on and trust that the relaxed attitude of my driver was the result of long experience and didn't necessarily imply a fatal indifference to death.

Within two hours I was on an air-conditioned bus to the border town of Aranyaprathet, talking to the first in a long line of Swedes I would meet on this trip. We were handed a small box lunch which would turn out to contain:

1) A single piece of bread, coated in butter and sugar.

2) A cup of room temperature water.

3) A small packet of instant coffee (there was no hot water, so I pocketed it).

The solemn face of the King follows one always in Thailand.

Watching from highway overpasses, standing guard in a gilded frame outside of a new research building, peering out through the windows of the driver's cabin on the bus to Aranyaprathet.

For a time, the road hugged close to a reed-choked river, lined with palm fronds and sprawling complexes of shacks roofed with tin. Every few kilometers or so, an ornate riverside monastery would present itself at the edge of my vision as a searing coagulation of lush golds, reds, and blues.

There are signs on the trains in Thailand instructing you to give your seat to "children, the elderly, and monks." I passed many monks on pilgrimage in Cambodia, all wearing plastic sandals and draped in orange robes, often bartering for souvenirs or smoking.

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Night had fallen by the time the bus pulled in at Aranyaprathet. The hostel in Siem Reap was expecting me around 10:30 pm- I had just a little over three hours to get there. Now was the time to gird myself against the myriad scams I had been warned about. I shrugged off the touts and tuk-tuk drivers, making for a cluster of motorbike riders. The plan was to take the bike to the border, pay $20 for a Cambodian visa, then try to hook up with other travelers heading for Siem Reap.

I wound up on the back of a female driver's motorbike, with a young boy riding up front. She had agreed to take me to the border for sixty baht. The air howled past us as we gained speed on the thoroughfare, jockeying for space with all manner of traffic (animal-drawn carts, scooters, cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles...). My eyes streaming in the wind, I soaked in the warmth and the moisture and the sent of the night. A little over twenty-four hours ago it had been winter.

Without warning, we made a sharp right turn onto an unlit dirt road. The driver stopped the bike in the driveway of a squat open-fronted building and motioned for me to get off. The building was lit with unshielded fluorescent lights, and three or four men were sitting around a table in front, drinking beer. I was on my guard, barely managing to stifle alarm. I had been warned of fake border-crossings.

I turned to the driver. "The border. Border. Poipet. I want to go to the border." She indicated the building with an outstretched arm. "This is not the border," I said. After a few more moments, I gave up on communication and took a closer look at the building. A man got up to greet me.
"Cambodia visa?"
"Yes, I need one. But I'm going to get it at the border."
"Oh, no. Closed. No more. Very late," he tapped his watch.
"I was told the office was open until eight pm."
"Border crossing, yes, but visa only until seven."
I checked my watch. It was 7:35. I glanced back at the motorbike driver, who was reclining on the bike with the boy on her lap. I was sure she had been paid to take me here. But I was uncertain as to what to do. Perhaps the man was telling the truth. Perhaps I would make it to the border only to find that the visa office was shut. All I knew for certain was that I had twenty-five minutes to make it across that border.
"How much for the visa?"
"1,200 baht." ($36)
"That's ridiculous. It should only be $20 at the border crossing."
"No more visa. Only here."
"This is a scam, and I know it."
"Look, who you can trust? That's the Cambodia consulate." He indicated a nondescript white building. "If no trust Cambodia consulate, who do you trust?"
I was getting sick of this back-and-forth and I was running out of time. I couldn't be absolutely sure he was lying, and besides I doubted the driver would take me to the border until I had bought the visa. "Fine. I'll do it. But hurry."
I rushed through the paperwork, then handed the man my passport and half the money, and watched him walk off into the night. One of the men at the table called me over and offered me a beer. The cap was still on tight. I accepted it gratefully. When I asked for a bottle opener one of the men grabbed the bottle from me and popped the cap off with his teeth before handing it back to me, with a smile.
I downed the bottle just in time for the man's return. I took back my passport, checked the visa (it looked real enough), paid the rest of the inflated fee, thanked the men for the beer, and got back on the motorbike. I now had less than fifteen minutes to make it across the border before it shut for the day. In three minutes I was off the bike and jogging for the immigrations office through streams of cart-towing peddlers returning home after a day of hawking their wares on the border.
The official was just conscious enough to stamp my passport. Of course, the visa desk was still open. I just sighed.

Then I walked through the doors of the immigrations office and into Cambodia.

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My first memory of Cambodia is of a young man smiling at me from a backdrop of cheap hotels and dingy administrative buildings, his teeth shining white through the dark. "Hello! Where do you go?"
"Siem Reap."
"Ah, Siem Reap! Very dangerous here at night. Bad men. Mafia."
"Yes, I know. I didn't have a choice. I'll watch out," I said, raising my fists in mock defense. I trod through deep red dust toward a large roundabout in the distance, with many cars and scooters and people. People were milling about everywhere, bumping into one another, shouting, laughing. The sky was black. I stepped around a suspicious looking puddle, and when I looked back up the man was still following me.
"My brother owns a taxi!" he said. "He can take you to Siem Reap. Many would not take you so far so late at night."
"How much?"
"1,400 baht." ($42.36)
"That's about what I thought. I'm looking for some other people to split a cab with. It's too much for me to pay."
He paused for a moment. We had arrived at the roundabout, which was a large asphalt ring circling a parched hillock. All manner of moving objects appeared in the headlights of the waiting cars.
"Alright!" He said. "I'll find another. I find another, 800 baht. OK?"
"700."
"OK, 700. You wait here please." He indicated a sagging metal bench under a canvas awning.
I sat down with a sigh. I was in a strange place, waiting an unspecified amount of time for a man I knew I couldn't trust. Fifteen minutes later, I was debating whether or not to stay when the man returned, smiling broadly. "OK, come!" he said.
He led me through the tightly packed traffic of the circle to an unmarked Toyota Camry with a cracked windshield. He motioned for me to get in the front passenger seat. There were two other people in the back, and he squeezed in with them. "You have riel?" he asked.
"No, I was going to change my money in Siem Reap."
"Oh, no good. Pay in riel. This is Cambodia! Not Thailand! I know place here, very good price."
And so I was dragged to a grimy concrete box with a small sliding window. Inside was a tired-looking woman on a chair, and a shirtless man asleep on a carpet.

Here, I made several critical mistakes:

1) I was lazy. I had knew that a dollar was worth roughly 4,000 riel, but when I handed over 2,000 baht ($61) to the teller, I didn't check the rate I was getting and I didn't count the money. I was too tired to run through the calculations and the darkness made it difficult to count the unfamiliar money. I asked for a receipt (just in case- ha ha!), but I didn't even look at it. If I had, I would have found "1,000 X 600 = 600,000" printed on it, which is nothing more than a bunch of random numbers the teller punched into her calculator to make it seem like I was getting a proper receipt.

2) I let the man take the cab fare directly out of what I was handed from the window. Between the suspect money changer and the man's sticky fingers, I lost about $35 right then and there.

2b) Not only did I let the man hold (and almost certainly steal) my money, I paid before arriving in Siem Reap. This fact would become important very soon.

3) The bastard asked me for a tip, and I gave it to him. Of course, I didn't realize until later that he had robbed me.

The man saw me to the cab, then disappeared into the night. If I ever see him again, I'm going to sucker punch him.

Finally, motion. The car swung out of traffic and onto the highway. A sign read "Siem Reap 140km."

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The driver didn't speak a word of English, but I made disjointed small talk with one of the other passengers. The fact that everyone in the car but me was Cambodian should have been a tip-off. In fact, no-one in that car but I was going to Siem Reap that night.
The taxi pulled over and let one of the men out. There were three of us in the car then- myself, the driver, and another man who I'm convinced was also a part of the scam. I was content to sink down into my seat and close my eyes and hope I would be delivered to Siem Reap on time.
"Hello, friend?" It was the man in the back seat. I turned around. "Hello. The driver says you only pay to go Sisophon." Sisophon is less than a third of the way to Siem Reap.
"I paid to go to Siem Reap, and the driver knows it."
"Yes, I know. But he says you only pay Sisophon."
"Tell him to take me to Siem Reap, and get the rest of the money from the guy."
"He doesn't know who you talk about."
"The man. His brother."
"He said you only pay go to Sisophon."
This continued for fifteen extremely frustrating minutes. Finally, I pretended to break down. "Alright. How much does he want to take me to Siem Reap?"
They conferred in Cambodian for a moment. The man in the back seat wrote a number on a piece of paper and passed it up to me. It read "1,800 baht" ($54). No way in hell was I shelling out 1,800 baht to these scummy pricks.
"Alright, I'll pay. But after arriving in Siem Reap."
"You sure? Maybe spend the night in Sisophon. I know someone get you a room. Good price."
"No, I have a room in Siem Reap I've already paid for. I'm not going to stay at your friend's guest house."
We drove on a while in silence. Of course, I intended to ditch the cab as soon as it arrived in Siem Reap. I was fed up with people trying to victimize me. I'd happily shout it out with them in a police station, but they'd have to out-and-out rob me if they wanted another cent.
Then came an abrupt turn onto a dirt road, and another. We were in between two rows of shacks. There wasn't a light anywhere. The driver stopped the car, opened the door, and shouted something into one of the shacks. A fluorescent light flickered to life inside. I could see a woman with bleary, sunken eyes through wide gaps in the siding of the shack.
The man in the backseat leaned forward. "The driver needs 750 baht for gas money."
"Gas. Here?"
"Yes, he goes to buy gas. He needs money."
"He can use what he has."
"No, no money."
"I saw the man hand the driver money. He can use that money to buy gas."
"No, no money. 750 baht."
"He needs 23 dollars more for gas money?"
[ETC]
This escalated slowly, until it was almost a shouting match. I was livid at the whole situation. I felt that my words had no power. Frankly, I was scared. But damn them. Damn them. I made up my mind. I made sure nothing had slipped out of my pockets, grabbed my bags (which I had the sense to keep close to me), and threw open the door of the cab. After making certain I was leaving nothing behind, I kicked the door shut as hard as I possibly could with the heel of my shoe, denting it. Then I was off into the dark, determined to hitch-hike to Siem Reap or walk. I checked over my shoulder repeatedly to make sure I wasn't being followed. I didn't feel like being run down in the street by an enraged Cambodian cabbie and his accomplice.

Eventually I found the highway and started walking. As it turned out, I was walking in the wrong direction. But no matter. I hailed a passing scooter, said "Siem Reap," and was taken instead to a gaudy hotel in the middle of nowhere. Somehow I wasn't surprised. One of the managers walked out to meet us, and was kind enough to act as an interpreter. The driver of the scooter made a call on his cell phone "to find a taxi."
"He says he found a taxi to take you to Siem Reap for fifteen dollars."
"Great. Can he take me there?"
"Yes. Be careful."

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The "taxi" was an ancient Honda in a small village off the highway, with six people inside it (if you don't count the baby). I hopped off the scooter, and paid the man 40 baht. A short, fat kid sauntered over to us.
"My friend'll take you to Siem Reap," he said with a very good accent. "Ten dollars."
At this, the driver of the scooter said something in Cambodian like "You idiot. I told him fifteen dollars."
But I said "Sure, ten dollars. But I'll pay after arriving."

I squeezed in the back of the sedan. The suspension groaned and sagged under the weight of the passengers as the car swept onto the highway. It soon became apparent that the only English words any of them knew were "OK" and "no." I amused myself by venting to myself in Japanese and watching the night sky through the back window. Never have I seen a sky so black, with so many stars.
I don't know whether I was surprised or just relieved when the car actually arrived in Siem Reap just before 11 pm.

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I took a long shower at the hostel, changed into comfortable clothes, and went for a walk to the Old Market to clear my head. This was a mistake. I got no peace at all. I was harried constantly by tuk-tuk drivers and bike drivers and hawkers and pimps and drug dealers and beggars. When I collapsed into bed later that night I was more relieved than exhausted.

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