Five Countries, Four Weeks Pt.7 "Siem-Rip Off"

After Bangkok we got on Angkor Airlines which dropped us off in Siem Reap mid-day at which point we ended up getting our visa there. It was around thirty bucks, and this would be the place to exchange money for USD which was the preferred currency in Cambodia. Locals seemed nice for the most part when in restaurants and what not, however we ran into some individuals who sincerely just wanted to best us and take the cash from our hands. One of us wanted a jack fruit to snack while walking and was digging up the money but didn’t seem to have enough. Another one of us offered to pay instead and took out the money to hand to the vendor. The vendor was busy cutting away at the fruit and kind of ignored the money in front of them when a man standing beside them reached out for the money. My friend thought that the hand held out was insert money here for fruit. After being given the money, man walked behind the vendor as they were still cutting. I remarked “watch that not be the person we had to pay,” we all laughed as the woman handed the fruit over. We all started off when she ran around the cart yelling at us, I knew at the moment we had gotten “Siem-ingly Rea-pped off”. I chased after the fella as he hadn’t gone far. I made eye contact and scolded him, knowing full well where this was leading. I shook my head and walked back while watching him hand the money over to a guy on a motorcycle that zoomed off into the heavily populated street. This would be the third time on the trip that one of us had been ripped off (twice in Thailand, and once again). We figured it was a good reality check; we may get smiles but at the end of the day people need to get paid.

Siem Reap was interesting and certainly not our favourite part of the trip, but beginning to be one of the most interesting parts. We spent our fist afternoon and evening there getting to the hostel, getting situated and then drown ourselves in great “Angkor Beer”. As we wandered around aimlessly through the pub street, we came to a “Fish Pedicure” stall. The fish foot massage/pedicure was about 3 USD and the first beer was free. After a beer, they were supposed to cost 1USD. One of the great things about being a travel who doesn’t mind being a show monkey for beer is that if a person has marketing experience they know how to keep the business owner wanting their business. So much so, that the owner would basically pay to keep that person there. The fish pedicure was located on a business corner surrounded by restaurants and foreign pedestrians. Many of whom were seemingly intrigued by the stall but then more drawn in by the four guinea pig travellers sitting there acting like it is the weirdest experience ever. Although we only had a few people join us in the tubs of fish, the business owner kept feeding us more beer every time we got up to leave. He knew quite well at that moment that we understood what he was hoping we could keep doing for him. So an hour and a bit went by, basically until we were not able to correctly inform passing individuals exactly what it felt like to have many fish eating the dead skin of our feet.