Cambodia, Thailand, Ivy, and Jason/Angie

Sorry folks, but this will probably be a long one. It encompasses a little over two weeks of stuff and Ivy.
Originally, I planned on going through Laos to Thailand and meeting Ivy in mid-June. However, her work and idiotic bosses had other plans. They nearly made it so that she would never be able to visit. Why? Because two weeks off is too much. It is a sad, sad state of affairs in the US. First, we only get about 3 weeks off a year - maybe 4 if you're lucky or upper management or spend 20 years at the same place. Then, most people can't take more than a week off at a time. Most of the time it's just stigma. I mean, if we get our work done, or if it's shared work when we are out (as in Ivy's case - coworkers are required to cover for people on vacation), then shouldn't we be able to do whatever we want with our vacation time. When talking with European or Australian people, or even some of the third world, they are baffled about how we view work. Even British get twice as much time off as us, and they are workaholics too.
Our work paradigm is better spent for another post, so getting back on track, Ivy's work had another person out for a couple days of the original time, so they wouldn't let go on our original plans, then they were reluctant to let her go for two weeks. I'm not sure I would have allowed her to come if she could only get one week, it's simply a waste of money and we'd likely have not been able to Bangkok. We'd have had to take tours out of Bangkok for a couple days, but going to the islands in the South would have been out because we wouldn't be able to afford the time to not fly and we'd not have been able to fly there cause we are on a budget. Thankfully, her bosses came around, though I (and my parents) was about to have words with them had they not.
So, I flew from Hanoi to Bangkok for under $100 and was scheduled to arrive thirty minutes before her. I figured I'd go to her gate and meet her, you know, all romantic like.
The Bangkok airport is confusing. They don't have screens with the arrival times or gates of the planes when you are in the terminal. They do have a screen that tells you which of 3 different customs baggage claims your gear will arrive in. So, I tried to remember where her connecting flight was coming from and figured I'd meet her in front of that customs place. However, I couldn't remember the city in Taiwan that she was coming from. I asked a few people, but their limited English made it too difficult. I hadn't seen her for about forty minutes, and since there was no way to tell if the plane had come in on time, I began to worry that she either made it earlier or was going to be much longer or that she missed her connection. I really, really, really don't like leaving my bags unattended, esp. in a country where English isn't a strong suit, so I decided to go through customs and get my bag and wait there.
TIP: always look up a hotel and write it down and address before going through any customs. They get confused or annoyed that you don't have a place to stay. I know it's weird that they'd get upset, but they almost always do (unless you have someone help you through a land border or you are traveling in SA). Just do it, even if you aren't staying there.
So yeah, I went through a great deal of hassle and having to go to a secluded booth and everything because I didn't have a place to stay. They even told me to just give them a name of a hotel and that would suffice. I should have tried ones like Hilton or Four Seasons, but it didn't cross my mind. After about 15 minutes with another lady trying to describe that I didn't have any reservations and that I'd just find a place when I got into town, she finally got annoyed enough to just pass me through. I got my bag, which by now was the last one from my flight and looked for Ivy's flight again. I thought Taipei sounded familiar so I headed that direction.
I saw my dad's backpack, which looks identical to mine, so I knew I was in the right area. After waiting for another 20 minutes for Ivy to make it through customs, we finally saw each other.
As we had thought, it was a bit awkward. We had discussed prior how strange it was going to be given that we hadn't seen one another in seven months. Though we emailed, and on a few rare occasions even Skyped, it was just unfamiliar; almost like a first date.
We headed into the heart of Bangkok with the plan to head to Cambodia the next day. We booked our bus with a friendly guy at Mr. Thai (we don't like him anymore), and booked into a cheap guesthouse, which I'm pretty sure was just a place that people rent for the night to bring hookers. We actually shopped around too. Bangkok is strange with accommodation. You can either pay $20 a night and get a really nice place, or you can pay under $10 and get a really shit place. There may be a rare inbetweener, but I've looked and haven't found one that is in an area where there is anything to do/see. And trust me, since Bangkok is so central, to go anywhere you have to stay there a night. Meaning, I've been to Bangkok three times already and I still haven't found a nice place with reasonable prices (esp. if you are by yourself). In fact, the first place we stayed flooded and soaked my backpack and the last place we stayed, the one before Ivy left, had blawels (large towels that they gave to use as blankets).
That night and part of the next day we ate street food and checked out the main tourist drag, which is quite the experience. Still, we were glad to be getting out of there. However, unbeknownst to us, despite being forewarned by a traveler I met earlier in my trip, were going to take it in the pooper with scams going to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
TIP: If you have all the time in the world, don't mind walking long distances with your bags in 30 degree humid weather, and are really willing to argue and get pissed off for hours, just calculate in $20 to what it will cost - in addition to what you already paid - to cross the border and get to Siem Reap. As far as I can tell, all buses stop at this one or two restaurants about 3km from the boarder. Here is the first scam - visa assistance. It will cost you about $35 total. It comes with the visa (I read it's $20, but I heard ranges up to $30. The restaurant will tell you their service is only $5 more than the visa) and assistance crossing the boarder. If you got an E-visa, they will still drive you to the boarder with everyone, but you don't get assistance through. I've heard that the crossing can take forever, but with Ivy's and my guide we got through in about 30 min, including all the walking. I was told that part of the reason is that they have a health inspection portion. If you have a guide or a bribe, I think you can make it through that without even talking to anyone. Our guide was the one who told us this so take it with a grain of sand. The next scam comes after you make it to your connecting bus on the Cambodian side - upgraded buses. They get on and tell you that you can either take the scheduled bus, which will leave in something like an hour and stops all the way there, taking 5 hours, or you can pay $3 and take the VIP bus which "just" became available to your group. This bus "will not stop and will take you to the center of Siem Reap". This one is an out right lie. We stopped for 40 minutes at a restaurant at 4PM. No one was hungry and no one wanted to stop there, but the driver said if we didn't like it to "get a taxi". All buses get commission to stop at places. This is true in SAm (South America) too, but not to the degree that it is here in SEA (South East Asia). So you'll just sit there and watch other buses come and stop there and nobody buy anything. Finally, we got back on the bus and, lo and behold, we stopped at a backyard bus terminal about 5km out of the center, where there were a horde of tuk-tuk (motorbike taxis with a covered backseat) drivers there to take us to the hotels they were commissioned to. "If you don't like the place they take you, they drive you to another for free". I don't know how true that is because the place they took us was nice and was only $10 a night and we were sick of all the shit.
Here is another thing to keep in mind if you want to avoid these scams: get a good group of people. We had a British couple who were pissed off too, but had stomach problems and just couldn't deal with trying to stop the bullshit, but that was it. The Germans on our bus were all too happy to fork over any money and not make a fuss. Why they didn't just give their bank cards away to save themselves the time and hassle it'd take to reach into their wallets every few minutes to throw cash away, I'll never know. So, we didn't have a strong group to argue. It's hard to not get fucked when the majority of people are excited to throw away money. Had the whole group gotten pissed off, there's a reasonable chance we'd have been taken to the center of town.
Another curious thing is that we were told, by the same guy that lied about the VIP bus, that we should change money at the border. Mr. Thai told us not too under any circumstances so we didn't. I think the border rates might be really poor or something. This guy though told us that if you use the Cambodian currency (Riel) you can get things for cheaper than if you use US $. Ivy and I waited till we were in town to change any money. Cambodia is the first country I have ever been to where, if you are a foreigner, the only money you can get out of an ATM or bank is US $. I went to several banks to test this. I ended up taking out $50, then converting it to Riel, which was a mistake.
TIP: Don't change your US $. At least in Siem Riep. That guy was lying to us again. Nothing is cheaper - any place you go to has everything listed in US $. If you have Riel, they just do the conversion from dollar. You end up paying the same amount, sometimes more, if you use Riel. Also, you end up losing a little bit from converting it in the first place. It's funny too, they'll tell you an amount, but then that amount will go up as they are talking. You really need to be on your toes and make sure you get enough sleep because you will need the energy to argue with them all the time about sneaky prices.

Ivy and I didn't visit the temples the next day cause we were both just tired - taking it in the pooper for 10 hours will do that to you. Plus, I wanted to give Ivy some time if she had jet lag, to adjust. I have to admit, I was pretty amazed that she only had minor lag. We just walked about town, took in a couple pagodas in town and listened to monks praying, which is really cool (I have a 15 second clip on FB, which isn't long enough).
The next two days we went to the temples. There is what seems like 100 temples in the area. You can hire someone to drive and you walk around, or a guide, or a tour. We opted for just someone to drive us around. Angkor Wat is pretty impressive. However, people need to shut up about it. My expectations were set at breath taking and all I got was "hmm, cool, you ready to see some others?" I'd put Machu Pichu in the rain above this bad boy. In fact, I think I enjoyed the Mayan ruins more. Don't get me wrong, it is cool and impressive. I don't know though, I think I liked some of the others that we saw more. Angkor Wat had size and grandeur, but almost seemed to prefer that to character. There were other temples that had more character, like one that had faces everywhere and another that was kinda a water temple. There was a few that had trees growing in or on them. Anywho, at the end of the first day, we were taken to a "mountain" to watch the sunset with all the other tourists. At the top is a temple and you can get 360 degree views of the area. We watched a fake sunset - where the clouds cover the horizon so you don't get the real one. There were a lot of snobby tourists or travelers up there. They looked down there noses at us when we left after the fake sunset. You could feel them thinking, "look at those stupid tourists, leaving before the actual sunset. Run along tourists, you have a time schedule and trinkets to buy." I'm used to these dicks cause they are everywhere, but even Ivy picked up on it. Sorry, we wanted to walk down before it was dark and didn't want to stick around to stare at clouds; get over yourselves.
Cool things, not related to the temples - monkeys are running about along the roads. There are elephants that you can pet, but are supposed to be for rides. If you leave the temple area (which is in jungle) at dusk, there are these crazy bugs. I won't do it justice in my description, but the noise was loud and haunting. I mean, these bugs made the jungle, which already is kinda mysterious, sound really spooky and ghostly.
That night we had foot "massages" given by little fish. You'll find this everywhere there. These little fish nibble on your feet. Yes, it tickles - bad! If you can make it through about five min. it stops being so ticklish. Then, we had a Happy Angkor Pizza and went home. The second day of temples, we only made it till just after 1PM. At this point, they started blending into one another, and we were hot.
We spent a total of about 3 full days in Siem Reap and were certainly ready to head to the beach. Ivy had done a bit of research ahead of time and wanted to go to Koh Tao. Oh, and we didn't get scammed going out of Cambodia, although they did stop us at the same restaurant that we paid for the visa service at. I found that pretty brazen. If they had normal toilets, I'd have left them an upper-decker. Anywho, you gotta go through Bangkok, but you don't have to spend the night because the bus to the ferry to Koh Tao is overnight. We met a cool guy named Jordan from Toronto that was traveling on his own. We kinda joined forces with him cause I know what it's like to be traveling alone in the midst of couples. Couples tend to keep to themselves, so when you are the only one-off, it's tough. He was going to do some diving there for awhile and we talked a bit about our diving histories - his being much more extensive than mine.
On Koh Tao, Ivy wanted to splurge our accommodation. I had agreed ahead of time to doing a beach hut, if it was under $30 a night per person. In order to do this without pre-booking, and trust me, pre-booking through the internet is a good way to pay more and not get what you wanted than doing it when you get there, is to hire a motobike (you can store your bags for free if you rent with shops). After looking around the island a bit, we found a place that we liked for $25 per-person. It was on the south end, had mostly private beaches (3), we were about 10 stairs from door to water, and one of the restaurants was some of the better food we have had for about the same price as everywhere else. Plus, it was close to a smaller, less busy, town and we didn't have to drive up crazy mountains. If you aren't going to stay in the main town, rent a motobike, one day will be cheaper than a one way taxi anywhere.
Ivy wanted to lay around and soak up sun. I wanted to dive at least one day. I did a full day and the diving was really good. 3 dives were about $110. However, since I have pretty good breath control, I got to dive longer than the other guys in my group. The diving is really good in Koh Tao; probably the best diving I've done next to Belize. Since it's cheaper, it may be better than Belize. There really isn't much more to report about Koh Tao because we purposely took it really easy - mostly laying around in the sun, dipping in the ocean, and eating. The only other thing I can think we did was I made Ivy walk up steep hills in the mountains while I rode the moto up.

Koh Samui is about two to three hours by boat from Koh Tao. My friend Jason and his wife Angie moved there about five months ago and I had always planned to meet up with them since I'd be going through the area. Jason is a software engineer, so he can work remotely. He finagled his boss into letting him do it in Thailand and has pushed back his return date a couple times. They had recently moved apartments and their new place had a separated private bedroom and bath for Ivy and I. Jason and Angie are somewhat food snobs (sorry guys, it's true). We had counted on this, and had planned on using their taste to eat some great food, which we did (thanks guys). For the most part we spent the first part of the days to ourselves, and the latter part going to late lunches and dinners with Jason and Angie.
I hadn't realized this about Thailand until J & A pointed this out, but the reason that Ivy and I had thought that the food here is not spicy is because Thai people will not make it spicy if you are not Thai. Every meal we went to they'd ask for Thai spicy or Phet Phet (very spicy), and they wouldn't do it. Sometimes we'd get laughed at. Other times, they'd ask "you can have spicy?" Still, they wouldn't do it. One time we did get a reasonably spicy dish, but it still wasn't that bad - I've had spicier Mexican dishes. We discussed why this is and the conclusion is that, Europeans can't eat spicy foods and Thai can't tell the difference between us and since they couldn't they didn't want to waste the food or offend anyone by making it too spicy for "Europeans". They were even reluctant to bring out their flavor trays, which included ground chili. Thai believe that there are only 4 flavors - spicy, salty, sweet, and sour. That's what comes on the flavor trays. It was almost comical how pussy they thought we'd be, and then the horror they'd have when all four of us added a ton of chili pepper purposely in front of them.
Ivy and I did do a couple other things like visit a dick shaped rock and a vagina shaped rock called grandfather and grandmother rock. While there it started to rain and when it rains, well, it's not fun to be out in it. We decided to tuck into a little bar for a drink and wait the rain out. Little did we know we were going to meet a weirdo from Kirkland. Ivy thinks the dude was on coke. He definitely was ADD. First, he interrupted us, then put on a bad CD which he gave me so I could give to Clinton Ferron, and then he smoked a bunch of weed. Needless to say it was very weird.
It was nearing time to get back to Bangkok, so the next day we took a boat and flight. Ivy's last night and day was really tough on us. It was almost as hard as when I originally left. I don't need to talk too much about it, just that it was hard. There were a couple times where the thought of buying a ticket home with her flashed through my mind, but I knew that I couldn't do that. It just felt wrong not having her with me. In the end, I think that it was always supposed to be this way. It was supposed to be a test, so to speak, and I HAD to pass it. It turned out to be easier on both of us than last time. I'll miss her a lot though.