Getting to Angkor

Heads up, it's just half an hour by bike but there are several hoops you have to jump on the way. 

First day I happily peddled towards Angkor Wat, in the presumption that I will purchase a ticket at the entrance. One would think. Then on the way, a few kilometers from the first temple, I was whistled to a halt by an official looking guy, who jumped out of the bushes alongside the road. Do I have a ticket? No, I was hoping to purchase one here. Yes, well, the ticket office moved to another location, five kilometers from here, left when I see the hospital, but the driver can take me. I have a bike. The driver is not expensive. Yeah, well, if I could afford drivers, I wouldn't have come on a bike in the first place. Okay, then see you in an hour, bye, good luck finding the ticket office!

And off I went. I did not see any hospital. In sheer desperation I asked a white guy walking in the streets, he didn't know but asked a tuk tuk driver who said it was somewhere back and to the left. He wouldn't know, he's never seen a tourist going there in this city that basically exist by the grace of Angkor and the tourists visiting. 

So I looked around me, front, left, right, back and slightly to the left, to see what I possible could, and lo and behold! I saw the sign. It opened up my eyes, I saw the sign!

I followed the sign for what seemed like three days and three nights, I felt like the youngest of the daughters in fairy tales who go out into the world to try their luck but there was no magic bird to talk to so then I just asked a vendor along the roadside. To the roundabout you go lady, and then the other side of the road thee shalt find what thee seeketh. Off I went.

In the roundabout there was luckily only one big building, but no road to enter it. I found a way further down the road and was confronted with the sign "only cash". The ATM's only charged $4 extra per transaction, not $5, like the ones in the city, very friendly of them. 

From then on it was smooth, I took dollars from the cash machine, because they accept dollars everywhere in Cambodia and their riel has a conversion rate I can't do in my head: it's 1 to 4270. 

One dolla' is much better, and pretty much everything is "one dolla' ladiiie".

I felt as on a pilgrimage. But that is not a bad way to go to Angkor Wat. 

That being said, and all complaints collected, just for comparison, all of this would have been unthinkable some years ago. 15 years ago friends of mine really had take the horse cart and hunt down a person who would take them, they were ordered out of the car at the border by men with guns, and transported like cattle through the plains. 

Now you can fly in to Bangkok, take a bus to Siem Reap, booked online in advance, have air-conditioned room with hot water, wifi and breakfast, booked online in advance with the help of Tripadvisor that will tell you which hotels are decent, and my online purchased visa was also super easy to arrange, I didn't even have to go to the Cambodian embassy. 

In Siem Reap if you want to, you can have the party of your life, buy pretty much everything you need, and sleep in a hotel of your comfort level. The world has come to the jungle. 

So I'll stop complaining now and just publish my post from my mobile, from Siem Reap...