Trying to keep it riel

Walking into Koh Samui airport is like walking into a Caribbean resort hotel. The roofs are all thatched with palm leaves while the waiting room and boarding gates are all 'al fresco' - it's very laid back and relaxing. Which was good because we were about to board a propeller plane run by an airline we'd never heard of before. We flew from Koh Samui to the mainland and then got a series of minivans, full of Russian and Aussie expats, to the Cambodian border. They were all doing a 'visa run' - dipping into Cambodia purely to return to Thailand on a fresh visa - and seemed to be old hands at this but we were novices and, as such, the whole experience seemed quite traumatic and stressful.

You arrive on the Thai side and instantaneously a swarm of locust-like locals strip the van of all its luggage in a bid to porter it to the visa control in return for cash. That visa control is about 10 feet away from the van. Once you've wrestled your bags back off them, you have to fill out a departure card and get your passport stamped to say you've actually left the country. You then walk across a sort of no-man's land, about 200 metres wide, to the Cambodian border. On the way you meet equally dazed-looking tourists making the reverse trip and you nod at each other as if you are political prisoners being exchanged in a spy thriller. Once on the Cambodian side, stress levels are raised further by another band of 'helpful' locals, all vying to fill out your arrival forms for you. We told the guy doing ours that he was more than welcome to fill out our forms for us but that at no point would we be paying him (we actually thought he worked for the minivan company that had brought us). "No problem," he said cheerily and set about the forms like a seasoned professional. We were then taken to a window where the matronly female officer on the other side demanded 1200 baht each (about US$40) but we knew that it should be US$20, so we said as much. There was a bit of a discussion between us and the official on this subject before we were asked to "step into the office, please." This seemed a bit ominous but we tried to remain unflustered and pretend we weren't scared. Our keen little form-filler said we could leave our bags outside and that he'd watch them. We took them into the office with us. Once inside, away from all the other tourists, the discussion over visa fees continued. I even tried 'accidentally' handing over a 100 baht note with my US$20 as I'd read that this trick sometimes smoothed the way but our particularly grumpy official wasn't playing. Claire then told her that if she wanted us to pay 1200 baht, we'd require a receipt so that we could take this up with the embassy in Phnom Penh and, by the way, could we have your name and number. Suddenly the asking price dropped to 1000 baht, still more than we should be paying but less than everyone outside was getting stung for. We cut our losses, paid up and, after having a mugshot and fingerprints taken, we received our visa.

However, we were still 10km from Koh Kong (our destination) but we'd paid for the minivan to take us all the way. It was then that we realised the minivan had gone. Another 'helpful' local appeared from nowhere and declared that he was from the minivan company and was here to take us to Koh Kong. Excellent. However, when he heard that we were off to Phnom Penh the next day he insisted we buy our bus tickets from him. In fact, unless we bought our tickets from him, it seemed he wouldn't be driving us to Koh Kong. He wanted 400 baht each for these, which seemed a bit steep, but as the border taxis were quoting 300 baht just to get to Koh Kong, we decided to pay up. We later found out we could have got them for half that price. Basically, Cambodia is full of con-artists.

Now, you may also be wondering why we were still paying in Thai baht when we were now in Cambodia. Well, we wondered the same thing. Here, near the border, all transactions were carried out in Thai baht, US dollars and very occasionally in Cambodian riel. This was a major headache when trying to work out how much you were actually spending in pounds. It seemed to be cheaper to pay in riel but it also seemed that everyone would rather you paid in baht or dollars. So I went to get some riel. But, in its bid to become the most annoying country in the world, Cambodian ATMs only pay out US dollars. If you want riel you have to go to the market, to one of the many money exchange stalls, and haggle your exchange rate! I desperately wanted to pay for everything in riel but everyone kept giving me the prices in dollars - and then had to get a calculator to work out what that was IN THEIR OWN CURRENCY! Grrr! It was all too much to cope with after such a long journey.

There is exactly nothing to see or do in Koh Kong, except watch the sunset, so the next day we got on the bus to Phnom Penh with our over-priced tickets and a packed lunch ready for the bumpy, 6-hour trip. During the journey they played a couple of videos on a knackered old TV that was sellotaped to the ceiling at the front. One was of a live variety show featuring weird skits and whiny songs which the rest of the passengers were all giggling at but, as it was in Cambodian, meant very little to us. There then followed a sort of Chinese sci-fi/horror film where, as far as I could work out, a man with a mullet was wrongly jailed but escaped by using his super strength to punch through people's stomachs and rip out their innards. It was particularly gory, especially when, at one point, he strangled a prison guard with another inmate's entrails. The four-year-old across the aisle from us seemed enthralled though.

We arrived in Phnom Penh a bit shell-shocked. Now, frankly, the Thais were a bit lame in their scooter-abuse so it was weirdly reassuring to see the Cambodians putting on a fine display of over-loaded bikes and mopeds. We'd missed it. Even their version of a tuk tuk is just a knackered old scooter with a sort of rickshaw nailed to the back. We got taken to our guest house in one such contraption and it was brilliantly rubbish. When we got there we asked the receptionist how much the rooms were. "Eight dollars," came the reply. "And what's that in riel, please?" "Oh.. er... hang on..." and out came the calculator.