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CAMBODIA-VIETNAM BACKPACKING TRIP 4: SIEM REAP - ONE DOLLAR

Sunday, November 20, 2016

[Percutian Bajet ke Kemboja-Vietnam]

Assalamualaikum

This is a continuation of CAMBODIA-VIETNAM BACKPACKING TRIP 2: FULL ITINERARY & BUDGET

😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

blogger now has emoji people!!*jakun*


Kasim who?
($13 per day)

Since we'll be arriving early morning in Siem Reap, for convenience sake, we decided to book a Tuk Tuk in advance. While we were researching, we found this guy who everyone recommend for his good service and on top of that, he can speak Malay. His name is Kasim.

very fluent right

We arrived in Siem Reap around 5 in the morning and conveniently, someone was already there looking for Idayu, introducing himself as Pakcik Kasim. We were half awake-half busuk at that time plus Ayu and I are never a morning person, so we didn't really talk to him that morning. Amir did and to his surprise, Kasim can't speak Malay! He told us but again, morning + no mood + brain hasn't warm up, we ignored him. Only after prayer and washing up we started processing everything.

"Is this a different Kasim? Did we mistakenly rode other Kasim TukTuk? but this is the Kasim that was looking for Idayu, it has to be him....but where's the Malay? He was so fluent the day before! Did he google translate everything? but people who google translate won't used 'ye' or 'ambik' or 'mana2' or write in typos. What is this guy identity?"

Now fully awake, it's ice breaking time. He introduced himself as Hanafi, not the Imam Hanafi, just Hanafi Pakcik Kasim. haaaaa? uncle what you're talking about? "Kasim?" we asked. "Yes Pakcik Kasim Hanafi". haaaaaa? 😵😵😵 confused, we asked again,

"Hanafi or Kasim?"
"Hanafi Pakcik Kasim"
😵😵😵
omg this is going nowhere!
Pointing at him "Hanafi?"
"Yes"
"Kasim?"
"Kasim *while making motor riding gesture* break. call me. Pakcik Kasim"
😵😵😵😵😵😵

''aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" realisation hit Amir.
"motor Kasim rosak. Dia call pakcik ni. Nama pakcik ni Hanafi!"

so we summarise it for him (Hanafi)
"Uncle. Kasim's Tuk Tuk. break. Kasim called you. You come. You, Hanafi?"
"Ya ya. *Pointing at himself* Hanafi. Kasim call me Pakcik,"

eceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhh......awat tak habak awal awal. 😅😅 

so people, introducing to you,

Hanafi, Pakcik KEPADA Kasim

War Museum
($5 per person)

We arrived too early and surprise surprise, the hotel was also fully booked so we can't check in early. We left our luggage at the hotel and asked Pakcik Hanafi to drive us anywhere. Our first stop is this museum. Honestly, nothing much here. I don't know if it was because of the combination of our smelly selves (we're still wearing the same shirt we wore from Malaysia!), muddy damp grass (it rained heavily the night before) and the old rusty metal smell, everything were just so smelly and tiring....but we did just pay 20 freaking ringgit for this place so we got to enjoy our money worth.
Among the machines here





Let's just say we played quite well for our 20 ringgit.

Silk factory
(free but need to tip the tour guide)

Still busuk, we head to Silk factory. Here, we were taught about everything related to silk making from first till finish,


Wat Thmey (killing field)
(free)

Refreshed and smelling good, started our second half of the day with killing field. We were actually quite surprise that there is killing field in Siem Reap because the famous one are the one in Phnom Penh. But again, nothing much here. 



This place is just your local small temple, with a cabinet of skulls in the middle. There's a lot of information board around so if you haven't been to Genocide Museum or Killing Field in Phnom Penh, boards here can give you brief idea on the cruel things happened in this killing field, once upon a time.

Can we pause a moment here.

Going back to Genocide Museum, in that museum, they displayed faces of people that were captured and tortured during those time (those sick bastards took those pictures for catalog purposes). Everyone was labelled with numbers instead of name. Towards the end of those cruel people reign, since they knew that they're going to be caught, they started burning all trails of their cruel doing but they were caught before they disposed everything...so the pictures displayed are among the things that survived....Imagine you, someone with missing family members, you got to go through every single pictures looking for your loved one..If you found them, you knew exactly what happen to them and you got closure. If their pictures are not there, you'll never know what happen. Were they caught? or not? Did they survive? Most of them just pray for the best but for me, not knowing, is torture. 

Souvenir shop

We asked Pakcik Hanafi to bring us to any souvenir shop to kill time and he did just that....the only problem is, his definition of souvenir is a little bit different than us! He brought us to this polish looking shop that sells real leather and jewelry! Jewelry include diamonds uolls!! -_____________- Do.we.even.look.like.someone.who.can.afford.diamond. In which way did we gave off chaebol vibe I'm not sure.

Tonle Sap floating village
($13 per person)
Houses in the village

I never went to a floating village before so going here, is definitely an eye opener. I was amazed with literally everything. I have so much respect for these people. Firstly, I for once, can never live in a house that float. I fear that my house will float to the middle of the sea and I'll be left alone there to the day I die (probably took around 2 to 3 months judging from how many fat and nutrition I have stored in my body). 
Fully functioning community place. From top-left - school, floating market, church (with basketball court at the second floor!) and floating convenience store.

Secondly, kids still go to school! I am among the one who skipped school for merely headache, so imagine me, in a situation where I have to take boat to school......teachers might not even know that I am a student! and they played basketball too! What your excuse for not exercising, Athirah?





The view, seriously, our pictures, can never do justice to this place....and ours is during bad weather! where the sunset was't really visible. Go google Tonle Sap sunset. You'll be in awe.

Then again, I know, if these people have the opportunity and money, they would choose landed house in a heartbeat. Things that I fear, they all fear them too. Our guide told me that he had seen too many people die from diarrhea, a disease that we never took seriously on land...in fact, this is one of my many excuses for ditching school. Clean water supply is hard to get around here so at days where they have short supply, they will drink the lake water, which would gross out a lot of us fortunate people but giving the circumstances, I dare you to be picky. 

However, the one thing I don't like about this place is the people pushy-ness towards you to give them some sort of charity or tips. I get it, they are all poor people trying to survive...I wanted to help too but if you fix the charity amount (like some kind of fee), my sincerity will be gone. I feel obliged to do it and one thing to note about me, I don't do rules. You can't even play with the kids there. You played with them, be nice to them, at the end of the day, they'll forced you to give them one dollar and if you give a kid, several will come flooding. The adults were the same too. They'll treat you nicely but in the end, they'll ask 20 dollar tip. per person! That itself cost even more that our boat ride. (kau tak nampak kitorang gaduh dengan orang kaunter tu sebab charge 13 dollar padahal Pakcik Hanafi kata 10 dollar je) We did plan for tips but not 20 dollar! How we survive, we took out how much we're willing to give and rolled them together, gave that to the boat driver's son, then we ran. 😓😓


Then again, everything doesn't always go your way so just be careful wherever you go. :) eh no gotta use those emoticons 😊😊

Bonus

Atin pulling a Fatin 😜

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