The Siem Reap Boat Agency of Chong Khneas

noon
it wasn't after much haggling before we decided to take the boat trip through Siem Reap River. the people in charge were quite insistant on their $20 price at first, saying it's a government agency with fixed prices and that we were going to have one whole boat to ourselves. it was only after we threatened to leave that we were given the price of $14. we further bargained it down to $12 each, $2 above our original budget and the people grudgingly complied. so much for government agency fixed price! i hate being ripped off. if they really needed $20 for the whole trip, i would have given it. but the thing is, the price was jacked up seeing that we are tourists. before we left for the dock we saw 4 caucasians leaving instead of taking up the offer. i presume they were given a much higher price than us.

2pm
going through the river was quite a different experience from the past few days. we were guided to our motor boat and before we even realised what was going on, we were cruising leisurely along the river. along the sides there were all these boat houses with people living offshore. there's even a school for the kids above water, with students playing soccer and sorts. people paddled on small sampans beside us, trying to sell us fruits and baskets, self woven and self grown. halfway through, we were even "hijacked" by a sampan which went right beside us. a little girl on the sampan just jumped right up to our boat and, carrying a small basket of canned drinks, proceeded to sell them to us. she was a very very beautiful girl of maybe 7 and i wonder, how many such girls are still around leading such tough lives? we went up a souvenier/cafe boat where we shopped around a little but came back with nothing.

5pm
after the river ride, we were asked for tips and were guided back to shore. we passed all our loose change over and, i believe it was either too little or it wasn't in US dollars, his face kind of darkened and he didn't smile as much anymore. but being on a budget, we couldn't really give that much, considering we haven't even paid for our guesthouse. we were leaving on the remorque-motor when this kid ran up to us, carrying plates with our pictures stuck to them as souvenirs. wow! they must have taken our photos before we left for the boat trip! the things people think of. we kindly said no and the kid just walked off with a smile, tearing our pictures out and taking another 2 pictures out of his pockets. he was trying to sell it to us for $10 each. it must have cost them less than a dollar, and as much as i would like to help the kid, i'm quite skeptical on whether even 1/10th of the money will go to the boy. anyway, off to phnom krom.

6pm
walking up phnom krom took us almost 30 minutes. it was reaching sunset and we wanted to catch a good one on top of the hill. it was funny that halfway through, we were getting into a shelter to take some photos of the view when two aussies who were leaving told us 'you turn' with a smile. seems like the whole place's becoming so touristic that you meet tourists almost everywhere on this trip, and i mean it, everywhere. tour groups with hordes of people, it's scary when you see some of them touch and rub against the carvings. it's like they don't mean a thing. on the top of the hill were these three towers dedicated to Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma, which were all in pretty bad condition. there the sunset we were so hoping to get disappeared behind the dark looming clouds but still, we were richly awarded with the very spectacular view of the tonle sap lake. it was breathtaking, and i was so glad i took the trip up.

8pm
it's my turn to decide on dinner today (we do it alternately) so i decided on the dead fish plaza. it's a pretty popular foodhouse with multiple tiers and levels in an open air environment. the architecture is quirky and squeaky at times. you can choose to sit on chairs at the ground levels or on mats on the upper tiers, so we decided on an upper tier on mats. food was ok and music was played throughout, but no live bands on the night we were there though for whatever reasons. i believe they were playing a cd of soundtrack love songs. there was also a crocodile pit on the ground level with a sign stating "don't play with them, they run faster than you" or something hilarious to that effect, and we too ka few photos of them. there must be like 12 or more crocodiles lazing in the pool, but one can't be too sure in the dark. i can't forget the quirky statue at the store front.

9pm
we were walking around, digesting our food around psar char when we found this cool pirated and 2nd hand books store. we weren't really expecting to find any really cheap books but this was it, we found it. it was filled with such wonderful pirated copies of haruki murakami and hermann hesse that i thought i was dreaming when their prices were three times lesser than the original. even my travel pal who wasn't that into reading was absorbed by what this little store by the corner could offer. filled with travel books and south east asia guides, we just couldn't figure out what all these have anything to do with blue apsaras, although this is definitely the place to look for hard to find pirated books at low prices. we did abit of haggle and price slashing with the store attendent got even better prices (for more books of course) from the store attendent who didn't reall yseem to care much on whether the books were sold, oen way or the other. in the end i bought 2 hermann hesse books and one on cambodia history, which totally made my day.