Surprising Cambodia

By Juliana Phang
The Star Online

Recently, my family and I holidayed in Cambodia. We visited not only the historical monument of Angkor Wat at Siem Reap but also witnessed the very moving and tragic exhibition at Tuol Sleng Museum in the capital city of Phnom Penh.

The building was a secondary school used by the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in the 1970s as a torture centre. He purportedly led 3 million (out of 8 million!) Cambodians to their death during his four-year reign of terror.

We also took a boat ride on the Tonle Sap, which is the largest freshwater lake in Asia and a Unesco heritage site. We saw how the Vietnamese immigrants live their daily lives on boats. We were also very lucky to catch the partial eclipse of the sun on Feb 26 as we watched the fabulous sunset on the lake.

We discovered that almost everything in Cambodia is more expensive than in Malaysia. Petrol is about US$1(RM3.50) per litre whereas ours is RM1.80. The cheapest food we found was US$1.20 for a bowl of rice or noodles. Other places usually charged US$2. Our guide Ravin told us that prices have rocketed in the last two years and many poor people are suffering the effects. Yet, salaries remain very low — and the disparity between the poor and rich gets wider by the day.

The only unpleasant part of our tour was the hotel we booked.

At the promotional price of RM225 per night, we had expected a reasonably big room. It was touted as a four-star hotel but hardly merited three stars. The room was just standard (even though the staff said it was a deluxe) and the pool was tiny. The hotel was badly lit at night and their corridors were dark (to save electricity). Their buffet breakfast was only so-so. When we asked for another room, they wanted to charge us US$120 (RM420) per night!

Our sympathetic Cambodian tour operator (Sina of Sinatravel) booked us into the Angkor Deluxe Inn (he waived his commission of US$5 after hearing of our harrowing experience with the first hotel). We moved out of the first hotel after the first night even though we had already paid for three more nights. To our relief, the three-month-old Angkor Deluxe Inn had very clean rooms with all the basic necessities. The size of the room was the same as the first hotel. The only thing they didn’t have were tea- and coffee-making facilities. But at a rate of US$15 a night and with friendly and helpful staff to boot, we certainly didn’t mind!

All in all, it was a memorable trip.