You Don't Have to Go Home But You Can't Stay Here

I was never entirely sure whether taking this job was going to be a good idea. Cambodia (and all of Southeast Asia for that matter) is getting hotter by the day which scares the hell out of me when I consider how miserably hot it is already. The pay is about $15 a night; enough to break even and then make a very small profit. Dealing with drunk foreigners is always a real treat (the Irish are consistently the most rowdy/drunk) and lastly, this is about as far from a cultural experience as I could get seeing as how very few if any locals stop in.

All things considered though, this is turning out to be an absolute blast! My nights start at 8PM when things are pretty slow. Usually just a few people sit at the tables outside and take advantage of happy hour specials. By about 10:30 things start to pick up as any number of tour groups come in asking for pitchers of long islands or whiskey buckets (half a bottle of Thai whiskey, coke and redbull served in a bucket with ice). After the initial rush things still stay pretty busy but there is always enough time to talk to people at the bar.

The bar is named Angkor What?, an obvious play on the similarly named temple complex nearby.
Described as a “Siem Reap institution [which] manages to pack them in every night” containing “regular drink deals to keep the punters well and truly liquefied” by Lonely Planet, we really do succeed in keeping everyone sufficiently inebriated. There are only 3 bars in town which stay open later than 11 (of which Angkor What? is one) which contributes to the nightly crowds.

Working conditions aren't too bad at all. There is no air conditioning but fortunately there are plenty of fans directly above the bar to keep us cool. Drinking on the job is not permitted but rather encouraged which always keeps things interesting behind the bar.

The job so far is a lot of fun and my living conditions aren't half bad (more on that later). The days are hot, the nights are cool and the fun almost never stops... For example, on my first night, the other bartender, the owner, some friends and I stayed after we closed and drank through the night. Stumbling my way home in broad daylight left me nothing else but the thought of how in the hell I got myself into this situation and what is in store for the weeks to come.

A Slight Delay

My trip through Thailand was a lot of fun but upon entry to the country you are only issued a 30 day visa. Just a couple days after Pat left, my visa expired so I had to book it for a border to avoid being fined upon exiting the country.

Wanting to take care of the southern part of my SE Asia circuit first before the heat became too intense, I hopped a bus for the Cambodian border from Bangkok. The border crossing at Poipet is filled with people trying to make you pay more money than you need too. Someone even went so far as to type out a ridiculously long guide to making this border crossing which you can find here. You need to acquire a Cambodian visa which many travel agencies at the border will arrange for you (they charge $10 more than the actual cost of the visa though). If you want to buy it for the standard price of $20, you must be prepared to deal with all manner of government immigration officers who try to charge more and keep the difference. Obtaining one for the actual price seemed impossible so I settled for $22.5 and payed to grease the wheels of this ridiculous process.

Once you obtain your visa and get stamped into Cambodia, the next challenge awaits. The border town of Poipet is about a 3 hour drive down a terrible unpaved road from Siem Reap (my eventual destination). Few buses run down this road every day and the most common way of making the journey is by paying a cab to take you. Complicating matters, organized crime in the area has taken over the cab business in Poipet by extorting drivers and 'pressuring' those who dont comply into paying. All of this results in inflated prices for travelers which can only be controlled by finding others to share the cab with you.

Having read about these difficulties before hand, I met a Canadian named Nailin on the bus from Bangkok and we decided to try and find 2 more at the border to split the cab. We ran into two Norwegian girls named Moeyfrid and Tova at the border who shared our goal and after rendezvousing on the Cambodian side it was time to negotiate a fair price with the mafia cabs.

After much negotiation, they very reluctantly accepted my counter offer of $40 for the whole car and we were on our way to Siem Reap for much less than they initially offered.


Siem Reap is the closest town to the Angkor Archaeological Park and is thus inundated with tourists year round. I spent three days exploring the temples and there is a ridiculous amount of pictures of them on my flickr page. Their seamless integration with the approaching jungle was unlike anything I had ever seen before. My original plan was to leave Siem Reap for points onward shortly after using up my entire 3 day pass to the temple complex but something kind of ridiculous came up.

There are quite a few bars in the main tourist area and a couple of them draw a crowd all night long. I went into one called Angkor Wat? which had an American girl working behind the bar and I asked her how she came to be a bartender in this crazy city. After talking for awhile she informed that they were currently looking for more staff and that I should come by the next day if I was curious about it.

Anyways, after coming by a few days in a row and speaking with the owner of the bar, I was offered the job on the condition that I stay for three weeks. This wasn't an easy decision because I'm already hating the intense heat out here and delaying everything by 3 weeks would place me in SE Asia during the hottest part of the year. After checking assorted climate charts, I decided that this was too cool of an opportunity to pass up.

I've spent the last couple days getting all the logistical issues of staying here for 3 weeks taken care of. I negotiated a great room at a discounted price, figured out what is involved with extending my visa and found a great place to set up shop. Tonight is my first shift there so we'll see what happens but if nothing else, I'm sure all of this will be one hell of an experience.

More details on this ridiculous event to follow....