Leaving the land of Ringgits

Malaysia, and for that matter most of Southeast Asia, is famous for bureaucratic, mind numbing visa regulations and wouldn’t you know it, ours are winding down to a precious few days. To reset our 90-day Malaysian visas we have to leave the country and because we are close to the end of our stay we have to get lost for at least seven days before re-entering. 

Marce started the campaign with Vietnam as the goal. We soon found ourselves overwhelmed with possibilities and expanding projected budgets, worrisome with a refit of Escape Velocity staring us in the face. Turns out, Cambodia is just the ticket, specifically the temples of ancient, mysterious Angkor Wat.

Now, since leaving Cairns, Australia, I’ve been challenged with difficult money math as we made our way across Indonesia where 11,000 point something rupiah equals one USD. I found this impossible to deal with but, Marce said, If you move the decimal four places to the left you have an Aussie dollar and, feeling fat and sassy, 25 percent more buying power with the godalmighty USD! We could actually afford to live in this place. 

Malaysian ringgits are a four to one proposition which I find within my comfort level, but now I need to come to grips with the Cambodian riel which exchanges at 4100 something riel to one USD. The advantage here is that Cambodia really is based on the USD so just for fun you’ve got dual simultaneous currencies. It’s messy and it inflates prices but Cambodians smile and just make it work.

First roadblock is an overnight stay at the Kuala Lumpur airport which is quite expensive and based on only a six hour stay! I was rather hoping for eight hours of sleep. Marce found a workaround but KL’s airport is so large that they feel the need to charge you for a train ride to the terminal where your hotel is located. They don’t even call it a hotel, but rather a “private resting place.”

After the shiny pants KL airport, the dusty cab ride through the Cambodian countryside served notice that this is primarily an agricultural society, but as we approached Siem Reap which is as close to Angkor Wat as you can stay, the tuktuks, motos, and taxis started to stack up into serious stop-and -go traffic. Our driver found our hotel down a dusty alley and we hopped out and entered the serene environs of The Moon Residence and Spa.

By late afternoon we were carefully picking our way around dusty broken sidewalks and dodging tuktuks and motos, while trying to bear in mind that Cambodia was once French and they drive on the right…well if they feel like it. After a bit of careful walking we found ourselves in the middle of a thriving town with the beautiful Siem Reap River running through it.

Marce had marked a list of top shelf vegetarian restaurants on the map and our search for a likely candidate led us down a colorful alleyway filled with little shops and eateries representing most of the cuisines of the world. 

We ate amazing food while breathlessly excited by the prospect of tomorrow’s sunrise over Angkor Wat.