Diary of a Globetrotting Family: Shuttle surprise in Siem Reap
Ah, December! In short sleeves and sandals. Starting to look ahead toward Christmas, it’s going to be a very different holiday season for us. Still. With Chiang Rai being such a great family destination, we put aside thoughts of red and green for white and blue. And the time came for us to change countries, though getting from the airport to our hotel came with quite a surprise.
“We spent fifty-two hundred.”
Last night in Thailand: Moonset over Chiang Rai
Our last night in Chiang Rai—our last night in Thailand—I finished settling our food and beverage tab at the front desk, and returned to our room stone-faced.
5200
Jodie was sitting at the desk in our room. I closed the door that separated our space from the children’s bunk beds. Sitting on the bed across from Jodie, I stared at her and said, “I paid the damn bill.”
She laughed. “I see that face you’re putting on,” she replied. “And?”
My smile shattered my stony face. “We spent fifty-two hundred.”
Yup. That’s right. We stayed at this amazing hotel in Chiang Rai for a week, ate regularly at their café and restaurant for lunch and/or dinner, and we weren’t evening batting an eye at how we had dropped over five thousand.
Thai baht, that is. Good ole THB, with the currency symbol ฿.
Not US dollars.
And ฿5200, I should now explain, is about US$140.
For our hotel stay, that breaks down to $20 a day or, for our family of four, about $5 per person per day.
It’s going to be very, very hard to leave Thailand (again). I love the culture. I love the food.
But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I also really, really love the prices.
A family love of Thailand
There are so many other things I love about Thailand though—and all the more so, given how much appreciation Jodie, Connor, and Aster had gained for the Land of Smiles during our month in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Chiang Rai.
Our last evening in Chiang Rai, we stood on the balcony at sunset. We treasured the view, took in the river, the village on the opposite bank, the big Buddha on the hill just outside the city.
Chiang Rai gifted us the memory of an incredible sunset, with wide sunny flat fingers splaying through the clouds, and casting a bright orange gleam over the hills.
In the morning, we rose around six, since we had an airport shuttle scheduled for 7:15. As we got ready to leave our room for the last time, we all took one last visit to the balcony. The world outside—even the big Buddha—was still dark. Soon we would be touching down in another place I had visited long ago.
For now we stood firmly in the moment. In the spot where yesterday the sun had gone down, now the moon was taking the same path. The moonlight took on a copperish gleam, from the haze that had been growing in the air as some of the area farmers began to burn the chaff from their rice fields.
Then we left. The hotel. Chiang Rai. And Thailand. First to Bangkok, for a wee layover. And then to a place I would be returning to, but it would be a first for Jodie and the kids: Cambodia.
“We’ve talked with the kids about how when it comes to travel, you never necessarily know what you’re going to get. Generally, as long as you have some sense and assurance of your safety, it’s good to go with things. Of course, it’s one thing to talk about this.”
Shuttle surprise in Siem Reap
Our week in Chiang Rai, frankly, had been pretty darn luxurious, but we knew that was about to change. While we would be staying in a simpler hotel near the Siem Reap, Cambodia, city center, we did not know what to expect from the ride we would be getting from the airport to the hotel.
Flying to Siem Reap was an encouragement. The flight was full—not just of people, but of nationalities and languages. People were coming to Siem Reap mostly for Angkor, once the world’s largest city—from India, Russia, Italy, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands, and on, and on. (The kids told us they could tell where some of the people were from thanks to all the languages they’d been working on in Duolingo.)
Skipping the line at Cambodian immigration
As we made our way to the immigration area, I reflected on how grateful I felt for how far online tools have come since my first visit to Asia in 2003.
Over a hundred people stood in line to get their visas on arrival. We had gotten our e-visas in advance.
We got the attention of an official, and I showed him the printouts of the e-visas we had gotten in advance from the Cambodia government. He in turn led us to a counter with no line. A few minutes later, he and the officer at the counter handed us back our passports, stamps and visas inside.
When you travel, you never know what you’re going to get
While others waited in line, we grabbed our checked suitcase, and headed outside. A big smile greeted us, along with a sign that had Jodie’s name on it, and we made our way to our shuttle driver.
We’ve talked with the kids about how when it comes to travel, you never necessarily know what you’re going to get. Generally, as long as you have some sense and assurance of your safety, it’s good to go with things.
Of course, it’s one thing to talk about this.
It’s another to shake hands with your shuttle driver, and see that your shuttle is a two-bench tuk-tuk cart being towed by a motorbike.
Tuk-tuk ride in Siem Reap
Our driver was a younger man in his mid-twenties, with a firm, honest handshake and friendly eye contact. His smile made it clear he wanted us to be okay, and to know we were in good hands. With travel as with so many things in life, you have to know when to listen to your instincts. They can tell you when a situation is bad. But, and this can easily get forgotten, they can also tell you when a situation is good.
Personally, I grinned inside and out. Jodie had arranged our transport with the hotel, but all we knew was that we would have a ride waiting for us. She hadn’t expected this. But after the initial surprise, she smiled, and began chatting with our driver as we got bags and people loaded onto the tuk-tuk.
Uncertainty
The kids, granted, had no idea what to make of all this. They were definitely uncertain. However, they’ve also built much of their reactions in life around how Jodie and I react to things. If we were demonstrating that we felt a situation was okay, they were typically pretty good about trusting that we might seem loopy, but at least we usually made good decisions.
To be fair, I couldn’t blame them if they did wonder about this one. We’d ridden in a tuk-tuk a couple of times by now, but this was going to be a very, very different ride.
Our driver stacked the two rollie suitcases on the metal tongue between the front of the tuk-tuk and where his back would be. My and Jodie’s backpacks were hung on thick metal hooks on diagonally opposite corners. (If you’ve seen our review of our Cotopaxi Allpa backpacks, you likely noticed the lead photo is actually from this tuk-tuk ride). As we learned later, you’ll find these hooks in many a Cambodian tuk-tuk. In additional to securely holding luggage, they can also support a hammock, perfect for the busy tuk-tuk driver who has a chance for a wee rest during their day’s shuttling.
The kids sat on the back bench. This gave them the peace of mind of looking ahead, into our direction of travel, so they could at least see what was going on. On the other hand, the wind kept blowing Connor’s hair into his face, and he clenched his backpack on his lap. Jodie and I sat with our backs to the road before us, focusing on watching the children’s reactions—and making sure our bags were, indeed, safe and sound.
What happened on the tuk-tuk ride
Spoiler alert: Other than the backpacks swaying with the motion of the tuk-tuk, every bag stayed right where it was supposed to be. No suitcases went tumbling down the road behind us, tearing open and spraying school books, sandals, coffee, and yoga mats everywhere. My backpack didn’t slip off its hook and get crushed under a truck—or nibbled by one of the many cows on the side of the road.
The tuk-tuk kept a relaxed pace as we made our 20-minute drive from the airport to our hotel. The wide, smooth highway rode well, though the occasional bump did help remind the kids to keep a good hold on their backpacks. Coming into town, we turned onto progressively smaller streets. Ultimately, we turned onto a dirt road, a sort of alley parallel to one of the main roads for the area.
Newly constructed and remodeled buildings rose around the dirt road. We passed by the occasional trash fire. Late-model small SUVs and Toyota Priuses whirred by us. On one street corner, a row of white tuk-tuks waited for passengers. Each was shiny, and had signs proclaiming they were cleaner, newer, more efficient models that ran on natural gas.
What changes and what stays the same in Cambodia
We talked with the kids about how far Cambodia has come from very difficult times in the 1970s (though we’re not doing a deep dive into that history yet).
When I was first here in 2003, the city, the country, had clearly made a lot of progress in infrastructure, education, and economy. But the Siem Reap I was seeing now made that city then feel more like a small town. I saw more school uniforms on children. Scooters and motorbikes far outnumbered cars. People chatted with us in clear English, then could switch back to Khmer in a breath.
And they were always gracious with me as I tried to pronounce a few basics in Khmer with them.
That’s what really stuck out to me, actually.
I remembered lots of smiles—from people whose national identity had gone through a long time where smiling would have been the last thing to come to mind. The city seemed to have more overall prosperity.
But above all, that kindness was still there too.
It’s a kindness that comes out in the little things. For example, our first night when we found a wee place for dinner, when Connor realized he needed the toilet, the server took him to a door—beyond which was her own family’s apartment. She led him to their own bathroom, smiling the entire way.
Tuk-tuk ride fallout?
Unloading at the hotel, Connor said he would not talk about the tuk-tuk ride. He clenched his backpack as he made his way along the big square red tiles, past parallel rows of potted palms and citrus trees, into our clean, bright hotel.
But a couple of days later, when our driver returned to take us to the Angkor National Museum?
Connor was tentative at first. But by the time we were coming back from the museum, he was first on the tuk-tuk. Soon he was asking our driver questions about driving it (and reveling at how our driver had been driving since he was 10—same age as Connor).
The change of heart? It was practical things, such as not having to hold onto his backpack, or having his hair back so it wasn’t getting in his eyes.
But I sensed something else, something that the kids might not have been aware of, or if they were, might not yet be able to articulate.
What our kids now thing of riding in tuk-tuks
Our driver was sincere, kind, considerate, and capable. He wanted us to have a wonderful time in his country. He knew, on a simple, pragmatic level, that much of having a good time is simply getting from place to place safely, and he was going to make sure we did. There was kindness in his eyes and in his smile.
And that is why the kids, especially Connor, turned out not only to be okay with the tuk-tuk, but to love riding with it. They were learning one of the most important things about travel—and about life.
Follow your instincts. And when you sense kindness, trust it, go with it, and return it with your own.
More about Chiang Rai, Thailand
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Wonderful life lessons.
No shortage of those about 🙂