Long Trip Post Part I, Cambodia and Thailand

Sorry no pictures since I had no batteries for my camera.

I have heard good and bad about Cambodia but a lot was pretty bad. That said I was most nervous about the traffic there. I got in on Sunday and I couldn’t find the taxi driver, Sothea, I was supposed to meet. Eventually I found a phone and for $1 (they only use US Dollars in Cambodia) called him and went to my hotel. As a note he had misspelled my name (I’m used to this my now since hardly anyone ever gets it right) as Mr. Cling.

I checked into a pretty run down place and went in search of some dinner. I think in part since it was dark the place didn’t seem too friendly. I eventually found a café with free wifi so I went there and emailed. While I was doing that I was also watching the little sale/party going on across the street with a Cambodian dj/rapper.

The next day I went to a new and much nicer hotel then spent the rest of the day in meetings with a telecom company and our business partner. The one little break we had was for a Cambodian lunch, which was quite good. After that we took the company managers, who were Thais, to dinner. We had some very nice wine, which is actually quite cheap there in Cambodia since there are no import duties on it.

On Tuesday I went back to the first telecom as well as two others to meet about our products. Then I headed for the airport. I was in dress slacks, nice shoes, with a shirt and tie so I found the only bathroom I could and started to change. It was damn hot! Even getting into shorts and a t-shirt I had sweat dripping off of me in a few minutes.

I was able to catch my flight and I got into Bangkok with no problem. But as soon as I got in is when the problems started. I had a dinner meeting at 8PM but I had to go to my hotel first. Well I happened to be raining and Bangkok traffic is always a mess. So at about 7:20 I told my driver to just pull over and let me take the subway. The guards were a little surprised to see me walk through the metal detectors with my two bags and a packaged golf club.

Thankfully I had been in contact with my customer and they pushed the meeting to 8:30. However, after that my phone died. So I didn’t hear that they changed the meeting place. When I went to meet them I couldn’t find them at the Ari BTS station and I couldn’t find an English pay phone that worked. Eventually I got the phone to work and frantically went to the new BTS station only 45 min late but just before the restaurant closed. My customer was worried that I was in a car wreck during this whole time but it was all ok since I paid—as is normal—so the customer really didn’t care (and Thais are pretty easy going anyway).

On Wednesday I meet with our customer to give an under the table gift in the morning then I went to a long meeting. The meeting was long but not much of importance really happened since there were no major issues to discuss. So after a long chat we all went out for lunch at a Japanese place (so in a few days I had Cambodian food, American, Thai, and Japanese food). I then went back again for a private meeting to talk about some of our upcoming orders.

One of the marketing team members that I work with was really concerned about me since she knows I like politics and there was a big protest going on in the city. She kept saying not to go but then when I talked to her manager (who supports the protestors) the manager offered to take me. I would have gone but I really didn’t have enough time.

That night I met my business partner/agent for dinner. After dinner we went to a famous night market that I had never been to. I bought some t-shirts and a tie. On all counts I was pretty happy since I bargained pretty well and even better than the local agent thought I could do. For example, the nice tie—with a clip and cuff links—cost me about $6.

After that we went to a jazz bar, yes a Bangkok jazz bar. The band was really good (singer, drums, bass guitar, 3 saxophones, 2 trumpets, and one trombone). They played a lot of Frank Sinatra—so I liked it. But I was very very impressed. They were very good and if you did not know you were in Bangkok you might as well have been in the US.

The next day I had the hotel do some dry cleaning since I didn’t have any meetings scheduled. Instead, I had a coworker who wanted me to buy her some things in Bangkok so I spent the morning trying to find stuff for her. Then in the afternoon I went back to the agent’s office to pick up some documents I had Fed Ex’d there to use for my meeting in Laos.

I went back to my hotel got my bags and went to the airport to head to Vientiane, Laos.