March 8th.
Once in Koh Kong I found a guesthouse for $7 for the night and put my bags in the room. I’m always frustrated by the attitude of some guesthouse owners when I arrive to ask about vacancy. Often I have to interrupt a television show or get someone’s attention, and then they just look at me like, “what do you want.” You’d think that if you were in the business of hosting people that you would be gracious and eager to please a potential customer, but I have rarely found that to be the case at family run guesthouses. A cultural difference I guess… People wait for business to come to them and seem to accept what they get.
I went straight to the local dive shop. I had read about Koh Kong Island, which was supposed to have very beautiful beaches. Everything I read said there were no guesthouses on the island, but that development was definitely on its way, and that was all written about 1 year ago. I felt certain, with my infinite wisdom, that by now there would be a guesthouse on the island. Instead of paying for a 1 day tour to the island, I wanted to find a local boat to drop me there and I would stay for a couple days.
At the dive shop they had day tours to the island for $40, way outside my budget. I asked about staying on the island and the guy said it wasn’t an option. What? There must be at least somewhere basic to stay. He assured me there were no guesthouses. But why? I asked. Because the island is a military base. There is no local development allowed for tourism, but everyone is expecting someone to come and buy the land from the government and put a resort on the island soon. Definitely, not what I had been expecting.
I came to Koh Kong because I wanted to find somewhere away from tourism to relax on the beach for a couple days before heading to Bangkok, and then Calcutta. Apparently this wasn’t the place. The town is nothing special, and it’s not really on the coast, it’s behind a mangrove swamp, so there are no local beaches. I decide to head to Koh Kood, an island not too far, but part of Thailand. I’ll cross the nearby border today and take a ferry to the island. I find an internet café and catch up with emails and tell Dad and Atish I’m safe after my days with no communication in the mountains. Then I head back to the guesthouse to get my bags.
I know they won’t be happy I’ve decided not to stay, so when I approach the guesthouse and see the owner / mother outside I smile warmly and bring my hands together in front of my face and say, “I’m so sorry, I have to change my plans, I have to go to Thailand today, I can’t stay tonight in Koh Kong.” And it’s the truth. I don’t have enough time to stay the night and leave tomorrow. I fly from Bangkok in a week and I want my time on the beach and in the city. Immediately she looks mad and says, “You pay $5.”
Excuse me? I’m not paying more than half the price for the room that just held my bags for 2 hours. She starts up a speech in Thai and her teenage son comes over to try to translate. Something about using the water, electricity, making the room dirty, I have to pay $5. I’m so put off by her complete unwillingness to understand the situation I am in and her hostility that I flat out refuse to pay. I haven't used the room or made it dirty but I did use the small bar of soap in my room to wash my hands when I arrived, I’ll pay $1. No, $5 she says.
I ignore her and head straight back to the room to get my stuff. I want to get my bags in my hands before they lock me out of my room. She’s so angry and I haven’t done anything but have to change my plans. I haven’t been rude, I’m still trying to smile, but she’s furious.
A couple minutes later I walk back out with my bag on my back, the key and $1 in my hand, I hand them to her. She waves the $1 in the air. What is this? You pay $5! I came and agreed to stay, I used the room, I have to pay $5. I calmly tell the son that that is ridiculous. I’m not paying nearly the full price for the room for 2 hours of keeping my bags there. She should be happy with the $1 (if I had another single I would have given her $2). This is incredibly bad business I tell the boy. I came here happy, my plans changed because I had bad information (not entirely true…), I said I was sorry I would have to leave for Thailand, and now she’s pissed at me. She should be understanding. This is bad business. I try to convey all of this to the boy and he looks distraught. I tell him I’m not paying her $5. I’ve put my foot down and now I’m going to be stubborn. I’m starting to get pissed as well. I can see how frustrated the boy is, he’s embarrassed. “Moooommm, just let it go,” is clearly what he is saying to her. No. She won’t.
At this point I realize that I may end up having to pay. In a sense I understand her side. I entered a verbal agreement when I took the key for the room. I’m almost surprised she isn’t asking me for $7. But I’m so incredibly put off by her approach that I will see this out to some type of fairness. I won’t let some woman (who didn’t even seem to want my business when I arrived!) yell at me and demand $5.
I say, “I’m sorry, but you are being unreasonable,” and walk to the door. She steps in front of me and slaps my shoulders then pushes me forcefully backwards. With my backpack on her shove sets me off balance both physically and emotionally. Now I’m mad.
I’ve heard the warnings about causing a Thai businessperson to lose face. So close to the Thai border, I assume the culture is shared. 1 traveler told me about going into stores and trying on t-shirts, after trying on 3 different t-shirts that he didn’t end up liking the woman said he couldn’t try on anymore, he had to buy one. But how could he buy one if he didn’t know if he liked it on himself? he voiced. Didn’t matter, he couldn’t try any more on, it was enough. So he went to leave the store and the woman slapped him hard across the back as he passed and said, “You try on, why not buy!?” He was so shocked he stopped and tried to explain himself but she hit him again and the girl he was traveling with had to drag him out of the store, afraid he would keep getting beat up if he stood there in shock.
A German woman I met was at a bar in Bangkok with some friends. They ordered a pitcher of some mixed drink and when they taste it they were revolted. The alcohol was some sort of cheap home-brew. They insisted on a new pitcher of better stuff that they were paying full price for. The second pitcher was the same so they got up and left and went to the bar next door. As they left the 2nd bar later on they saw a group of tourists headed into the first bar. The gal yelled over to them to not go to that bar because the drinks were bad. The woman from the bar was standing there and heard. She picked up a glass beer bottle and threw it forcefully at the gal, hitting her in the eye. She had to be rushed to a hospital and now is still having problems with the dilation of her pupil from the damage.
These stories are fully supported by a warning in the Lonely Planet about not causing the Thai to lose face because it can turn violent. I’m completely shocked by these stories. I can’t imagine such outbursts of violence in public, to potential customers, by women. Whatever happened to the customer is always right? Obviously, this is an example of a huge cultural difference, but it is not one I am willing to excuse on the basis of misunderstanding differences.
What I was experiencing at the hotel wasn’t nearly as bad as these stories. The woman and I were in a standoff, each I believe within our own rights to claim whether or not the money should be paid. But I felt I held the moral-high ground because I was the one being calm, rational, not violent and not yelling.
In my attempt to seem self-assured and confident my nerves were slowly failing. I could feel my knees begin to shake under my pack. But I tried not to show it and continued to listen to the woman yell at me in Khmer, blocking the doorway with her body. Her neighbors and family members had now come around to watch the drama unfold. Her husband sat behind the desk and looked completely uninterested; he looked at the floor and didn’t try to aid the situation. There was a little girl and a teenage girl on the staircase watching. At one point I looked up at them and smiled and winked at them. They giggled. All of this caused me to further think that I was right, that this woman was crazy and alone in her demand for $5.
I repeated to the boy that this was horrible. I would leave here and tell everyone I met not to stay here. I would write on the internet (and I will) that this guesthouse should not be used. I told him that today, maybe I pay $5, but tomorrow they would have no guests. I think he understood me, but he made it clear that his wasn’t about responsible, sustainable business practices. This was about me paying $5 for using the room.
Just then a man with a backpack came walking up the driveway to the door. He was clearly looking for a place to stay. Standing directly behind the woman he was completely ignored. He looked so confused about all the yelling and I just stood there and smiled weakly at him. “Don’t stay here, go away,” I mouthed at him. He looked more confused.
“What is happening?” he asked. I explained my situation and told him he should find another place.
“But you stayed here?” he asked, he was Italian and he hadn’t fully understood me over the yelling.
“No, I got here 2 hours ago. I haven’t stayed, I just took a room, and now I need to leave.”
He look even more confused. He tried to ask them why they wanted me to pay if I didn’t sleep there. It was reassuring to know he was of the same mindset as I was. You don’t stay in a hotel room unless you spend the night, sleep in the bed, why should I pay for the room? After a couple minutes the man walked away to find another place. The woman never looked at him, he was never even offered a room. That’s the other thing. If the place was packed, if my leaving after check out hours meant that they had lost the business of filling that room with a guest, then I would have been more willing to pay. But the place was empty, so I hadn’t taken any business from them. Until just now. See! I said to the boy. You yell at me for $5 for nothing, and you just lost $7. See? He left, you lost a customer. The boy definitely understood, but he seemed too intimidated to even talk to his mother. He just stood there, occasionally repeating some of her ranting when she yelled at him to speak.
After another 5 minutes of verbal abuse the price dropped to $3. Now that was more reasonable. But at the same time, her dropping the price only confirmed my suspicion that she was majorly ripping me off from the beginning when her response to my apology of having to leave was “$5!” So, I figured I would give it another couple of minutes of refusal and then agree to pay the $3 to get out of there, but I really didn’t want to pay her. Then the boy translated, “If you don’t pay I’ll call the police.”
The police? A quick deliberation took place in my head and my mouth said, “Good! Call the police!” Why did I say that? I think I was hoping they were bluffing. They looked taken aback that I had said that. So sure was I of my position at the time that I pulled out my own phone and said shakily, “Call them! If you don’t call them, I will. Go on, call them!” They got the message, I thought perhaps she would drop the whole issue. Why make it more involved with the cops? But she was livid. She yelled at her husband to call. He looked apprehensive, but picked up the phone, dialed and handed it to her. I listend as she yelled the situation over the phone. She hung up, the police would be coming. She walked away and pointed at me and yelled something over her shoulder, “make sure she doesn’t go anywhere!”
A couple things went through my mind at this point:
They don’t have my name or passport, I could probably just get up and walk out, she seemed the only one really interested in keeping me there for the additional $2 (she still had my $1). But did I want to risk it?
Were the police a good idea? I’m in a foreign, developing country. The police could be really corrupt, I could end up having to pay $100 for god-knows-what. Then again, I was a tourist. A western. A pretty girl. They shouldn’t want to hassle me. They want tourism to grow in Koh Kong. Maybe if I batted my eyelashes, and smiled and said “she pushed me!” they would apologize and let me walk away without paying. It could easily go either way.
I look at the clock, it’s getting late. I tell the husband, if they don’t come in 5 minutes I’m leaving. He didn’t seem to care. The woman has come back to be my guard. I slowly, deliberately pull out my Lonely Planet and open it to the page for Koh Kong. Then I make a show of getting my pen and reading the sign outside with the guesthouse name and copying it into my Lonely Planet: Phneas Mea Koh Kong Guesthouse. I put a big X in front of it. Everyone is watching me, but I wonder if they understand what I’m doing. I have every intention of writing LP to tell them to not include this guesthouse in future editions, and post my experience on their travel forum. I don’t know that it will make a difference, but it has the potential to make a huge difference.
With 1 minute left of my self-proclaimed deadline 2 police motorcycles and a black Ford Escalade pull into the driveway. Apparently there wasn’t anything more important than a tourist trying to run out on a hotel bill going on in Koh Kong just then. There are 4 police men and a man I can only assume is the chief. As if in a movie he slowly gets out of the car and begins to walk towards me, flanked by the police men wearing motorcycle helmets, there’s no expression on his face as he removes his sunglasses. I dumbly try my eyelash/smile approach, “Hello” I say as I bow my head.
“Passport please,” he replies. Shit. Now he knows my name… What had I been expecting?
The woman starts to explain the story loudly. I wait. When she finishes he simply says, “You need to pay her $3.” Ok, I say, I’d be happy to, but can he hear my side of the story? He listens obligingly (luckily his English is very good). I explain how I had wanted to stay but couldn’t, I had only been there for 2 hours, she was rude, abusive, and unfair starting at $5. She was going to lose a lot of business from this incident and it would have served her better to have been nice and just ask for $3. He nods and then says, “Ok, but now I want you to pay her $3 and we close this problem.” Grrrrr. I wanted some acknowledgement. “But can you please explain to her why this whole thing was a problem, why I didn’t want to pay from the beginning?” He smiles and explains there is no point in it, she would do it again tomorrow if it happened. He also explains that it is the law there, if a guest stays in a room more than 1 hour they have to pay half the price. This is news to me, she never said anything about a law. Shakily I hand her a $5, trying as hard as I can to show that I don’t care that I’m paying her, no big deal. She makes my change and looks victorious.
The police chief asks me why I have to leave Koh Kong, why am I going back to Thailand. I correct him, I’m not going back, I’ve been in Cambodia for 3 weeks, and this has been the first bad experience I’ve had. He apologizes and says he hopes I come back to Koh Kong. See, I was right! The police would want to make a good impression for Koh Kong tourism. But that didn’t end up meaning I wouldn’t have to pay… He asks me about my travels as I walk out of the guesthouse (freedom!) and we share a couple words. I milk the smiling and conversation between us, laughing. I want the family to see how clear it is that I’m not the bad guy. I’m a very sore loser. I ask him where I should walk to find a motorbike to take me to the border. He offers to have one of his men take me to the border. Sweet! That ride would have cost me $3 ;)
As I climb onto the back of a gorgeous Harley Davidson police bike I laugh at my luck and the look on the faces of family, I wave back at them goodbye.
Having my nerves on edge being yelled at by the woman: not worth $3
Risking the decision of unknown police in a foreign country: not worth $3
Wasting an hour of my time to get to Thailand and the island: not worth $3
The experience of being delivered to the Thai border on the back of a police HD motorcycle: Priceless
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