On arrival in Siem Reap, we settled into our 21st accommodation of the trip. That’s a lot of different places to call our home-away-from-home! Along the way we’ve learned a few tricks that work well for us. The most important strategy is reducing the number of decisions we have to make every day – not trivial when you consider the constant change we’ve invited into our lives. Simple pleasures like deciding where and what to eat for every meal can become a tiresome exercise. When we can, we prefer to stay in small apartments with kitchens of our own, but the options are often limited or logistically it just doesn’t work out.
In Siem Reap, we were in a regular hotel (no kitchen) so we tried out a new strategy for meals that led to surprising benefits. On our first night, we went to a restaurant next door to our hotel. It was highly rated on all the travel review sites so seemed like a good place to start. The place had a huge menu with all dishes priced from $2.50 – $3.00 USD and cold draught beer was $0.50 (even Darla started to drink beer, it was cheaper than water!). Our food that first night was delicious so we quickly decided this would be our adopted home kitchen for the remainder of the trip. With the exception of our one night at the bug cafe, we ate at this restaurant every night and even a few lunches. This decision right at the beginning meant that for the rest of our time, we didn’t have to think about what we were doing for dinner – no more searching review sites, no more wandering around hungry in the evening, no long walks back to the hotel, just wait until we’re hungry & go. We even had the chance to each find favorite menu items (I’m pretty sure Lauren ate the same meal every night). It was a super simple solution: next door, cheap and yummy.
The wonderful surprise that came from this early decision was that the owner and staff at the restaurant got to know us. We had a regular table, regular drink orders, basically a routine. One night we forgot one of the kids colouring books and the next night they brought it out to us having tucked it somewhere safe until we returned. So while we didn’t try all of the different restaurants Siem Reap has to offer, we did get to experience Cambodian hospitality in a way that made us feel a little more normal, all by making one little decision to simplify our life.
Meet Mr. Smak
In a similar path of reducing the decisions we need to make, we went along for the ride (literally) rather than over thinking things. Our hotel had arranged for us to be picked up at the airport on our arrival. Our driver that first morning was Mr. Smak. We still don’t know very much about him other than that he drives a tuk tuk safely and reliably from A to B. On our trip from the airport to the hotel, he took us to a shop to get a Cambodian SIM card and immediately helped us ensure the card worked by testing it to call his phone. From that point on, we had a direct line to a tuk-tuk driver anytime we needed one so there really was no point trying to find a new one each and every time. No more haggling for prices, no more questioning if they understood where to go – just simple, straightforward, use the guy you already know, afterall he was hired by the hotel…for whatever that’s worth. Being a diligent self employed fellow, he dutifully called us every morning or evening to see if we needed a ride and to arrange pick up times. The prices he gave us were consistent and reasonable – if anything a bit lower than expected from what we read. With the advent of e-hailing apps, private drivers can’t afford to quote outrageous prices expecting tourists to haggle down to a final price because they’ll just walk away and call a ride using an app that sets a fixed price. By giving us fair prices from the beginning, he figured out a way to secure customers for a whole week – this man has it figured out.
Actually, it turned out he had the customer in mind even more than we realized. After our second ride booked directly with him, he asked if it was okay that he dropped us off a little further down the street from our hotel – no problem we said. The next day, he agreed to pick us up in the same spot – better parking there, he said. When he wasn’t able to pick us up one day due to a family matter, he had the hotel arrange an alternate driver for us and this is when the pieces started to make sense. The hotel arranged the driver and pricing for us, low and behold, the price had increased from what we paid Mr. Smack the day before. We negotiated and settled on a final price, but still higher than we thought in should be. The following day, Mr. Smack was back and agreed to meet us around the corner – not in front of the hotel, and we got our preferred pricing again! With the parts all laid out, we’re almost positive that the hotel was taking a commission for arranging tuk-tuks. So long as he did pick ups and drop offs out of sight, he wouldn’t owe them anything. Effectively, he cut out the middle man without telling us and passed a 20% savings on to us. Having figured out what he did without telling us, I like this man even more.
When he dropped us off at the airport on our last day, he gave us his business card with contact info, so if you or anyone you know is headed to Siem Reap, I know a guy who can help you out.
Yes, Tuk-Tuk today!