Accommodation Jackals

Arriving via bus in Siem Reap as a Westerner is a bit like, I would say, arriving via bus in Guadalupe, Mexico if you are the Virgin Mary. Your bus is immediately surrounded by dozens of guesthouse touts, yelling and crawling over each other to get you to stay at their guesthouse.

They are so loud, frantic and pushy that there is a police officer there to keep them in line. If they get a little too pushy, he actually beats them back with a stick. This happened a couple of times when I was getting off the bus.

It was like they were a bunch of starved jackals, only these jackals would all give me a special price on a very clean and comfortable room.