Getting to Maddox's home country

Colleen and I met in Saigon and planned on heading to Cambodia for a few days then re-entering Vietnam for the balance of her trip.  When Colleen and I arrived at immigration in the Saigon airport, they took my visa, preventing me from re-entering Vietnam .  Asking why, the immigration officer kindly explained that we only had a single-entry visa, were screwed and there was nothing he could do to help us get back into the country in 3 days.  Vietnam is one of the few countries in Asia where you have to have a visa prior to entry.  Knowing this, we had ordered a multiple-entry visa, but had not noticed it was processed incorrectly at the Consulate.  When we left Saigon, we did not think we would be returning to Vietnam. 

When we arrived in Siem Reap, we hopped in a cab and headed to our hotel.  The cab driver started the ride with polite conversation about where we were from and how long we were staying.  He then informed us that the best way to get to Angkor Wat Temples was to hire a driver and gave us his pricey.  Unwilling to commit this quickly into the trip, we politely declined.  He continued to push and we continued to say we didn't know what our plans were, but that we would call him when we determined what they were.  This started a quiet tirade about the French couple who said they would call and never did.  As we continued our drive, at about 10 miles per hour and getting passed by everyone else on the road, he kept asking us to "help him" by hiring him, his voice getting softer and angrier.  When we made our determined indecision crystal clear, he pulled off the road, got out of his car, and removed the taxi sign from the top of the car.  Red flag.  He turned left onto a somewhat desolate road, continued to mumble about the headache we were giving him by not hiring him on the spot and picked up his cell phone.  At that point, Colleen and I asked to get out of the cab, which started a new, still angry, dialogue about why we were scared.  By the time we got through that, we were at our hotel, safely.  The desolate road was the road leading to our fancy hotel. 

The good news is, we found a company who can get us a visa to get back into Vietnam and we discovered the cab driver does not represent a typical Cambodian.  Everyone else we have met has been fantastic.  Even though they work really hard to sell you anything and everything, there is no feeling of resentment here.  Introducing, self-named, Spider Boy.  The most industrious kid we've ever met.  He was up at 4am selling tables at the restaurant, guide books, postcards and his soul if you would buy it.  The girl in the photo above was also selling post cards and, upon knowing we were from California, recited what we later determined to be the recital of every school-aged child in Cambodia "Sacremento is the Capital of California, it is in the United States and Washington DC is the capital of the United States.  There are 50 states, Alaska is the biggest and Rhode Island is the smallest.  There are 300 million people in America and our Prime Minister is George W. Bush."