Advice: tourist traps to avoid

Hi all,

I went to Cambodia in February and I had a great time. I did a 2 weeks trips and I've seen a lot. However, I also went to share some bad experience about two places that were mentioned in the LP.

-Floating village in Siem reap
LP recommends to take a break from the Temple and it's a good advise. I bought the 3 days pass and after 2 full days, I needed to take a break and rest a bit. I chose the the famous floating village because it was recommended. It's not too difficult to reach on a moto bike, but once you are there, it's a real rip off. First, they charged me 40$ US, while the LP mentions it should be 17$US. After, the cruise, is all expect a cruise. The boat is noisy and the river is just mod (we got stuck one time). What they don't tell you is if you want to go inside the village by paddle boat, you have to pay another 25$US (i don't recall the exact amount). If you want more information, just google it and you will see that a lot of people were scam in the same way. You will see only 3 crocodiles and I had pity for them because the guide was keep bordering them to entertain the tourist. If you want to see real corocodile, stop at one of the Crocodile leather shop around the city. Most of them have their own crocodile farm behind their shop. You'll pay 3$ and you will see at least 100 of them.

KEP
Kep is a nice city and the Crab market and regional park were nice to visit. However, I have the strong impression that local are taking advantage of tourist a bit too much. We had lunch in one of the restaurant and we wanted to taste crab, after all it's the crab market. However, for a 10$US i had only 3 small crabs, there was nothing to eat and I had to have a second diner at another restaurant. Also, one of the waitress took 5$ from my friend and refused to give it back. She was really on the offensive and every time that we tried to explained what happen to the manager, she would interrupt us. Finally, at another restaurant in front of abandon hotel (hill park), the sell woman sold me a half chicken (nother else included) for 7$. It was my bad because I should have negotiated the price before, but still, I would not take advantage like that of a tourist in my own country. I had 0 issue in the rest of the country, all the rip off was in Kep.

Enjoy your stay!

Thanks for posting your experiences. Take home messages I see are:
- It's important to confirm and everybody agrees and says what service for what amount.
- Sometimes you just have to bail. Whatever it was you're bailing on isn't really that grand anyway - a floating village? Big deal. Who really cares about a floating village anyway? Crabs from the crab village? Whatever.
- A good many problems can be avoided by spending time on this forum.

Easy fleecing encourages more fleecing. Guy says, "Holy moly! I sold $.20 worth of day-old crabs for $10!!! And they left a tip! A few more of these and I can retire!" So the guy gets a little more intense on his thievery. There you have it.

The crab in Kep can be pricey, even for locals, However I do find the crab there pretty tasty and fresh when you choose your own! Sometimes you just have to pay up or go elsewhere. That not to say I support locals ripping off tourists.

I think the floating villages near Siem Reap are well known for being a tourist rip off. Never had a problem at Kep crab market but that was a few years ago. It may help if you could name the restaurant as there are quite a few there, maybe its just one? I find many tourist places to be a rip off. In Cambodia I found in restaurants, local ones you get far more rice, free tea, often free soup, but meat is less and often lots of bones, prices about half of tourist restaurant. Tourist restaurant you just get meal with small portion of rice.

There are a few floating villages. We organised our visit through our local guide. Had a wonderful trip, so interesting, lots of fun, didn't get ripped off at all. So maybe our secret was using a local guide who has a reputation to consider. Sorry you didn't have a good experience.

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