I wanted to start this list as place to post warning notices to fellow travelers. There is no place in the world where I have so strongly felt that I have a bullseye painted on my shirt and am a target for scams and cheats than in Cambodia. Many "guides" will get you charged double and then come back later for their share of the take. Resturants and hotels that have good reviews in Lonely Planet and other guide books have discovered that the adverage tourist has no idea what good food is or how much to pay for anything and have gone to gougeing. Feel free to add to this list if your get ripped off some where along the road.

Bayon Resturant in Siem Reap;
One of the oldest places to cater to the western tourist in Angkor Waht country. Well reviewed and perhaps once deserved it's good reputation. Today it serves very small portions of mediocre food with rotten service at high prices ... but still the tour buses line up out side.

Crystal Hotel, ShanoukVille

This is an upper end Hotel that I found advertising on www.Canbypublicatons.com Canby Publicatons prints guides and pamphlets for hotels and the like in Cambodia and their web site is a wealth of information.

Crystal Hotel Looks good on the Inter-net and the rooms are really nice. It's 20meters to the "old folks end of OChheuTeal Beach (the main non-backpacker tourist part of town) The problem is the staff. They plug in the minibar when you check in ... refers are slow. It will be 3 or 4 hours before anything is cool. One of the people I was traveling with returned to their room to find the refer unplugged again after we had been at the beach for several hours ... obviously this hotel is not only cheap, but doesn't mind checking out your rooms while you are out.

I wanted to purchase 4 tickets for the ferry to Koh Kong but the receptionist told me that a storm was coming and that the mini bus would be a much safer for our party to travel. We booked the mini bus through her at $14USD a ticket. It wasn't until ew had boarded the mini bus and were on the way out of town that I discovered that bus tickets were $7USD and that there was not any storm coming. Fucking bitch made $28 on that one.

I didn't know they throw in refer in the hotel

He He He. I read a warning about the ol' ferry boat canceled, here's a great deal on a minibus trick on another web site. I won't fall for that one. (I will probably fall for a different one). The same web site recommended that if you do ride a minibus don't even negotiate the price up front, just get on and ride and when the locals get off you just pay what they pay. It said if you ask the question "how much?" you have just revealed you have no idea what the price should be so you will pay double. That was according to one web site. I'll find out how true that is when I get there.

If I get a chance I'll drop by there next week and tell the manager I was going to stay at his hotel for a week but I changed my mind and stayed someplace else because his receptionist cheated my friend.

Man everywhere you go now-days rip you off. I have spent about 3 months in the US traveling around and staying in Vegas and everyplace I stayed and everybusiness I dealt with had some type of rip off going. It has cost me so much more to stay here in the states that I am going back to BKK and to Cambodia just to save some money. Man greed has turned into a religion all over the world.

Greed in Vegas!!! Dear lord what's this world coming to.

Marc2733
Religion = greed. You have committed the sin of oxymoronism !!

I've decided to move to Utah and become an Oxymormon.

Wombat

Now THAT'S funny!!

E

I first experienced a Cambodian tout right on the line after crossing from Thailand. The guy asked where I was going. He didn’t have any sort of uniform, but I was still cautious (once when trying to cross a border out of India I was in a teashop waiting for the official to come back to the post; in the teashop there’s this fat slob in a loin cloth and an undershirt eyeballing me, and I’m about to ask him what the fuck he’s looking at – turned out he was the immigration officer, a lesson learned there). After deciding this guy had no official capacity I got away from him. Next day on the mini-bus to Sihanoukville it stopped at his hotel and he was pissed at me. I may need therapy to get over this one.
In Sihanoukville I stayed out at one of the beaches, I forget the name, the one near the lion statue. The driver of the mini-van from Koh Kong drove us around until we found a place we liked (there was three of us foreign guys; BTW I had very enlightening and memorable conversation on that ride re the depths of certain people’s stupidity, ask me about it sometime). I ended up hanging out with one of my fellow travelers (the dangerously stupid one magically disappeared the next morning) and whenever we were leaving there would be The Boys, a collection of touts, hanging out by the gate asking where we were going, and regardless of what we told them they would say “it closed!” and tell us they will take us to a good place, just hop on the mo-to-bhi. Of course it was always bullshit. After a few days of us laughing they gave up, but always had the dog-hanging-around-the-table expression when either of us would pass. Whenever I went to investigate other hotels there would just happen to be a tout I would recognize to intercept me at the gate so when I went to ask the price guess what would have to be added.

Q: how can you spot a Cambodian tout?
A: they wear pressed pants; it means they’ve come into their own

Everyone who passes you on the street will say “mo-to-bhi?” Well fuck, if I wanted one I wouldn’t have to be asked!

Once when walking through town I realized some numb-nut was following me on his mo-to-bhi. So I stopped and went into a restaurant to look at the menu. My shadow meandered in and spoke to the waitress. Now I was pissed – I was headed to a whorehouse and didn’t want this jackass fucking up prices. I got in his face so bad that even if he didn’t understand a word he certainly got the sentiment.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum from what this thread is about, there are places down the end of the beach that will give you free accommodation if you buy all your food, drinks (and herbs, if applicable) from them, for the regular cheap prices. The accommodation is a dormitory over the restaurant, inside the thatched roof. A little too rugged for me, I’ll spring the $5 for a room with a private toilet, but if I were 30 years younger…. I met a middle-aged French-Canadian couple staying at one of these and loving it, living out their remote tropical land fantasies.

Warning: if you can’t handle the constant in-your-face hustle don’t go to Vietnam; bad as Cambodia is, it’s worse.

Hi Bendejo
I have been to Vietnam, and is bad for in your face.
I have visited money exchangers, Brothels,etc
In both Thailand and cams,
for a taxi driver to suddenly pop out of know were, and tell the exchange booth that he had brought me, saying this so he can get commission

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