Travel diary #3: The one where I lost my temper with a tuk tuk driver in Phnom Penh

August 4th, 2016

We spent the entire afternoon at the genocide museum. Almost 3 hours listening to horrible stories šŸ™ ThenĀ we went back to our Couchsurf host’s place.

We packed our backpacks and off we went downstairs to have a ride to our second host. He didnā€™t give a detailed address.

Here were his instructions:

Search Vimeas Guesthouse on Google. Pass this guesthouse, turn on the second left then take the first, the house is with a blue gate.

Since we didnā€™t have a complete address, we wanted to make sure that our driver knew how to get, at least, to the guesthouse.

I think we spent 5min with the first driver we saw. He kept asking me if I knew how to get there as if I were the driverā€¦ After 5min, I started to get annoyed and impatient.

Why is he not just saying that he doesnā€™t know how to get there? Why is he trying to fake?

Luckily, Davidson kept his calm and just said to him:

Look, we donā€™t know how to get there. If you donā€™t know itā€™s ok. Weā€™re gonna find someone else who will get us there.

And 10 meters from there, there was another driver. At least, he had a phone with data. So he just followed the map.

After 30min of ride we arrived.

We agreed with 12$ (at first he wanted to charge 15$). But since we didnā€™t have small change, we paid 13$ and Iā€™m pretty sure he did it on purposeā€¦

Lessons learned

  • Always choose a driver who has a smartphone with data
  • Always negotiate
  • Always keep small change in your wallet
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