Questions on hiring a driver

I’ve been reading the threads and have a question or two about the hiring of a driver.

Is the driver mainly used to get to and from the temple i.e. Angkor Wat etc? Or in between trips if say there is a restaurant or a site you want to see, can you ask the driver to take you there?

Do the drivers tend to just take you to the “tourist” restaurants stops for lunch, you know the ones where bus loads of people will be there too? That was my experience in Bali and I had to explicitly tell him to not take me to tourist restaurants (but rather those with good food that he would go with his friends).

Questions on hiring a driver

Usually if you hire a driver for the day, they will take you wherever you want to go and stop wherever you like. If you want to go further afield, like perhaps to Banteay Srei or Bang Melea, you%26#39;ll pay more, but otherwise they are happy to stop you at other places besides the temples. Just ask.

They will take you wherever you want to go to eat as well. You may or may not want to ';eat where he eats';. Often foreigners have a hard time with eating food from stands. And frankly, he probably eats at home.

The norm is for the driver to pick you up in the morning and tour till around 11, then take you back to your hotel and pick you up again around 2 or 3, to allow you (and him) escape from the mid-day heat, time for you to maybe take a swim, do some shopping, and go eat lunch. If you want to tour THROUGH the lunch break, let your driver know this up front; they will probably charge you more.

Enjoy your trip!

Questions on hiring a driver

Usually if you hire a driver for the day, they will take you wherever you want to go and stop wherever you like. If you want to go further afield, like perhaps to Banteay Srei or Bang Melea, you%26#39;ll pay more, but otherwise they are happy to stop you at other places besides the temples. Just ask.

They will take you wherever you want to go to eat as well. You may or may not want to ';eat where he eats';. Often foreigners have a hard time with eating food from stands. And frankly, he probably eats at home.

The norm is for the driver to pick you up in the morning and tour till around 11, then take you back to your hotel and pick you up again around 2 or 3, to allow you (and him) escape from the mid-day heat, time for you to maybe take a swim, do some shopping, and go eat lunch. If you want to tour THROUGH the lunch break, let your driver know this up front; he might charge you more.

Enjoy your trip!

yes you hire the driver for the day,tell him where you want to go.for us we stopped when hungry and sort out a local restaurant,where khmers eat they are plentiful,street stalls have great delicious food and for about a dollar including your drink,so cant go wrong,remember where ever your driver suggests will be where he will make more commission.go with what you want..around the old market area also most streets have local eating places,great fresh foods .

Yes, you hire the driver for the day. You can ask them to drive wherever in the park area - including going for lunch. Drivers may get some sort of consideration for bringing you to eating places - so if you can, have an idea where you%26#39;d like to eat and ask specifically. Otherwise, you%26#39;ll have to depend upon them. At some of the better places, your driver will eat and drink for free - so no need to buy lunch for them. :)

Good news is that within the park, most restaurants are very small - so cannot accommodate bus loads of people. Usually, those buses head back towards Siem Reap for lunch. This is also useful as if you can eat lunch at atypical times, you can get the temples when more tour groups are eating. :)

My experience is that when you hire a driver, car or tuk tuk, then its up to you what you want to do and where you want to go. Most of the drivers, especially cars, but also most of the tuk tuk drivers as well, are helpful in figuring out how to divide up your day according to what you want to see, what kind of tempo you want, etc. If you keep the same driver for several days they will also begin to learn what you like to eat, how adventurous or conservative you are with food, etc. Also most drivers will be helpful in avoiding the crowds (as much as possible depending on the season).

The driver I had on my last trip I used for six days. I also used him if I was doing a day of NGO business or shopping. He would take me, wait and then off to the next stop in and around town.

In fact this driver and I became friends I would say and one day he asked me to come visit his village, meet his family and have a meal at his very humble one room shack home with his family. That was really wonderful. He knew I liked khmer food but not too esoteric so he had his wife make a pretty mainstream lunch with beef and veggies. It was delish and it was fun playing with his kids and seeing how people really live.

That was 8 months ago and I will be returning in September. In general, I was so touched by the Cambodian people and this driver and his family, that I recently put together a website doing my bit to promote Siem Reap/Angkor Wat and maybe drum up some extra business for this man. Take a look if you want at www.angkortuktuk.org.

Cheers!

';Do well by doing good.';

This is an old thread but i thought i would offer my experience from my holiday last week. I was confused about the limitations when hiring a tuk tuk driver for the day... hours of work, conditions etc but after reading other posts here i now realise i had a cheeky driver. Firstly after finishing visiting rulous group of temples at 4.30p.m. i wanted to visit angkor balloon on way back. He basically said thats very far so he just dropped us back to hotel. It would have taken till 6.00pm to see the balloon but it appeared he wanted to be finished by 5. We had only hired him at 10am and he had a 2 hour break in middle of day. I was disgusted. Sure enough next day he got even cheekier. We went out at 9am and wanted to return to our hotel for a 2 hour rest at 12.30. He was like %26#39; er no can you not eat around here%26#39;. We insisted but i thought he was really trying it on. You give an inch and they take a mile. You have to be firm. Plus he had cost 17 dollars a day which is above average. You hire the driver from 7-7pm and you are entitled to go back to your hotel during day if you want to. He must have been trying to save on petrol. 9-5 is all he did. Handy enough yet he still wasn%26#39;t happy. Know your rights. My driver took the edge of the holiday because he took advantage of my good nature. Hope you found my story someway helpful.

Well Superduper, perhaps you%26#39;d have had a better experience hiring a licensed guide.

We had a wonderful guide Tek, with whom we spent 6 days going to local temples, Preak Toal Bird Sanctuary %26amp; distant temples of Beng Melea %26amp; Koh Kher.

Some days we were out for 10 hours (the drive to Koh Ker is 3 hours each way), but of course you pay a higher price for a longer day.

The guide %26amp; the driver take off for lunch... if we were in town, we went back to our hotel to swim for a few hours during the HEAT of the day. If we were in remote temples, they either brought their own lunches from home or they went to eat or you can offer to buy them a meal.

But, it%26#39;s not like a guide or a driver is a servant that you keep for the day without breaks for a meal. The Khmer are similar to the French in that they take a long lunch. We loved this, as it gave us a chance to swim.

Tek is licensed to guide in both Siem Reap (where he lives with his wife %26amp; infant daughter) and the capitol of PP.

Tek has a wonderful sense of humor %26amp; 9 years experience as a guide.

LengTek@yahoo.com or call him at

855 12 714 790

Agree with AskOksana and will add another point. If you are lucky like many of us who have ended up with drivers and/or guides that are fantastic in their work and as people (and since so many have these positive experiences, you don%26#39;t need much %26#39;luck%26#39;) you may find yourself asking to join your driver and/or guide and enjoy a picnic type lunch sitting under a tree, taking a short nap, chatting about Cambodia, etc.

And if you really want an unusual treat and have room in the car or tuk tuk (or dont mind an additional $13 - $15 for a 2nd tuk tuk), ask the driver to bring along his family one day. Many wives and children of drivers haven%26#39;t been too often to the temples and they will love it and you will never forget such an unusual day. Check out the two albums on the upper right on my Picasaweb - http://picasaweb.google.com/AngkorWatTukTuk - to see what I mean.

I am in Siem Reap at the moment and have a very nice young man as a tuk tuk driver. I did not hire him from recommendations - he just happened to be the driver the hotel sent to collect me from the bus depot.

He has been very kind and helpful to me. I am travelling alone and am not young, so he walked around the temples with me to help me over the rough areas. Most drivers will rest in their tuk tuk while the tourist goes off to walk around by themselves. He is not a guide, although studying to be one, so is not allowed to do guiding duties in the temples. He accepts the hotel charges of $9 for small circuit, $12 for large circuit and $15 for the outlying temples. As well as this, He has driven me to the centre and back to the hotel, takes me to little $1 a meal streetside cafes and speaks quite good English. Later on today, he is coming back to take me to visit Sunshine Children%26#39;s Village.

Another thing to remember is that the driver doesn%26#39;t get paid for picking you up on arrival. This hotel has a group of drivers who are called in turn when a pick up is required. If the tourist chooses to keep the driver for their trip, he gets a few days work. If the tourist does not keep him, then the driver has to wait until it%26#39;s his ';turn'; to do the pick up and hopefully a few days work.

I did not make arrangements to keep him straight away,(didn%26#39;t know the system) just wanted to get into the aircon and a shower. When I came out later to make some tour arrangements the hotel called him back and he was very pleased. He said twice ';I am so happy';.

I don%26#39;t have his email address at the moment but will make sure I get it in the next couple of days. If anyone is interested in more info, please let me know.

Cheers

Marlene