teamkaren

Hello all...

Thank you for your wisdom from the board.

We just finished an amazing 3 days in Cambodia. The temples are breathtaking. Well worth the trip. The Cambodian people are amazing. Ou Panha does the Cambodian people a disservice by being dishonest.

I want to warn anyone from making the same mistake we did. I hired and corresponded with Ou Panha because of recommendation of this and other boards.

We were booked. I confirmed with him the night before. We arrived in Siem Reap on the early morning flight from Bangkok. We were supposed to have Panha pick us up at the airport. There was no Panha, instead his "brother" picked us up because Panha was sick. His "brother's" english was very bad. I could not understand him. Luckily the hotel had also sent a van. We went to the hotel in their van and told "Panha's brother" to have Panha contact the hotel. Ironically, when we arrived at the hotel, Panha was dressed in the "guide's uniform" and claimed he was sick and could not be our guide that day nor either of the next two days. In the United States, we call this the bait and swithch.

We did not use Panha's guide who could not speak english very well or his car. I caution anyone who books him. He is very unethical. Use him at your own risk.

The hotel got us a guide and driver who was GREAT!!!! and we enjoyed the trip.

Our thoughts about why Panha behaved the way he did. The guides cost $25/day. However, the guides only make $150/month. The rest of the money goes to the hotel and travel agency. Panha is over booking himself and then getting incompetent guides to cover the overload.

Our guide was Bout Sokkhoeun- [email protected]. He was extremely good.

JaneB

teamkaren:
What hotel did you stay in? Would you recommend it? We leave in 2 weeks on our trip which includes Angkor. Thanks, Jane

teamkaren

We stayed at the Sofitel for $210 per night .. not cheap, but very nice.

Overpriced other services (food, internet access, etc) but nice accomodations.

rhkkmk

i'm very sorry to hear that....we had nothing but good results with both panha and his driver....we had them for 3 days...

are you saying he wasn't sick? i really don't understand your complaint fully...i understand that his brother did not have good english but what was the real problem...??

the angkor village hotel got him for us and he was their #1 guide at the time...

i am going to contact him and ask for an explanation

rhkkmk

i heard back from panha this morning....he acknowledged the problem with "karen" and blammed it on his "fever and headache"....he claimed he came to the hotel to meet her based upon her complaint to his "cousin", whom he had sent to replace him...he also claimed that his cousin has 8 years of guiding experience and is well qualified... i am unable to judge...i have sent back another mail asking about his english skills...panha does himself have some language difficulties as he is not a native english speaker and is cambodian taught....i would not expect him to have perfect english...we had no trouble at all understanding 98% of what he said....he repeated a few things at our request and we always understood perfectly the second time...

i would use him again...

elinorg

We had a similar but not dissatisfied experience the end of Nov. Like you we booked Panha as a guide for 2 days based on recommendations from this board. Panha was very prompt and polite in answering our questions, offered to arrange transportation, accomodations etc. but as we had made our own arrangements required him only as a guide with a driver. We confirmed the dates and the price of $20. US per day per driver and guide. When we checked into our hotel the night before our confimed date Panha called us on the house phone and indicated he would like to meet us, as we were very tired after travelling all day we declined and advised him we would meet him the next morning as prearranged. Panha then advised us that he would not be our guide but had arranged for his brother Thea to accompany us explaining he was an experienced guide also. While I was somewhat surprised at the change it didn't really seem to matter and we agreed. Thea met us promptly at our arranged time the next morning, Panha had reviewed our itenerary with him and we confirmed the pricing etc. While Thea
was at first a little hard to understand
as english is his second language we soon got used to each other. We loved our Cambodian experience in fact it was a highlight of our trip and much of this was due to Thea, we found him very polite, professional and very experienced with temple guiding. We learned that he is 34 the father of 2 sons ages 2 and 4, was a teacher and is now guiding and going to university at nights on a scholarship. This person so impressed me, we had great conversations
about his country, shared stories about our families and learned so much about the ancient Khmer culture. After having some reservations about travelling to Cambodia and really not sure what to expect this was a wonderful experience I treasure. Again our guide was Thea 012 784949, our driver Ratana 012 776409 arranged by Panha Ou 012 820570.
I don't view Panha's change as unethical
but perhaps you are right in stating maybe he is overbooking but in this case
our change was a very positive one. Just wanted to share our experience, sorry yours wasn't as positive. Cheers!

michelleNYC

Trying to help a friend with some Cambodia trip planning. She soo was interested in a guide. So what is really the final say on this? Is this person legit or not? I hesitate to pass along information that is questionable. Please advise.

michelleNYC

That should have been "too" not "soo". Apologies for the typo.

drwahwah

we used pon heary [[email protected]]based on recomendations here and she was excelent and I would have no hesitaion in recomending her to anyone and during the 3 days we used 2 drivers who drove very safely. Her knowledge of the temples was extensive

rhkkmk

michelle...i don't know what to tell you....we had a very good experience...others have had a very good experience....karen did not have a good experience....

i do know that panha is trying to get a business going that is more than just being a guide....he wants to be an agency as well...so maybe he is over-booking as has been suggested???

he was prompt to answer my inquiry today and was forth coming with his side of the story so i cannot fault....but i also hear karen's side....????

rhkkmk

i heard back from panha this morning again...he says that his cousin speaks english very well and is in fact an english teacher in the school in siem reap....so i don't know what the problem really was....
i have to leave it at that...i am only interested in this subject because i suggested him as a good guide on this forum several times as have others...

the fact that he got right back to me and seemed up front is a good sign ...

i will say that bait and switch is a bit strong in this instance... i think of it more in buying a tangible product rather than providing a service...

cram

to rhkkmk
I have been following this thread with interest, because similar things have happened to me as well, in another country. Maybe you could use your relationship with this guide in SR that he is shattering his own reputation, because it is not possible to recommend someone if you do not know that he is effectively going to turn up personally. Recommendations are not for whomever Mr X delegates his appointments to, but for Mr X himself, if HE is good. If he is not a fool he will understand the message. Wouldn't you agree?

rhkkmk

cram---when we post on this forum or others we have no axe to grind or no product to push...we only say what our experience has been and give our endorsement to this person or product from our own personal experience---often in response to others comments or questions...i felt very badly that if karen read my endorsement and then had a bad exerience...in this case i guess she read another person's endorsement, but i also had suggested panha on fodors...

like everything else its all subjective...river hotels in bkk or sukhumvit hotels.....skytrain or taxis, etc etc...

i just felt that karen's statements about this individual were global in scope rather than just a recounting of her bad experience...and a warning...i and others had had good experiences with him and felt that that should be passed along too...and i felt he should know that people were talking about his interaction with her...and also that he should tell me what his side of the story is...

cram

rhkkmk,
you are perfectly right on all that. It's all so subjective. And I am glad that we have this kind of exchange of advice on this board. Has helped ME a lot too, in BKK in Oct. How else would I have come across Ratt, for instance? I think you did very well to bring the issue to this guide's attention, so that he realizes that people communicate and that he is harming himself if he delegates jobs, obtained by recomm, to people who are not at the same level of guiding. That's all I meant. Plse don't take it otherwise.

JamesA

I know nothing about this person but could it be nothing more than

"He was sick" ?

Seems he is getting a tough time of it just because he wasn't feeling well.

michelleNYC

Thank you for your thoughts, rhkkmk. Very much appreciated.

teamkaren

Sorry not to respond earlier. We have been in Chiang Mai and are now in Bangkok.

Great restaurant in Chaing Mai is "The House". Great spa is "The Oasis". They have a car that picks you up and drops you off. A 4 Season spa experience without the 4 Season price.

I think that people have had good experiences with Panha in the past when he was doing the guiding.

But that was not our experience, Panha told us that he would be our guide but did not follow thru on his committment. I understand if he was sick for one or two days but NOT all three days that he was supposed to guide us. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and said we would find a guide while he was sick but could he be our guide for 1 of the 3 days he committed to. He could not do that.

I was extremely disappointed because Angkor Wat was to be a highlight of the trip and I wanted a guide who was good. I just don't want anyone else to be disappointed now that Panha is looking to build a guiding business instead of being the guide. All power to Panha. I hope he succeeds but the first lesson he will need to learn is to be upfront and honest. That is how successful business are built and grow.

Panha's "brother" did not speak good English. I know that because we had two other guides whose English was far better than Panha's brother. The Sofitel arranged the other two guides with whom we were both very happy with. Perhaps, Panha needs to screen his "replacements better". Some people have been satisfied with Panha's replacements. I think that is great.

If Panha's brother had good English, we would have been disappointed that we specifically hired Panha but ended up with his "brother". We would have enjoyed the experience. We could not understand Panha's "brother" enough to get out of the airport. We had to have someone translate for us that Panha's "brother" was telling us about Panha being sick.

I hope this gives some insight into our experience.

Karen

Alan

What an interesting thread! Although the pros and cons of this particular gentleman's guiding skills are of no interest at all to me -- I am prepared to accept rhkkmk's word on this, based on past threads posted by rhkkmk, which have all been friendly and fair and with some spirit of the love of tourism in them -- what really interested me was the heading. That's really pulling no punches.... not "guide problem in cambodia" or "beware substitute guides", or "language problems with guides".... just a full-on statement telling us "DO NOT HIRE" this unfortunate man. Never mind that he is a person trying to run a business -- if he doesn't measure up to Karen's expectations, he doesn't deserve to have a business, and Karen is quite prepared to wipe him out, from the safe distance of her home (the USA).

She goes on to say that he does the people of Cambodia a service by being dishonest" (there's directness for you), and then "he is very unethical". How blunt and to the point is that! She tells us that in her home country they have a name for this man's substitution of his brother to cover his sickness ("bait and switch" well, in my country, Australia, we have a name for what Karen just did to him on this forum. It's called defamation.

What a pathetically mean and nasty reaction to what I would think would be a relatively minor disappointment! But, of course, I understand.... this type of thing wouldn't happen in the good old US of A, Karen, would it? And if it did, why, any upright citizen would then slander the transgressor right out of business. That's the way it's done where you come from, is it?

Ah, it's so peaceful out here in Australia!

mrwunrfl

I stayed at the Sofitel this week. After making the reservation, I got an e-mail from Mr. Narin at the reservation desk at the Sofitel who offered tour guide, car & driver services by his "brother".

The guides name is Koy Vy (pronounced Vee) and his English is very good. He was very knowledgeable about the sights and used several architectural and archaeological terms. I am a quiet tourist but he had plenty to say, offering info about Cambodian culture and way of life. The driver came with a nice clean 13 y.o. Toyota Camry.

My brief visit was much better for hiring them, as we flew past the bicycle riders, tour buses, and tuk tuks, and Mr Koy certainly knew where to go and pointed out all the best places to take photos, narrated the scenes on the bas reliefs, etc.

leniram

The title of this topic is very alarming. I thought the tour guide has done an evil deed enuf to bring it to the authorities.

But looo, upon reading this thread, the main dissatisfaction is that teamkaren's original tour guide didn't speak good English. This doesnt suffice condemning somebody's livelihood in Cambodia.