So we arrived at the airport and much to our surprise, the international portion of the airport was very modern and closer to what we are used to (we still boarded from a bus and walking up the stairs, but SOME people could board through the walkway STRAIGHT FROM THE AIRPORT!!) This was our last Vietnam Airlines flight and we were a little bit glad about that with the delays and sketchy flying we had experienced. We checked in and the airline attendant told us that the rain was giong to stop and we would not be having any delays. Wow - I thought that was a bold prediction since the past two times were delayed at least once. He turned out to be right!!
Ya know, every airport bathroom we have been in almost, there has been something gross about it. Either it was really old, realy small for a bunch of people, or someone was throwing up. Well, this time someone was having diarrhea - really, really loud. Nice.
We boarded without a hitch and the flight went well. It was a little bumpy, but other than that, quite normal! When we arrived at the Cambodian airport, we were surprised at how nice it looked on the outside. It was a really pretty building and as we walked across the tarmac we took some pictures of it. On to form hell ...
We had to get a visa on arrival for Cambodia which cost $21 per person. There were several stations to go through. First, fill out your forms. that takes awhile with 6 of us, but by now we have a system where Kathryn and I take all of the passports and Chuck herds the kids to a central location. Then, pay and give them your passport. Move to a new line and watch your passport get handed through several people. At the new line you can pick up your passport with the visa in it. Next, we headed to immigration, excited to be through the process. Immigration turns us back because we hadn't filled out our arrival cards. Back to the central area for the kids and back to the forms for Kathryn and I...OK, back to immigration and we get through this time. Last, fill out the customs forms and turn those in. It took us so long that our driver from the hotel left. :( Plan B - get a cab. We were able to get a decent cab and started on our way to the hotel. We past several large fancy resorts which we were not staying at. We then turned onto a very narrow road and started down the bumpy path. There was definitely a lot of local life going on this road! We saw people buying petrol ... from used 2 liter bottles, watching tv outside, children playing in the street, etc. We pulled up to our hotel ...
The staff from the hotel actually came out to the cab to greet us and knew exactly who we were. They took our bags and brought us inside to sit down and have a cold drink and cold towels to wash our faces and hands. Nice start. Then, they asked us if we would like some informaiton first or to see our rooms first and we said information. Two of them gave us all of the information we could need and answered all of our questions. Anything we asked for was "yes of course" or "can". Example - "can you help us get a driver for tomorrow to see the temples?" answer" "can". It was very funny. By the time we were shown to our rooms, we had arranged a driver for the next day, a tour guide for the next day and cooking classes for the following afternoon. We hiked up to our room on the second floor (mind you the ground floor is called ground here so floor one is what we would call floor two ... i guess you could say we were on three - with no lift in this hotel). No worries - all of our luggage was carried up for us.
We begin to look over all of the information given to us and realize that we probably still had time to make the traditional Khmer dance performance and dinner that night. I call downstairs to see. "can"
Our driver comes and picks us up at 6:50 for the 7:00 show and we arrive about 7:05, but no worries. The show starts in a little while after we've had a chance to make our plates from the buffet. We had a small discussion about how our first night in Cambodia we were eating off a public buffet and how we would probably all wind up sick. Prior to leaving the hotel, we had debated about if we should bring bug spray or not. Malaria is rampant here and although we are on anti-malarials we don't want to be bit up either. We brought the bug spray because most things here even if they are inside are still open air.
The food was good and there were more options than I thought possible. We all found plenty to eat and were able to try some new things too. I should mention at this point that Cambodia is 95% Buddhist so when we walked in, there was a large altar to Buddha as there is almost everywhere when you walk in. This will become key later so don't forget this part.
We were sitting eating and enjoying the show when we noticed that the bugs were starting to get a little bad. The show turned out to be more like international night at Cori's school, but all of the kids loved it and it was dirt cheap for dinner and a show. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see a worker lady chasing something and coming towards us. Then Kathryn jumps. Something large had hit her in the calf under the table. Lucky for her, I had seen it and it was NOT a bug. Hooray...but it was a mouse. It ran off in the direciton of the other diners so we then felt safe again.
The bugs worsened and Kathryn went out front to spray herself down with bug spray. All of the taxis and drivers out there watched her in amazement and laughed. We learned from her experience and went into the bathroom to spray the rest of us down.
Here is the point where I know I have been gone for too long...Kathryn and the big kids got ice cream. Cori of course then wanted ice cream too. Kathryn warned me not to get the vanilla because it had hair in it. It didn't stop her from getting the other flavors though. Instead of saying gross - no ice cream for us, I vowed to scoop around it or get another flavor. Sadly, the vanilla was gone so someone else must have eaten that hair. We had strawberry.
When Cori finished her ice cream, she was not quite full. She said I want a blueberry muffin. I told her that there were no blueberry muffins. I knew this from going to the buffet 4 separate times to scoop out all of the baby corns for her out of one particular dish. She argued that she had SEEN blueberry muffins right next to the pyramid of oranges. This immediately rang a bell and I had to explain to her that those were offerings to Buddha and not for us to eat. Remember when I said not to forget that they were all Buddhist? There was a stack of muffins on one side and a pyramid of oranges on the other side on the altar to Buddha. She disagreed with me - nuh ah ... she thought I was just being mean and not letting her have a muffin. I told her that people had brought those for the statue and she really disagreed then and looked to Kathryn for confirmation. Kathryn confirmed and the muffin discussion then ended...
After the show, we rode back to our hotel and got our wake up call set for 3:45am. We didn't get to bed until 11pm so we knew this would be a stretch, but we had to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Caitlin, Chase, Kathryn and I did get up on time and off to see the sunrise. We let Chuck and Cori sleep.
Well, more later - hope all is well with everyone!!
Love, Kristen
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