Logistics

Have you seen the UPS we love Logistics commercial? Well the song is stuck in my head so I figured I would do a Cambodia Logistics blog post. Not ready with pictures and stories of our trip yet. Ok so not really logistics just the beginning of the trip....

We hired a private car to take us to the airport. It was great. It was a Lexus.  He was on time. Smoke free car. Car was warmed nicely (it was 5AM and a wee bit chilly). He spoke decent English. Dropped us in the right spot at the right terminal. 30 minutes with little traffic. 
Checked in at China Air no problems. 1 backpack bag each. Mike's almost empty mine half full. Left room for trinkets we planned to buy.

We waited for 2 hours at the airport because it does not take an hour to get there at 5AM on a Sat.

Starbucks hot coco is bitter and expensive. (But still good when it's the only thing open)

Mike has a cold, everyone on the plane is sick. The germs are floating over our heads and being breathed in by me. I am sick by the end of the flight. Airborne is a proprietary combination of 17 vitamins, minerals and herbs that help prevent colds while traveling. HIGHLY recommend it. Knocked the cold right out of me.

Three hour,  six minute flight.  We land.

We arrive at Visa window. Hand over 20 US dollars each, the one with the large presidents head on it. Other tourists used older bills and they would not accept it as payment. Also surrendered a passport size picture. 10 men are standing there waiting to collect the application, money, and picture. They look at it and hand it to one of the additional 10 men who enter the info into a computer. They hand it to one of the additional 10 men to stick the Visa in it. They hand it to one of the 3 people distributing them back to us. They held up the passport and you had to recognize yours. They did not call out the name nor the country of passport. Luckily we were one of the first people to the window so we could see ours. 15 minutes later we had our Visa and headed to the Passport Control Window. Tourists at the window being told they need to go back and get in the other line to get a visa.  Why they could not process it all at once is still amazing to me?

Passport took a digital picture of us, stamped the page, and we were on our way.

Bags were there when we got to the carousel.

Now to the bus station to head to Siem Reap.

I had no idea about anything as I did not do my pre-reading about Cambodia. I did read about the history on the flight.

We were pleasantly accosted by a taxi ticket pusher and jumped in his tuk tuk for $7.00 to the city.

We had an official looking ticket that said $7.00. Mike said we wanted to go to the Mekong Express bus terminal as he had read that was the best. Half way into town the driver says no Paramount the best. He drops us of in what looks like a dingy alley that doesn't look big enough to get a bus down it. Really this is it. A lady sitting on a rickety chairs sells us 2 tickets for $10 each. Hope we get there.

Dude yells out Siem Reap, we get on the bus.

1.5 lane road,  mostly paved, 1 hour of bumps, 1.5 hours of small little communities, 1 for pit stop, 2.5 hours of beautiful rice fields, palm trees, happy smiling people.

We arrive in the dark in a back alley with no lights (is this the same place we left?) but loads of tuk tuk drivers. We jump in one, we try 3 and he drops us of at a backpackers. $18 a night for 5 nights. Supposedly hot water and air conditioning. Did not really need the AC but would have liked the hot water and a shower that drained. We stayed anyways. OK so Day 2 we discover hot water happens at night.

Dee was our Tuk Tuk driver to the hotel and he has plans to stick to us like glue until we agree to let him drive us around during our stay in Siem Reap.  We arrange with Dee to be our driver for the week. We tell him how long we plan to stay, we don't discuss the price. We all know what it should cost.

To bed.....