Paul and Tracy's Main Blog

Woke up just before the alarm at 5.55am, and started coughing. I've got a sore throat, which I put down to sleeping in air-conditioned rooms, as they never agree with me. Am pretty certain it's that and not the SangSom and hysterics of last night. My coughing fit wakes Tracy, so we shower and get dressed quickly and then head up to the reception/bar/restaurant area to wait for the minibus to collect us. Today is much more cloudy than previously, and it's even starting to rain, albeit of the pathetic not-enough-to-warrant-a-brolly kind. Even so, and despite the early hour, the view is still pretty spectacular...





All in all, the resort has been much better than our first impressions, made all the better for the great location and short walk into town. I certainly wouldn't recommend it over others we saw, though, and with all the building work going on around us, in a few years it's likely to be very crowded indeed, and I don't think it'll be able to cope with the expansion – after all, they only seem to have 2 kayaks!

The minibus was late and we were starting to get concerned, so I phoned the office and was given the classic taxi dispatcher's response “he's just turning into your road” (actually, it was “be there in 10 minute”, but it's the same thing – he arrived in 20...). We then loaded up and set off back to the ferry and on to Trat airport. Check-in at Trat airport, including passing through security and passport control couldn't have been easier, or the staff more friendly. But that's what you get when your airport looks like the picture below, and not a concrete dungeon..





On arrival at Bangkok airport, in between bouts of violent coughing, I started singing a new song I'd made up to help us while away the hours before our flight to Siem Reap, which revolved around the whereabouts of our big yellow North Face bag. Waiting at the carousel it goes something like this: “Where be that ye-llow bag, where that ye-llow bag be”. There's only those 2 lines. Repeated over and over. It's very catching. Or as Tracy put it “very annoying”. Still, it helped pass the 3 hours we had to wait. Although Tracy did look a little travel-weary by the time our flight was called...





Boarding a plane is a simple matter, even one that's heading to Cambodia. Before getting on the plane, you show your passport and boarding card to the air steward(ess). That simple process had a large group of 'mercan tourists flummoxed, because they'd not been trusted to look after their own passports and had given them to the tour guide. Who then had to give them back, so they could board. Naturally, he chose the most sensible place in the vast, empty, waiting lounge to do this. Directly in front of the check-in desk. Imagine the scene, as 30-40 50-60year old 'mercans all clamoured to get their passports back from a guide who couldn't organise a food-fight in a school canteen...

We pushed out way past and onto the bus and then onto the plane, trying not to get irritated by shouts of “HEY BOB, YOU GOT MY PASSPORT THERE BUDDY?”. Why do they have to SHOUT all the time?

Finally we were airborne again and handed a snack before starting our descent. I still can't work out why the airlines insist on feeding everyone on a flight of less than an hour, but the water was welcome because I stopped coughing for long enough to breathe.

Arriving at Siam Reap the chaos started again. Trapped in our seats by a passenger who wanted to be last off the plane (and who'd stolen my isle seat) we were last to disembark, which meant that when we reached the arrivals lounge, and needed to make our way to the Visa desks, the entrance was blocked by 30-40 50-60year old 'mercans hollerin' about what they had to do. Like sheep without a sheepdog, they seemed completely incapable of walking up to the (nearly empty) desk, handing over passport and completed visa form (complete with photo) and $20 and then collecting their passports, resplendent with a full-page Cambodian visa inside some 5 minutes later. I'm on an organised trip later this year, and sincerely hope that I don't find myself as incapable as this group of numpties...

So, with visas in hand we went in search of our baggage, to the strains of “Where be that ye-llow bag, where that ye-llow bag be” and “will you pleease shut the f' up!!!”. Having collected our bag, and narrowly avoided collecting a black eye as Tracy swung her arms about wildly (she said something that sounded like “damned flies” but I couldn't see any), we met up with our driver (how posh!) and got in the people-carrier (not posh). The drive from the airport to the hotel could have easily been down any rural road in France, but with added heat and more traffic...





It all looked very different from when we arrived back in 2004 in the back of a dusty pick-up truck. There were new hotels everywhere, and most of the scooter riders were wearing helmets (apparently it's compulsory now or a $2 fine). Their passengers (yes, plural, it's not unusual to see entire families on one bike) not, though. It's only compulsory for the rider, not the pillion(s). We passed a beautifully manicured park and along the side of a river, over a bridge and back along the other side. Aha, one-way streets, left bank going South, right bank going North. In theory, yes, as Cambodians don't seem to abide by the laws of the road. The result looks like complete madness, but we didn't see any collisions. Think Rome, but hotter, dirtier and with the traffic moving a bit slower. And the people not as well dressed.

Our hotel, the Claremont Angkor Hotel, is down a side street just off the right bank of the river, and it surprisingly good for £27 per night. The staff are all incredibly friendly and very attentive, and the room clean and well equipped. We even have a bath, although I think it's sized for Cambodian men, not overweight English men like me.





A quick shower and change and then a wander into town, dodging the traffic and find a bar down by the river where we can sit and have a cold beer and watch the world go by. At last, a cool beer to soothe my sore throat. Doesn't stop me coughing, though, so we pay up and move on to find somewhere to eat. Opposite the market we find a likely-looking place with air-conditioning, which given the temperature is still very high is a good thing, and wander in. Like tourists, we order the set menu for 2, which comprises 6 traditional Khmer dishes served in banana leaves and a dessert. I order a banana milk-shake to line my throat and try not to splutter curry across the table when it doesn't work. The food was good, but neither Tracy nor I have much of an appetite, and when the dessert arrives and is cooked banana in coconut milk, we decided to pay up and head back to the hotel. We passed an open shopping mall and whilst they didn't have any cough medicine, I did find some Strepsils which helped a little. En-route we also passed Nelly:





… and started singing “Nelly the elephant lost her trunk and said goodbye to the circus”. Well, it made a change from “Where be that ye-llow bag be”...

And so to bed...