Phnom Penh, May 2018

Yep, a strange old day indeed. Rin very kindly picked us up just before 0700 to take us to the bus station and we’d got about half way there before we remembered that we hadn’t taken the rubbish out. I’d emptied the bins ready to go but for some reason we both forgot it as we left the condo, so I gave Rin my key cards and she did it for us on the way back.
We had a nice easy bus ride to Suvarnabhumi airport and seeing as we weren’t flying from there we caught the free transfer bus to Don Mueang airport. Not sure if we were really allowed to as it’s for people transferring but I showed the chap behind the desk the confirmation on my phone and he waved us on the bus. In fact it all went so smoothly and quickly that we arrived at Don Mueang too early to check in and had to go and have a spot of early lunch. The airport did seem to have been invaded by hoards of Chinese though who seemed to be all queuing for VAT refunds or their charter flights and having their usual shouted conversations with the person standing next to them.
Anyway, after lunch we checked in with only one person in the queue in front of us and then went through immigration without having to queue at all, totally unheard of! There was virtually no queue for the security check either but here things went slightly astray and my bag got a good rummaging resulting in the loss of a brand new deodorant (150ml) and a brand new tube of toothpaste (110ml) and I’m fairly sure she was looking for other stuff as well but couldn’t find any. Well I knew the deodorant was a bit of a dodgy thing but I’ve always got away with it before and I genuinely didn’t realise the toothpaste was over, oh well.
After all that I thought I’d try and get us in to one of the posh lounges at the airport using an old Dragonpass card I’d found whilst having a tidy up a few weeks ago and it nearly worked but the account has been frozen, looks like I’ll have to contact them and either get it unfrozen some how or just cancel it. So it was off to Starbucks instead for our hot beverage and relaxation, giving Tanya the chance to go and have a look round duty free while I relaxed, at least as much as any man can when their wife is off looking around duty free. In all fairness Tanya was really good, she had done some homework and knew how much things cost normally so was able to compare stuff to see if it was a good buy. Now I always thought duty free was supposed to be a bit cheaper, not always lots but certainly a bit. Not any duty free outfit run by King Power it would seem, normal stuff no cheaper than in the mall and special offers that aren’t really - you know the type of thing, it looks good until you notice that the size of the bottle is smaller than the regular one so that super twin pack actually ends up costing more than a regular one and it’s like that in all duty frees in Thailand. Doesn’t seem to stop the Chinese though, nearly every single one of them had at least one bulging bag of duty free and some had two or three and not just the regular things like perfume and make-up, but dried durian and mango, even chocolates, anyone would think they were setting up their own shops in China. Or perhaps there is a thriving black market in Thai duty free goods, nothing would surprise me!
Once we’d finished our refreshing Starbucks beverage we strolled down to the departure lounge, well I say lounge but it’s five downstairs gates used by budget airlines flying to destinations that aren’t too far away. You know the sort of thing, one big room with seats, a few food concessions and five gates in front of doors that lead to the buses that will take you to your planes. We staked our claim to two end seats in a row of four nice and close to the desk for our gate and settled down to enjoy the entertainment. Well it didn’t take long to start. A group of four or five Chinese women (yes them again) came along with their hand luggage and obligatory multitude of duty free bags and sort of surrounded us while they shouted at each other, waved take away food around and generally tried to intimidate us into moving. Oh dear, think they picked on the wrong people there then, I decided to choose just that moment to change my socks (I had new socks on and one was annoying me) and I’m sure I saw Tanya stretch and stick her feet out. Needless to say they got the message and settled down a few seats away.
But the thing that made me chuckle the most was the group behaviour of a load of Chinese tourists who were waiting for a delayed flight back to somewhere in China, I forget the destination but that’s not really important. What made me notice them was that they were all standing gathered around the desk waiting for their flight even though it hadn’t been called. Then as time ticked on the next flight due from that gate came on line so the gate number for the Chinese flight was changed and as soon as they noticed they all started racing over to that gate to get to the front of the queue for the flight that hadn’t been called, then about five minutes later the gate number changed again and they were all at it again, shouting and hollering at each other like it was the most important thing in the world. It was just a pity that the middle change hadn’t been to one of the upstairs gates, just imagine the fun we could have had watching them all rush off to that one only to come dashing back five minutes later. Well, except the ones who had massive laundry bags as hand luggage packed so full they could hardly lift them, they might have needed some oxygen before attempting the return trip. 😜
In due course we boarded our flight and I spent the majority of an uneventful flight filling in all of the forms required to get a visa and get through immigration and customs but it proved to be time well spent as we breezed through the whole lot. Then it was time for Tanya to get a SIM card and book us a grab car to take us to the hotel. Sounds straight forward doesn’t it but we’d only been waiting a few minutes when a local taxi driver informed us that grab weren’t allowed into the airport to pick up so if we still wanted our grab car we’d have to meet him on the main road. Fortunately this was only a short distance away and after a while we managed to locate each other and off we went.
The airport at Phnom Penh is on the outskirts of the city so we had a good opportunity to see some of it on the way to our hotel which is fairly central. Traffic is as chaotic as anywhere else in Asia and it seems like there are huge construction projects everywhere, almost like Phnom Penh is trying to catch up with its neighbours but there are also big wide boulevards, probably left over from the colonial days and open spaces where we saw people playing volleyball and badminton.
So finally we got to our hotel and after I dropped my man bag (containing all my tech) and nearly got it run over by the car (fortunately there was only a bent spectacle arm which was easily fixed) we checked in. The hotel is a basic three star but it is clean and it is certainly very central with views out on to the central market and the area will certainly need some more exploring but as it was getting late we just sorted a few things out and went out to find some food, assisted by some advice from a tuktuk driver who was waiting outside.We didn’t have to walk too far before we found a very small local noodle restaurant and although they didn’t speak any English we managed to order by pointing at the pictures and the food was excellent and good value for money, we would certainly go there again.
On the way back we bumped into the same tuktuk driver and after a chat about places to go and things to see we’ve booked him for a tour round the city tomorrow, much cheaper than the bus trip we had been looking at and this way the money goes straight to the local economy rather than some company. I’ll let you know how we get on tomorrow, or possibly the day after if the planned trip to Hard Rock Cafe results in lots of drinks and a late one.Read more