Day 13

It seems appropriate that today is Day 13 of the holiday, because today I woke up feeling really ill. I hadn’t slept well during the night, and by morning I felt really lousy - no appetite whatsoever, nausea and a pain in the stomach. We went down for breakfast but I asked only for toast. As it turned out, I couldn’t even get that down, so the owner made me a ginger tea instead. She gave me a cheese sandwich to take away, which actually ended up being the only thing I ate all day.

The whole day involved navigating different waves of nausea, as I either felt lousy or worse. I’m wondering if it might be a combination of dehydration, something I ate or maybe a bug I’ve picked up. The thought of it being Covid did cross our minds, but fortunately my self test came back negative.

We made some changes to our holiday after some discussions with the English guys last night in an effort to try make this trip less difficult. We have now extended our time in Siem Reap by one day whilst reducing our time in Phnom Penh, and instead of taking a six hour bus ride between the two cities, we’re taking a one hour aeroplane ride instead!

We stayed in our room until midday (our check out time) meaning we had to stay in the villa reception area until our airport transfer came about 2.5 hours later. I actually fell asleep on the lounge chair as I was feeling run down. Our transfer was in a small bus which was still more comfortable than that bus from Ha Long Bay! There wasn’t much traffic to worry about in Da Nang, and we ended up being the first customers at the Cambodia Angkor Air counter. Ever since our flight over on Philippine Airways, Ted has been considering the better seat options, and paid $10 for “extra legroom seats” on the flight!

We went through security and immigration and waited in an airport Burger King before heading to our boarding gate. Ted had bought me a Bánh Mì for lunch before we headed to the airport but unfortunately I had to throw it out, as the thought of food still nauseated me. When the flight was ready for boarding, we were bussed to the nearby aeroplane which was an ATR.

The boarding process was different, as we boarded from the rear of the aircraft instead. Our extra legroom seats weren’t any better than a regular aeroplane seat, so the ones without extra legroom would’ve been more difficult! The illness I had was really knocking me about, so I put my head against the wall and tried to sleep. Since the cabin service was only a bottle of water, I didn’t miss much.

When we arrived in Siem Reap we were among the first to disembark, since our seats were actually in the rear in the aircraft. The airport is beautiful, looking like a traditional Cambodian temple, although it was very empty and quiet inside. The immigration process was easy, even though our visas got wet somehow during our travels, and we quickly located our transfer driver Sok.

Sok was very knowledgeable, showing us the different bowing Cambodian people use for different classes of people. Like Vietnam, Cambodia tourism was hit very heavily by Covid, as the number of passengers dropped to below 10%. When we arrived at our hotel, we were very pleasantly surprised - we have a huge apartment with a separate living room and kitchen with two balconies. They even supplied us with a small fruit basket, although the fruits here aren’t quite like the ones we get back home. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to appreciate the apartment yet as I was feeling so nauseous, and Ted kindly slept on the couch so I could get better. Hoping tomorrow I feel better!Read more