Cambodia

I woke up in the early morning hours with a raging tummy. Luckily the generator was still on so I was able to go to the toilet with the lights on. Seconds after I started formatting as well. Definitely the deep fried chicken and shrimp we had last night!

I tried sleeping further after that, only to wake up to our alarm at 6am to go watch the sunrise and do yoga one last time on this beautiful island. I felt so bad I wanted to rather drown myself in the ocean. I dragged myself out of bed thinking yoga will make me feel better (as it always does to take a sip out of the fountain of youth).

The sunrise was a bit of a disappointment compared to the sunsets we have seen here.

Then we headed to breakfast where I was only able to stomach 2 cups of tea. Before checking out of our rustic bungalow and heading to the pier where our water taxi to the M'pai pier was waiting for us.

At the M'pai pier we waited about 20 min before the speed boat arrived at about 9:15. We were only expecting it at 9:30 and anticipated it to be the last stop before it returns to the main land. It turns out it was early because we had to go to some other stops too, anyway thats no big deal. We took the early speed boat as we learned the hard way they are not to be trusted. After a whole 30 minutes wait at the main pier of the island we were finally on our way to the mainland again in a boat packed almost double its capacity.

We arrived at Sihanoukville with at least 2 hours to kill before we had to head towards the airport. We used this time to lookup flights and possible hotels for Phuket. By this time I was shaking of hunger but I was way to scared to eat something. So I drank a flat coke to at least get some sugar in me.

Just after 12 noon we both looked up the restrooms and still my tummy was not a happy camper, as you can probably imagine nore was I at this point.

We did not really know how long a drive was to the airport with a Tuk Tuk and we did not want to take any chances. As the flight itinerary said we need to be there 2 hours before we thought to leave the pier 3 hours before the flight just to be safe.

It turns out the airport is miles out if the city of Sihanoukville and it felt like we were in the Tuk tuk in the blazing sun for hours before we arrived at the airport. The Tuk tuk ride was far from uneventful as we almost got ran over by a track when our Tuk tuk decided to overtake another Tuk tuk with a massive truck just barreling down on us, hooting for us to get out of his way. We got out the way in time but then then truck actually stopped to scream at our driver and our driver just passed the truck. So for the next 10 minutes the truck was behind us trying to catch up and you could see the driver was not happy. Going through our minds, is what if the truck decides to hit us this time out of spite? Lets just say I wont be writing this if that happened.

Then when we arrived at the airport just over 2 hours before our flight they told us to wait until an hour before our flight to check in. Obviously I was pissed and I confronted them why they say we need to be there 2 hours before if they only allow check in 1 hour before. Poor Isabel tried calm me down and she got the brunt of my feeling bad and everything just not going to the plan in my head.

To kill another hour, we sat down and I had another flat coke while Isabel enjoyed her first proper cup of coffee in days. While we were waiting to check in I received confirmation that we have space on a liveabourd dive boat in Thailand but I had to make payment today and they only offered 2 methods of payments which obviously as luck would have it, we are not subscribed to either. I set off by subscribing to the cheapest option which turns out only works for US citizens or Non US citizens with US bank accounts, it only took me 45 minutes and heaps of frustration to find this out. Again poor Isabel had to put up with my grumpiness. With hindsight at list this killed more time, but all I needed was one win, one thing to just go according to plan.

We finally checked in and we were all set. I downloaded a nice Romantic comedy for us to watch on the plane. As soon as the plane took off I switched on the ipad to start our movie. As soon as the movie started playing it was clear nothing was going to go my way today, the movie was French with English subtitles, non of which was clear on Netflix when I downloaded it. Anyway I got over this disappointment with yet another mini breakdown. Isabel was so fed up with my breakdowns by now she was willing to watch Green Lantern just so I feel better. My stubbornness prevailed and we kept on watching the French film.

It was such a short flight we only got halfway through the movie. We arrived in Siem Reap 4 hours before our final flight to Bangkok. Upon investigation we found out that our check in counter only opens 2 hours before the departure time, again not the same as the airlines email that said 3 hour, but thats ok.

We found a place to eat dinner and kill another 2 hours. By this time I was raging hungry as have basically been awake 13 hours without food plus most of last night dinner did not stay in me for long.

I braved some dry toast and flat coke while Isabel enjoyed some chicken satay. During this two hours I attempted to pay for our liveaboard dive boat via the second payment option, which was 5% more expensive due to the service fee of this payment portal. After about an hour struggling with the signup of this, it blocked our HSBC credit card. Surprise surprise another thing that goes wrong, both our phones did not have enough credit to phone HSBC to unblock the credit card.

Exactly 19:45 (two hours before departure) we were waiting for AirAsia at the checkin gate to open where they said it will open, they opened the gate next to the one we were standing, told us to go to the back of the line for that one. I was moaning all the way to the back of the line as I was there first. As soon as we got to the back of that line off cause they had a change of heart and decided to open the desk where we started and took people who just arrived to get served before us. I was boiling and I had to walk away while Isabel remained in the line.

When we got to the front of the line eventually they said we only purchased 40kg of luggage between the two of us while we had 60kg. And it was $18 per kg over weight, in other words $360 just in overweight charges, while the flight including taxes and baggage allowance only cost us $224, absolute madness. They told us to rather fly tomorrow, I wanted to snap, but stayed calm and asked how is flying tomorrow going to change the fact that we have 20kg to much luggage? They confirmed that it would make no difference. Somehow Isabel convinced them to allow us to carry on 2 bags, while their policy is only one bag of 7kg. We managed to move the extra 20kg into our two small carry-on suitcases and we were sorted to get on the flight. What a relieve as I would have hated another night in Cambodia feeling the way I feel at that moment.

We finished the French movie (Blind date) in the second flight and to be honest it was the highlight of my day, apart from not understanding a word of French I really enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to anyone.

We arrived in Bangkok at 11pm, got through customs and bag pickup without any issues. We tried to get an uber to our Airbnb but off cause our credit card was blocked so that did not work, I tried to add other card to our uber profile which also failed.

Which meant we had to get credit on a phone to call HSBC. I put 300 bhat on the phone which will buy 1G of data and leave me with 85 bhat to make calls, according to the sales person its only 11 bhat per minute to call abroad, however in practice thats quite different as my credit was used in only one minute and I was unable to even get passed the automated answering part of the call center call. At midnight we gave up on trying to unblock the credit cards and just got a cap which was double what uber would have been and we had to navigate the driver in a city we have never been in cause he did not know where to go.

Finally we arrived at out Airbnb just before 1 am. Straight to bed, never want to have this day over again.

Usually I have the ability to exaggerate, but I guarantee you I have done the opposite and played down my breakdowns. Isabel is a champ to still love me and still want to travel with me after such a bad day!

{Roedolf}En savoir plus