Thursday, February 2, 2012

Acclimatisation

We had set the alarm for 5am but as we were both awake at 4.30 we just got up then. Our flight was 6.50 so we had masses of time.It was a real knees at the chin job. Goodness knows how Mick would have folded himself in to the space. We had PREORDERED!! and prepaid a hotdog combo as our breakfast on the plane. It seemed the safer of the two options. Suffice to say that we wont be having that again.It was a 2 hour flight and we lost an hour so were checked in to our hotel by 9.30. It had taken us quite a while to get our entry visas but it was really a very slick operation. We had decided there were to be no heroics and we got a taxi to the hotel this time.

Our hotel is a vast improvement on last night's but by no means the best we have booked for this trip. After getting ourselves sorted we went out for an explore.

Siem Reap is not a huge city and we are very central. It reminds us more of India than China. It is very hot and humid so it was a case of keeping an eye (one that works!) on our watches until it was a vaguely respectable time to have our first Cambodian beer - followed very rapidly by our second!

We had a lovely couple of hours relaxing by the pool then braced ourselves for the haggle to get a moto (the Cambodian version of a tuk tuk. It's a motor bike towing a small chariot.) It is fun but the sheer number of them accounts for a lot of the air pollution. Anyway I digress. We got the moto to take us to the bus station to buy our tickets to go to Phnom Penh on Sunday. Thanks Jane and Salad for the tip. Fantastic - we got 2 seats right at the front upstairs in an airconditioned bus with a toilet! Hopefully this will not be one of the worst 6 hours of our lives as it was for you. Although we bought it at the bus staion it was hardly a ticket office and our tickets look decidedly second hand! We paid 5 dollars (everything here is priced in US$) for our moto round trip to the bus station and our tickets in this posh bus - similar to the X77 to Ayr - were US$8 each for the 6 hour journey. Hmmn we'll see!

We have booked a car and driver for the day tomorrow. He is picking us up at 5.10 so that we can be at Ankar Wat for sunrise. Did someone say to rest and relax on this holiday? Given our early start and our current sleep deficit we have decided to have dinner in the hotel tonight.
Just what the doc would have ordered.

3 comments:

  1. Ooh, get you - a bus with a toilet (never mind the aircon)!!! Pool looks fab, too... Hope you enjoy the temples - make sure you go to the Bayon (the one with all the faces)- like nothing else you'll see...

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  2. It all sounds very hectic and exciting and I'm glad you are enjoying yourselves so far. Good luck on the bus!

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  3. Bus sounds like the City Link Gold,though a longer trip.

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