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Published: March 30th 2009
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We left Moscow about 4 PM on Wednesday and arrived in Phnom Penh about 4 PM Thursday. It sounds worse than it was, because we flew overnight on an Aeroflot Illyusin Il-96, a Russian jumbo jet. We were well cared for and the in-flight movie was a portable video player, just for me. Cheryl could have had her own, but she declined in order to do something silly like sleep. One has to live with one’s choices, I guess.
We spent a few hours getting to know and love Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi airport (built since I was in Bangkok in November 2004) and then boarded our very crowded Air Asia A-319 for the 1 hour flight to Phnom Penh.
Air Asia is a wonderfully inexpensive way to fly if you plan ahead. Our two tickets and the pre-checked two suitcases came to $65. However, our friend and travel agent, Donna, had warned us to make sure and get all the baggage pre-paid as they’ll really sting you on these budget airlines if you don’t. Well, I hadn’t read the fine print and found that the two bags I prepaid could only be a maximum of 15 kilograms (33 pounds)
each. Once I discovered the error of my ways, it was too late to amend the pre-payments. When we had checked in for our first flight from the US, my bag was 27 pounds but Cheryl’s was 53.
As I read the fine print, it looked like we’d be better off with 3 bags just under 15 kg each rather than one at 15 and one way over the limit. We had a fold-up bag to distribute the excess weight and thought we’d have to pay something, but what could we do at this point?
As it turned out, they simply added the weight of the three bags together and then subtracted our 15 X 2 = 30 kg prepayments so that we paid excess charges on the total amount over 30 kg. The excess charge came to 1,650 Thai Baht or nearly $50. Remember that the total air ticket price including two bags cost about $65. An additional 15 kg bag paid at original booking time would have cost about $3. Let that be a lesson to you (and certainly to me).
The primary (no, only) reason for going to Phnom Penh is to visit our
friend, Som, and his family. Som is a young man approximately 30 years old who came to the US as a youngster with his mother and two younger siblings. He lived there without becoming a citizen and returned to Cambodia about ten years ago.
As a young teenager, Som was one of Cheryl’s Sunday school students. He continued to attend our church and was especially close to my business partner, Kent. Before Kent joined me in my business, he had been Youth Director at our church. During that time he discipled a bunch (flock? herd? gaggle?) of young guys, mostly Asians. Som was one of them.
Since that time, both we and Kent have kept in touch with Som. Kent has traveled to Cambodia on several occasions to visit him and his family which now includes a wife and two children. I came here to visit in 2004 about two months before the Tsunami hit in December of that year. A couple of years ago, they moved to the capital, Phnom Penh, where he is going to college. He expects to complete his education in 2011.
Som was to pick us up from the airport on Thursday
but was unable to make it. So, we hopped on a tuk-tuk and got a tour of downtown Phnom Penh in the bargain. A tuk-tuk is a motor scooter with a carriage for passengers. It’s really an efficient way to get around a crowded city that is always hot and rarely rains. They’re much more pleasant, much more efficient and much more romantic than a taxi.
Tuk-tuks are one of three main means of hired transport in Southeast Asia. The other two are taxis and moto-taxis. Many Asians have their own motorbikes and find their way around cities and the countryside merrily putting from one place to another. Moto-taxis are motorbikes for rent with a driver to take you where you want to go.
Surprisingly, the price of gasoline in Cambodia is quite cheap. The advertised price at most stations is 3,150 Cambodian Riel per liter which works out to about $2.85 per gallon. This is by far the lowest price we’ve seen in the 8 countries we’ve visited so far.
Our hotel turned out to be a lovely garden with individual bungalows for guest rooms. The garden included a pool, a restaurant/bar and an internet connection
in the lobby area.
Som was at our hotel at 8:15 the next morning with his wife, Rey, and their children Caleb (4) and Esther Joy (7 months) in tow. We had a nice morning at breakfast by the pool and parted company about 11:30 with the idea of everyone taking a nap and then they’d be back by at about 2:00 so we could go visit the Royal Palace. Rey said she’d never seen it either, so I offered to be her tour guide. She got a kick out of that.
Cheryl and I waited by the pool until about 3:30 and finally had to have something to eat. They showed up at 4:30 and explained that the kids slept longer than expected. Things like that happen when you’ve got youngsters of this age. No problem except the Palace closes for the day at 5:00.
Som announced that Plan B would be to have dinner with Rot’s family. Rot is a friend of our friend and my business partner, Kent. He met Rot, a young Cambodian man, in Philadelphia a couple of years ago.
We had a lovely dinner with Rot’s mom, her friend and two of Rot’s friends, Mooney (or Monique I’m not sure which) and a young man whose name was something like Lamai. He spoke English, but not a lot of it. Or maybe he was just quiet. We ate at what we’re told is Kent’s favorite Cambodian Restaurant The menu all looked good to me, so I let them order what they thought was appropriate for the group of 8 plus the two kids. If this is not actually his favorite, I can se how it could easily become so. The food was very good and the service was fantastic. The only complaint I had was the cushion-chairs had us sitting on the floor. These creaky old bones have trouble getting up and down.
Tomorrow we’re heading to Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city (population about 150,000) where Cheryl and I have hotel reservations for the next two nights. It’s about a 20 minute drive from there to Boung Priene, the home of Rey’s parents.
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