Arriving in Siem Reap, Cambodia

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Sunday July 8

We left Chiang Mai on a 7:00 AM flight to Bangkok airport. We then connected with a 11:00 flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Since the flights were on different carriers, we had to “break” security, get our bags, check-in to the new carrier, and then go back through security. Bangkok is a BIG airport - this was a lot of running around … but we still had time for a stop at Starbucks - a little touch of home.

Cambodia is a poor country - on our drive from the airport (we had arranged a pick-up) we were having some second thoughts - what we saw was a “train wreck” in terms of neighborhoods. The hotel was very nice - looked as good as the web site.

After we got settled it was once again time to do laundry. We hopped in the tuk-tuk in front of the hotel - we were lucky - the driver, his name is Thy, spoke English and was very helpful. Away we went to a laundry on a small side alley - 2.5Kg of wash for $5.00US. Cambodia uses US currency! From there, Thy took us to the old market area of Siem Reap, and we started to feel better - there were restaurants and bars, plenty of tourists and ATMs. We walked around for a while - Cambodia is HOT - and then back across the river to the hotel … less than 1 mile - a five minute tuk-tuk ride for $1.00. Traffic is insane! There are no stops signs or signals - they don’t go very fast, but it is a free-for-all at an intersection between bicycles, motor scooters, tuk-tuks, cars and pedestrians. Trying to cross a street is REAL fun!

We cleaned up and chilled out for a while at the hotel. Thy took us back over to the market area about 5:30 PM and we walked around looking for a place for dinner. Nothing looked very appealing, but we finally found a nice balcony (2nd floor) restaurant, the Red Orchid Brasseries, which overlooked the Siem Reap River. We had a great balcony table and a nice Khmer dinner. After dinner we walked around - and the area was transformed! It was after sunset, about 8:00, and the area was booming! We discovered that the restaurants are all open-air and don’t get going until after sunset - so we picked-out the ones we were interested in for the next few days.

Back to the hotel about 9:00 (remember we got up at 4:30 AM). Our driver and guide were scheduled to pick us up at 8:30 the next morning.

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