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Published: February 21st 2013
HE SAID... We arrived at Phnom Penh International Airport at 3.40pm. Check-in was easy, as the airport is very small with only 20 check-in counters. We wandered around the terminal until we boarded our flight at 5.30pm. We lifted off at 6.10pm and were on our way to Singapore. I’m not sure if we’ll return to Cambodia, and it’s a strange feeling to leave a newly discovered country and realise you may not be coming back. The on-board dinner was pretty good – fried prawns with rice and a custard tart with mango. It wasn’t a full flight, and apart from a fairly demanding child a few seats in front of us, the rest of the passengers were normal (which was quite the opposite to our flight from Singapore to Phnom Penh a few weeks earlier).
Our short flight to Singapore (just under two hours) had us touching down at Changi Airport at 8.50pm. We made our way to Terminal 3 and picked up some water for an aspirin before our eight hour flight to Melbourne, which was scheduled to leave at midnight. We sat down and used the airport’s free WiFi to check emails and catch up on our
travel blog, but we slowly faded as the night wore on. This was a very late night in comparison to our sleeping routine over the past few weeks!
We boarded our plane at 11.30pm but didn’t take-off until 12.50am. A passenger felt too sick to fly, and he asked to leave the plane. This meant getting his luggage from the luggage compartment. We were meant to leave at 11.50pm, so we had lost an hour. We were a little worried about making our flight from Melbourne to Hobart, but there was nothing we could do. Supper was served at 2.30am, and it was fantastic. I had the pan-fried chicken in basil cream sauce, while Ren opted for the braised fish in hot bean sauce. The marinated seafood in cocktail sauce was interesting, and I really enjoyed the cheese and crackers with a glass of red wine. After supper Ren slept and I continued working on my travel notes with a glass of cognac... I love plane travel!
The cabin crew woke us around 8.30am, and we were both happy to have slept well. Breakfast was served at 9am, and it was pretty basic (fruit appetiser, bread roll and
an almond muffin). The flight had been smooth and relatively quick. We were scheduled to arrive in Melbourne at 10.45am, and we hoped that we would have enough time to get through customs and check in for our local flight to Hobart.
We landed right on 10.45am and had a very easy path through customs. We declared the red peppercorns we’d picked up in Kampot but we weren’t questioned about it. We navigated the masses of delirious travellers (aka Brown’s cows) in the international terminal and walked to the domestic terminal. Our flight to Hobart was delayed by 20 minutes, so our re-scheduled take-off was 1.40pm. We wandered to the gate lounge and relaxed as we caught up on our travel writing. We felt surprisingly good, with no obvious signs of jet lag. We were almost home, and we were looking forward to playing with our two Kelpies, Jasper and Oliver.
SHE SAID... We caught a
remork (Cambodian tuk tuk, which is a motorbike that tows a covered trailer with seating) to Phnom Penh’s Pochentong International Airport in the searing 3pm afternoon heat. Having been within the borders of the old town near the Royal Palace
for the last few days, and having experienced the confines of the road blocks, the masses of black and white wearing mourners, and the high security presence – it was odd to see that Phnom Penh’s hustle and bustle had (and was continuing) to carry on as per usual a few blocks out of the royal grid.
We’d thought that it might have taken us longer than the normal 30 minutes to get to the airport. However, the roads weren’t as crowded as predicted and our
remork driver fancied himself as a
remork rally driver, so we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. Our Silk Air counter hadn’t opened, so we sat watching the rich old western men parading about with their young Cambodian girlfriends. Hannah (from our Intrepid Travel trip) was also flying to Singapore on our flight, so we checked in together.
The check-in process was from another era. They seemed to have computers, but they did most of the work by hand. The place was over-staffed – there was three or more staff at each counter, even though only one person was doing any work. After we received our boarding passes
and were walking away from the counter, we watched in horror as a man picked up our packs and dumped them on a trolley before the baggage tags had been attached. We slunk to a corner and kept watch until he walked back to the check-in counter, got the tags and attached them. It wouldn’t have taken much of a distraction for the tags to be attached to the wrong bags. The whole airport had a slightly-too-relaxed approach for my liking.
I kept Andrew and Hannah waiting at immigration as I managed to break the fingerprint machine and the officer had to re-boot his computer. It turned out that I hadn’t broken it, but I was unable to follow the fingerprint machine’s instructions yet again! The officer wasn’t perturbed by any of it (I assume he would have hung up his mobile phone call if he had been).
We looked through the four or five shops at the gates and then boarded our flight. It was a painless flight, with the highlight being a very delicious mango and custard tart. I napped for the rest of the flight and only awoke just before we landed. As much as
I was looking forward to getting home, when we caught the sky train from Changi Airport’s terminal 2 to terminal 3, I had a momentary regret that we hadn’t booked a two-night stay in Singapore. We had loved it so much the last time we were here.
We said goodbye to Hannah who was catching a flight to Sydney and made our way to our gate to undergo the usual multiple boarding pass and passport checks (it was a record four times this time). It was quite late in the night by this stage, and most of us had that glazed zombie look – alert enough to keep moving but not awake enough for conversation.
The flight to Melbourne was fantastic, apart from two minor dramas. Just as we were about to start taxiing down the runway, we felt the engines wind down again. We were told that one of the passengers was too sick to travel and had decided to off load themselves. It took just over an hour to get their luggage off, but I was oblivious to it as I had already fallen asleep. Then an hour or so into the flight, just as the
snack trolley had started service, there was an announcement asking if there were any doctors on board as they had an emergency medical situation. These two medical situations merged into one in my head, and I started having images of an Ebola-like virus sweeping through the plane! Obviously that didn’t happen. 😊
The Cantonese fish in hot bean sauce and rice was lovely. However, I can’t remember much else, and that would probably be because Andrew thinks I slept for about seven hours of the eight hour flight. I woke for breakfast, but shouldn’t have bothered. The next thing I remember was the sound of the seat belt sign going off and people shuffling to their feet. We were disembarking in Melbourne. The pilot had made up the lost hour during the flight, and after an effortless immigration and customs process (even though we declared the red peppercorns we had bought in Kampot), we leisurely sailed through to catch our domestic flight to Hobart.
We had arrived in Hobart on a very hot, dry day with a very high fire danger rating. We drove home, unpacked and made ourselves a cup of much needed tea to await the arrival of our doggies. When the kennel van pulled up at our gate, Jasper was a ball of jumping and barking excitement, while Oliver looked like one big smiley waggly tail! It was so nice to see them home again, and to also see them so happy. They had apparently made good friends with an American Spaniel called Archie at the kennels, whose company they would no doubt miss now.
It’s certainly nice to be home, but we are already missing many things from our daily routines in Cambodia.
We will gather our thoughts and write our reflections of the trip in the coming days. 😊
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The Travel Camel
Shane Dallas
Sleeping on planes
Not sure how either of you manage to do it, but unless I am laying flat or near to flat, there is no way that I can sleep - it is why I never take overnight flights. Is there any secret that I should know about?