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Published: April 3rd 2010
Goodbye Cambodia! A short, but sweet stay. I am now ready for some cold weather. I do not like how thin my blood is becoming. It should be thick to cope with the English weather. However much I may complain about the terrible English weather (and we English love to complain), I do actually prefer the cold and wet. When it is cold I can snuggle up in a blanket in a warm house, or wear more clothes or run around. When it is hot there are only so many clothes that I can take off in public before I would get arrested. Heat makes me tired and grumpy, cold makes me annoyed. And I would much rather be annoyed than tired and grumpy.
Another early start, although not as early as 4:30, more like 5, and trust me those 30mins can make all the difference in the world. As I said in the blog when we first got to the airport at Siem Reap this airport it pretty impressive the country that it is in. We didn’t have much time, in fact we didn’t have any time once we had checked in to have a look around the departure
lounge. We had to go straight to the plane, which was actually rather a pity as the departure lounge and shop area was really rather nice. It puts Heathrow to shame actually. When I first arrive in a country by plane, my first impression is formed by what experience I have at the airport. When I flew to NY for the first time I was horrified at the guns that the police carried. That may be a normal sight for a lot of people, but police in England don’t carry guns. So that kind of scared me a bit, it made me feel that may be NY wasn’t such a nice place. Which is stupid, as NY is a great place, but that first time I went I didn’t enjoy myself at all. When I arrive back at Heathrow in London, I am met with this god awful airport that always looks like it is being refurbished, and has parts of the ceiling missing. That always makes me feel quite depressed. I would hate to think what first time visitors would think of London from the impression they get from the airport. So my point. My first impression of Cambodia
from the airport was a positive one, and I feel that I had a great time there because that first reaction helped me feel positive, and I wasn’t trying to fight to make a new impression. You are probably thinking, why is she is waffling on about airports so much? Well, this is actually a rather dull day, with not much happening. So I’m padding it out, just like I used to do with my university essays when I didn’t know what to write.
Our flight was short and sweet with Bangkok (hehehe that joke still makes me laugh - find one of the previous posts that contains it if you don’t know what I mean) Airlines. Today was a stopping over day before heading over to Cold Country. Wow it was hot here, very hot, the hottest country by far. Not just hot but humid. Now that is the killer part. We were picked up by our guide for the day, who we could hardly understand and taken to the Oriental Hotel. Now that is ultimate luxury. Only one of our rooms was ready, the room that HB, F and I were meant to sleep in. The room
was tiny, and it would have been a really squeeze to put the extra bed in there. So Mrs G asked if the other room was bigger which, which it was going to be, so she switched us. Oooo big mistake on their behalf. Our room wasn’t just a little bit bigger, it was a lot bigger. In fact we had 3 rooms to our room; the bedroom, the living room and bathroom. Once they saw what they had missed out on they weren’t too happy, but hey too late.
There was a debate about what order we should do things, eat first go to the Palace later or Palace first then eat. We went for the Palace first. Too get there we took an extremely long (long as in length not long as a long trip) speed boat to get to the area. That was an adventure in itself; very bouncy, and wet. I’ve actually been to the Golden Palace before, and I had a much better time then. I think all guides in Thailand are the same. They fill your head with knowledge that you don’t actually understand as their accent is really difficult to understand. And
On the boat again
With our guide behind us. He probably told us to take photo now.they all have the same favourite saying - ‘You take photo now!’ And this guy kept saying it. I wanted to be a 3year old and throw my camera onto the floor and say no I don’t want to take them now. I didn’t do that, but I did take them when I wasn’t meant too. Although having someone say ‘you take photo now’ kind of puts you off taking photos. The Golden Palace, is well, Gold. It is a very interesting and beautiful place. The main part is the temple, but you can see the palace complex. I am not sure if you can actually go in there though. They also have the Emerald Buddha here. This is a small Buddha statue, very much smaller than you would imagine. What makes this such an incredible statue is that it has different clothes to go with the different seasons/weather. Incredible. It was nice to go in and have a look, just to get out of the heat. But when HB and F started to fight and disturb all the other worshipers it was time to go. HB was in one of her very whiny/demanding moods. Which is very hard to
deal with. Me I take no nonsense from children. There is no excuse for rude or bad behaviour. And she was flatly refusing to wear or carry her hat. I made her wear it, so she went up to mummy and gave it to her, who then carried it for her. So what did I do? I took HB aside and told her that she is going to wear that hat, and that nobody else is going to carry it for her. I also told her that everyone is hot and tired and hungry but complaining won’t help. So she carried her hat from them. She then demanded that we go - ‘I want to go NOW’. If you ever read the Just William books or saw the TV series, there was this horrid girl in it called Violet Elisabeth who, if she did not get what she wanted, when she wanted it she would say ‘I’ll scream and scream until I’m sick!’ That is a bit what HB does when she starts demanding. She has learnt not to do it within my ear shot as I don’t take demands from 5 year olds. So her loving parents gave into
and the living room
complete with a bottle of champange! I'll be taking that ;) her demands (as they always do), so back we went to the Hotel.
The lunch was very very tasty and I had my first soda float of the trip. Mmmmm. Yummy, it is making me hungry just thinking about it. The other reason for going back to the hotel for lunch rather than having it out at the restaurant that our guide had booked was because Mrs G didn’t like the guide and wanted to get rid of him. We were meant to go to the reclining Buddha, which is a MASSIVE statue made of gold, in the afternoon with this guide. But we made up a story that we were all tired and needed to go to bed. So after lunch, F, HB and I headed upstairs ‘to go to bed 😉’ while Mr and Mrs G went out to the Reclining Buddha, only to find that our guide was the manager there. So they spent most of their time trying to avoid the guide. LOL. Us, on the other hand had a peaceful evening. HB made cards and things for Mr G’s upcoming birthday, while F and I had a much overdue maths lesson before joining in the birthday preparations.
So all in all a rather boring day, tomorrow won’t be so exciting, but the day after tomorrow will be great. But I won’t give away the secrets just yet.
To be continued ...
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Elaine
non-member comment
Where did you go next...you can't leave us hanging like that...!