GETTING THERE

I bought my tickets while in Pattaya. I had 9 days left on my schedule. I was staying at Flipper Lodge on Soi 8 and it was the third day of Songkran (Water festival, celebrating Buddhist Lunar New Year). It seemed like a good time to get out of Dodge. Being in the middle of the world’s biggest Wet T-shirt contest was great fun at first but I was getting tired of being soaked every time I ventured more than 5 feet past my hotel door, thank goodness it was 95 degrees. I used the Travel Agency across Soi 8 from Flipper Lodge to book my flights. I checked their prices against the Bangkok Air web page and confirmed that they were giving me a square deal. The only difficulty I ran into was keeping my tickets dry going back across the street as SongKran is serious business in BeerBarsVille. Bought a 3 leg ticket on Bangkok Air (Bangkok>Siem Reap>Phnom Penh>Bangkok) for $212 US including 3% fee for having used my MasterCard. I had done my home work so I was aware of a non-mongering site www.canbypublications.com This is the home page of an outfit that prints visitor guides, lots of good info without hyping anyone. I ended up making all of my hotel reservations while in Pattaya via the internet links I found at Canby’s. Having reservations turned out to a good thing because I choose places that provided a car to picking me up at the airport. There were plenty of Cabs waiting outside of both the Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports, but they all wanted $8 to $12 just to take you to town.

I caught a bath-bus early the next morning to the main bus depot in Pattaya well before the spirit of Songkran got going full swing. Bussed to Bangkok and took the sky train to Nana Station. I have stayed often stayed at the Majestic in Bangkok, including several days the week before and had reservations to stay for two nights after my return from Cambodia, so checking my bag into the luggage storage room at Majestic was easy. I was planning on two nights in Siem Reap and two nights in Phnom Penh. For that short of a trip I would travel with only my Day Pack. I stopped off at Eden’s for a couple hours on my way to the airport to “stock up” with a pair of girls. I hadn’t heard much about the night life in Siem Reap and if I was going to have to go without until I got to Phnom Penh I wanted the wait to be as short as possible. What’s a sex vacation with out sex?

I had been a busy little camper that morning so when I settled into my seat on a little twin prop job sporting the Bangkok Air logo I was ready for a nap. The nap was a short one because the flight took less than an hour. Getting through Customs and Immigration at the tiny Seim Reap Airport took almost as long as the airplane ride. I changed a $50 bill into Cambodian Reils with the airport money changer (3800 to the dollar). This was a waste as nobody really wanted the local currency. It seemed like they only use it to make change for amounts under $1. Even Cambodian Government Immigration wanted to be paid the $20 Visa fee in USD! I had read advice about bringing small US bills with you and I was glad that I heeded it. I didn’t see a single ATM anywhere in Cambodia. The Banks were all closed for Songkran and then the week-end, so I can’t tell you if they would do Traveler’s checks for US Dollars or not.