Day 3 - 9th September - Siem Reap

Buoyed by the timely return of our baggage, but certainly not by our confidence in Jetstar, we took our 3.20am wake-up call by the throat, jumped into our maxi taxi and headed towards Changi airport for the second of four visits. We checked our luggage in, this time ensuring that our own individual items were checked in under our own individual names, unlike the way a certain individual member of a certain individual airline did it in Australia...

We were asked many questions, and the Jetstar Asia hostess was very particular about ensuring that it was all done according to the book - I think there was a note on our booking that said "DO NOT LOSE LUGGAGE. CUSTOMERS MAY BECOME AGITATED OR EVEN VIOLENT".

We boarded our plane on time, only to be forced to wait for about 20 minutes due to two things: firstly, a passenger had checked in and not boarded the plane; secondly, a booking with nine items of baggage had something missing. HOLD ON! we were all thinking. WE HAVE NINE ITEMS OF BAGGAGE!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

But when we arrived at the gorgeously cute Siem Reap International Airport, it was all there. Who knows what may have happened. But we, and our donations, had arrived in our country of destination.

Funny Khmer man grabbed Fiona and/or Trish and 'helped' with visas. He tried to charge an extra five dollars per person, as 'a tip', but failed. Mind you, he did get about ten extra dollars. Our first real scam - sure to be one of many!

We left the building and were greeted, in true royal fashion, by Dara, our driver. Except, Dara wasn't going to be our driver, but he came to meet us. He introduced us to our driver - Chomroeun (try pronouncing that!!!) and travelled with us to the hotel he had booked for us.

Funny, funny Dara says: "Because you are from Australia... we book you into Sydney". The name of our hotel is the Sydney Angkor Hotel. It's rather nice, and at $17 per night per twin room, it's a steal!

By now, it was after 8am (is that all???) and we eventually made our way to the Angkor Wat temple complex. I'm not going to describe it, because it's too massive. But I will say that our party was not prepared for HOW massive it is, and what a trip out there entails. Some of us also forgot to eat breakfast, so were in desperate need of an energy boost by about 10.30am.

We marvelled at the huge piles of rocks, and gaped at the details of the amazing bas relief carvings (how the hell do you pronounced that? Is it bas like a sheep, or bas like the nickname you give your mate Barry? Leave a comment to let me know!). We did a fair bit more of the same, amongst which we ate a fairly traditional Cambodian meal - curries, noodles, spring rolls, fruits, coconut etc.

By three o'clock we were all stuffed (with food, and by the humidity and temperature) and most of us had well and truly had enough of being poked and prodded by the millions of hawkers trying to sell us everything from water or tshirts, to puppets and weird musical instruments.

Then, the thunder struck. And we fled before were caught in it. Much like last night, we just beat the rain to the van, and so managed to stay dry.

Right now, at 4.15pm, I reckon everyone else is either asleep or in the bath.

I think I might go do the same.