Hi Gram,
We made it to Bangkok last night and checked into a decent but cheap hotel. All of the movement and finding dinner kept us up late, so we slept in a little. The hotel advertised free breakfast, so we walked down to their attached restaurant only to find it empty and unused. I figured they had discontinued the free breakfast, but the front desk clerk caught our attention as we were walking out and told us that breakfast would be brought to our room. We headed back to the room where I started looking up local breakfast places in case we needed more than a granola bar and orange juice that I expected would be their “free breakfast.”

Nattiya answered the knock on the door a minute later and returned with a tray holding two plates of fried rice – one with chicken and one with shrimp, a couple of croissants, and two squeeze boxes of orange juice. I was surprised and impressed. We enjoyed this surprise of a good breakfast in our room, then packed our bags and called a driver. “Grab” is the local equivalent here of “Uber” or “Lyft” and I’ve found that the rides are usually a fair price and require no negotiation with the taxi driver, who often try to get as much as they can out of the tourist. I’ve learned, though, that taxi drivers here use the apps too, so you’re just as likely to get a taxi as you are to get someone in their family sedan. Our driver was efficient and thorough and dropped us off exactly where we needed at the airport. I tipped him through the app, then headed inside to find the luggage storage office.

I’ve acquired some extra items over the past few months but didn’t want to try flying and riding busses with all the extra stuff. Airports over here have companies that operate before the security line where you can have them hold onto your bag for a few hours, days, weeks or months as you bop around. Their ads online and on tv are kind of funny, too. They show a woman having an awful time dragging around a tiny roller suitcase, getting it caught at curbs, getting on trains, not having anywhere to put it at restaurants, trying to juggle it while she looks at her phone… then the same woman WITHOUT the suitcase – and it’s important that I remind you that this suitcase has wheels and is tiny, like a child’s roller bag – just having the time of her life in totally different circumstances. She’s walking up stairs, at a bar with friends, riding a bike, all without the bother of that luggage ball and chain. Anyway, we headed down to the G level, found the desk, did the paperwork, then headed off, one suitcase lighter, to check in and do the security and passport shuffle.

I am pretty good at travel in the USA, whisking through security and lines, but that ability has not translated well overseas. I take everything out of my pockets, take off my belt, remove my shoes, yet I set off the metal detector every time and have to get wanded while the agent eyes me suspiciously. Then a different agent asks the inevitable “is this your bag?” and I follow him to a table so he can rifle through my stuff while I refill my pockets, lace my belt, and put on my shoes. In this episode, he pulled some things out, put them in a bin, then sent everything back through. He set aside that bin, pulled a few other things out and into a bin, then re-ran it all. He eventually found the culprit – my toothpaste – then kind of put everything back in the bag, shrugged and pantomimed that the toothpaste was going in the garbage, and handed it all back. I shrugged and smiled, accepted my bag, then walked over to a table set up so tourists can repack their bags.

With everything reassembled, we looked at the time and which gate we needed, and saw that we had a couple hours to kill. I thought “okay, this is my time to shine. She’s going to be SO IMPRESSED when I take her to a lounge and we get treated like minor VIPs, away from the crowds with comfortable-ish furniture and snacks.” We walked up to the lounge desk, showed my pass on my phone, and headed down the escalator into a pretty posh lounge. It was nice and quiet, had a pretty good snack spread and beverages, and lots of comfortable seating with power outlets. We set our stuff near a couple of seats, then headed up and grabbed some drinks and snacks. Here’s the thing, though. She didn’t look impressed. She acted like “ok, this is what we do after the security line, of course” like she’d done this a thousand times… OR like she’d never done this before and had no idea what to expect, which is the actual case. She’s flown once before, with family when she was much younger. “Going to the airport” doesn’t trigger any PTSD for her – no long lines, no crowds, no screaming children, no rigid uncomfortable chairs, no annoying announcements or smelly and loud fellow passengers. We had been sitting there for a while, chatting about Cambodia and watching the planes out the window, when she asked how they knew which food and drinks to charge us for or if it was just one set price. I explained the whole idea of airport lounges and membership and all of that, and only then was she like “oh, cool. This is nice.” We enjoyed more lounging and water while we watched more planes out the windows, then grabbed our stuff and headed to the gate. Walking through the terminal and to the gate, she commented about how fascinating all the activity and shops and people were. It turns out, when you’ve never been to the airport before, the quiet lounge isn’t the good part. The hustle and bustle are much more exciting.

We boarded our plane with no problem and had a quick flight over to Siem Reap. The seats were comfortable, the immigration paperwork took up most of my time, and we were de-boarding before we knew it. The airport in Siem Reap is brand new. Besides the “new airport” smell, it also lacked shops and glitter. We walked straight to immigration and customs, stood in line for maybe five minutes, then were walking out the front door before I realized that I hadn’t seen any shops selling SIM cards for the phone, hadn’t been assaulted by anyone trying to give me a ride. We actually had to walk down the sidewalk a bit to a few folding tables that were setup with three different phone service providers. I settled on one, paid them $10 for a 60GB internet plan, then started looking for a bus or taxi. A uniformed young man came up and offered us a ride, trying first to get a little extra out of us before agreeing to a price slightly lower than I could find on Grab. He introduced us to Ben, our driver, who loaded our bags into his minvan, gave us each a bottle of water, and helped us into our seats.

I hadn’t realized it, but the new airport is quite a ways out of town. We had been driving for about 20 minutes when I asked him to stop for a bathroom break. He pulled over at a gas station/ open air market/ mall, parked the van on the side of the road, then escorted me, asking for directions along the way, between some stalls, down a hallway, around a corner until we found the men’s room. Before he headed back to the van, I asked him to show Nattiya, who had stayed with the van, the way here. We crossed paths on my way out, then all reassembled at the van. Ben explained that this market is where farmers bring their produce, which is then divided up and sold to smaller vendors, who then sell it on the streets. Kind of a cool efficient system.

Back in the van, we completed the drive to the hotel, stopping once more for an ATM so I could pay him when we arrived. The first ATM only dispensed US Dollars, which I thought was a little weird, so I canceled that transaction and found one that asked if I wanted USD or Cambodian Riel. I chose Riel (which is pronounced like “real”), then got in the van and finally to the hotel. As we pulled up, a uniformed man walked out and met us at the van. Ben handed him the bags, which he carried in and set to the side of the desk, always staying within arms reach and eyesight. At the desk, a different very pleasant and helpful young man took our passports, then ushered us over to a table to wait while he did the necessary paperwork. We were soon presented with a cool towel to wipe our brows and a glass of pineapple juice to refresh ourselves. All of this is pretty new to me and absolutely new to Nattiya, so I showed her to wipe her brow and hands with the towel, then set it down and we sipped our juices. Soon, we were presented with our passports and shown to our room.

I’ll be honest, when I booked this room I was thinking “for this price, I’m going to be a little fancy and I hope it impresses her.” A short walk later, our attendant unlocked the double doors, pushed aside the curtains, and showed us into our room. I felt like royalty – no, scratch that, I felt like I was posh and fancy, the vision people have of celebrities and royalty, but probably nothing like the way they’re actually treated. The room had a king-sized bed, sofa, and desk in the main room, then a hallway with a wardrobe on one side and a room with the vanity and soaking tub on the other. The hall led to a narrow room with a toilet at one end and a stand-up shower at the other. The wardrobe, vanity and tub room, and shower and toilet room were spacious, taking up more room than the bed and couch room, which was not small. A couple of sliding doors allowed everything to be partitioned off for privacy, and all the dark wood and ornate details made it feel regal. The bathtub has a 5 ft square picture window to let in a lot of sunlight from the room – or so I’m told – with a shade that can be drawn for privacy. This makes each room feel larger with more light when the shade isn’t drawn, but private when it is. The pool is a few steps away outside our room, with the restaurant, spa, and gym on the other side. Gosh darnit, we felt fancy!

We unpacked our bags a little, then agreed that we were both hungry. The front desk arranged a tuktuk -a motorbike pulling a carriage with bench seats – to take us over to Pub Street, the tourist area in town, or one of the tourist areas. A short ride and 12,000 Riel ($3) later, we were looking at all the neon, glitter, glow, and music one could expect when you’re a tourist. We walked up and down the street, gawking at all the vendors, shops, and performers while a stream of hawkers tried to sell us on their services and wares, then down each of the side streets. After one lap up and down the four legs of the plus sign that made up the main pedestrian area, we picked a restaurant at random and headed upstairs.

It tasted like freezer burnt nothingness that didn’t impress me with flavor or consistency, but it was beautiful and worth the $2 or $3 I paid for it. I ended up eating a few of the rolls, then throwing the rest of it away as a tuktuk driver that had chatted us up earlier found us again and offered to take us home. Finished with this spectacle, we followed him to his chariot, wondered at the ornamentation as we drove by, then headed into the hotel with smiles on our faces. Exhausted after such a big day, sleep was soon to follow.