Our journey from Fukuoka to Siem Reap (the town near the Angkor ruins in Cambodia) was a bit long, as there were 3 flights involved, and one of them involved a transfer in Bangkok. We may have mentioned this elsewhere, but the “new and improved” Bangkok airport isn’t so much improved. For one thing, they have some rather confusing signage. For example, when you see a sign that says “International Transfers” and arrows pointing both left and right… well, it just leads to confusion. And since it’s a new airport, the staff are also unfamiliar with things, and give conflicting directions.
After much wandering around, we eventually found the correct check-in point - only to learn that our luggage had not been checked through. So, I got to go through Customs and Immigration, find all of our backpacks (which I found in the nick of time, as they were about to be carted to the “Unclaimed Luggage” section), check them all in (while explaining to the check-in staff that there were 3 other people already inside and all 4 bags weren’t mine), pay the departure tax, go through Immigration again, and find the gate.
I don’t really like the Bangkok airport.
While I was doing this, Mom, Dad, and Remi were trying to find the departure gate. Of course, as I mentioned, the signage in Bangkok airport leaves much to be desired. Somehow they managed to wander into the Domestic Terminal, as it wasn’t very clearly marked and the security people didn’t really care if they were wandering out of the secured section. They definitely did mind when Mom, Dad, and Remi wanted back in to the secured section though. :O Fortunately, one of the staff understood the problem and escorted them to the correct area.
So, when we arrived in Siem Reap, we were rather tired, and the incredible heat and humidity that greeted us didn’t help matters much. All of us were in need of a shower and some sleep.
Fortunately for us, there was a licensed taxi stand just outside the Siem Reap airport, and we meet Joey.
He asked us where we would like to go, realized that we had absolutely no idea, but Mom required air conditioning, and so took us to a nice new hotel, complete with a swimming pool that we took advantage of as soon as we were checked in.
Joey owns his own car, knows Siem Reap very well (having lived there his whole life) and speaks good English, so we hired him to be our driver for the next 3 days. If any of you are going to Cambodia - look him up. His actual name is Mr. Hout Choy, but he goes by “Joey” for tourists who would just mangle his name anyway. His phone number is 855-1241-9944 and his email is houtchoy@yahoo.com. We highly recommend him.
On other thing of note - Remi and I had a gecko in our hotel room. Hee hee!
