July 13th, 2017
July 13-off to Kampot
Thursday morning came just as expected. Our flight to Phnom Penh was booked for 11:15am which is a very acceptable time. Not too early, but early enough to get us to Phnom Penh at a decent hour as the drive to Kampot is 2+ hours depending on traffic.
I did get a text from airAsia at around 8am saying our Bangkok-Phnom Penh flight was delayed until 9pm 😳And then a few minutes later a text saying the Chiangmai to Bangkok flight delayed (no-“retimed”) to Noon. Don’t really care about the 45 min delay on the front end…. But the second leg being retimed to 9pm-HUGE PROBLEM. Landon is going to be at airport between 5 and 6pm with a car and driver to go to Kampot!
Relaxing morning over-get in red truck to airport ASAP to get this sorted/plead for a solution. Desk staff says taxi to airport 180 baht. Jeez I hate that rip off. So I Flagged down a red truck (songtao) in the street and he said 100 baht, then when I came back out with Troy and the bags, he says 100 each 😂😂uh-NO! Not my first rodeo…..red truck supposed to be 30 baht/person around town but I’m ok to pay premium for the airport. That being 100 total. That’s about $3usd.
So upon check in, the girl says our flight is still scheduled for 11:15am and connection at 2:55pm. And when we ask what about the texts?? She says no idea. Flight showing to her as “on time”. 🙄👍
Ok-not sure what to say-off we go to gate. At the end of the day, it is what it is…..Gate shows 11:15am departure. This bodes well for us. Then about 10:50, it changes to noon. Now I’m getting nervous. But upon further investigation, I notice that the text I got about the connecting flight has a different flight number than the one I booked! Now I have hope…..but seriously wonder why I got a text update on a flight I’m not booked on???? The mystery lives on.
Short story long….the first flight left shortly after noon and the connecting flight was delayed by about 30 minutes and they made all that time up in the air and we arrived in Phnom Penh promptly at 4:30pm Just as planned. I guess I just need to keep the faith.🙏🙏🙏🙏
Met a semi obnoxious dude while waiting for our Cambodian visas to be processed. Small world, he was from Seattle area. Retired military. Couldn’t have been more than 28 years old. And clearly retired for a multitude of stability reasons. Anyway he lives in Cambodia now and apparently loves trump bcz trump loves military and he loves anyone who is just going to give him money to do nothing. See what I mean by obnoxious? Thank you for your service but I feel like the tax payers are on the hook for a long time with this young man.
As promised, Landon arrived with the car and a driver. And we were off to Kampot. Now I know I’ve talked about this drive to Kampot before. It’s scary at best and terrifying at worst. But we have never attempted it at night before. Darkness adds a whole new layer of excitement to this adventure. Many of the “vehicles” using the “road” have no lights (head or tail) and we spent more time in the oncoming traffic lane than our own. I have never been car sick in my life, but I was absolutely there. All the bobbing and weaving and on and off the gas pedal. And upon debriefing with Landon after, he too was feeling it and was feeling quite scared about the drive. AND HE LIVES HERE….anyway, the driver had a new car, so as always we just keep faith that they want to live and protect their vehicles just as much as we do. So all will be fine.
And it was.
