another travelling day

Let the battle commence.... hours sleep = 4, mosquitoes dead = 5.

A few hours broken sleep meant that by the time 9am rolled around I was out cold and woken by Mum hammering on my door. I was supposed to meet her for breakfast at 830am - oops. When we arrived last night we arranged a driver for today who will collect us at noon and drive us the 3 hours it will take to get to Kampong Cham. Right now we are sat by the pool with an hour to go before the driver arrives. We had a traditional Cambodian breakfast of fresh lychees and papaya followed by egg fried rice with vegetables, then a quick dip in the pool as the air is permanently hot and sticky. I am slightly ashamed to say that we haven't yet changed any US dollars into Cambodian Riels; I was planning to ask Eric the photographer the best place to do it, forgetting that we will probably need Riels for the village visit over the next couple of days.
£1 = 6,160 Cambodian Riels (KHR) and $1 = 4,000 Riels.

A full days travel

Smoked salmon and bubbles to start at Heathrow (becoming a holiday tradition that!), followed by a luggage strap and clickie-mosquito-bite-ease-thing purchase (don't ask - I just know they work and are worth every penny).
The main flight to Bangkok was 11h20m and I quickly discovered my "jeggings" (which were chosen for comfort, weight and pack-size when rolled into my rucksack) proved to be totally the wrong choice when it came to getting on the ultra tight flight socks that I needed to stop my legs twitching and keeping me awake. Unfortunately almost as soon as the food had been served and eaten, I began a series of hot flushes, and decided to try removing the socks to regulate my temperature - the attempt ended in another bout of sweat and frustration trying to get the damn things off!  ... after removing one of the socks I gave up and watched a film instead - "Hope Springs" with Merryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones - very amusing.
After not very much sleep and several bored hours of fidgeting, we were served breakfast followed by mild turbulence to shake it all up before arriving in Bangkok at ten to four in the afternoon local time.

The second flight was much better at only 50 mins during which they served yet another meal in record time - although worryingly the plane itself appeared to be a cut-and-shut - as the row numbers went from 14 to 32!.

Coming in to land Mum and I were a little confused as to why we could not see any lights or roads beneath us - the view was ominously dark and devoid of life. Cambodia has power right?

On arrival we successfully bought our visas, a mobile broadband SIM and recovered our luggage before heading out in a taxi to find the hotel. It all seemed very simple and easy to navigate. The only problem being the heat and the mosquitos - they were everywhere - the DEET was out the luggage and applied before we left the airport!

Also turns out Phnom Penh does indeed have electricity, and is actually very lively on a Monday night - it's just all hidden from above. Hilary's boutique hotel is perfect for us - small pool, basic recognisable food and Angkor Beer. We've arrived!

last day before the off....

....and I started it by forgetting to take my anti-malaria tablet! - thankfully it won't make too much difference as we don't arrive until Monday afternoon.

I have watered every plant in the house and written out instructions for their care as requested by Ant (or should I say the "Butcher-of-Bolney" as he was known after he killed an entire greenhouse full of my plants a couple of years ago). I have spent decades balancing avocado stones, spiked with toothpicks, on glasses full of tepid water determined to get one to germinate, and right now I am in the eighth month of caring for seven avocado stones, two of which have actually split and one has even produced roots! I am quite disappointed that the one time there actually seems to be a chance of successfully seeing an avocado seedling emerge, I could very well miss it. :-(

something's missing...

Loaded 3G Mobile Broadband SIM card into laptop, checked international roaming was enabled, topped up the credit to £50 as instructed by the website, and then discovered data roaming is not available in Cambodia, only voice and text.... So why put a price of £6/MB for data in Cambodia on your website then Three!!!????  Grrr. Have decided to get a Cambodian SIM from the aptly named comms company "Hello", when I get to Phnom Penh airport instead. At 1 cent for 500Kb and only $2 for the SIM itself I can afford to be permanently attached to the internet clogging Three's customer service desk with images from my trip.

Collected altered dress yesterday and now decided I don't even like it. Bought a small (4") lockable metal cash box which I will use to stash my dollars. I also bought a tiny waterproof tube-shaped keyring which fits a single note inside apparently of any currency. I'm a sucker for tiny useless gadgets and since Millets appear to be having some kind of winter sale and I will obviously need emergency beer money when swimming, I couldn't resist.
The rucksack embroidery is done (flag not as good as Ant's Ugandan one last year), the cold is slowly disappearing and I am on track to finish the book before we go (which incidentally is a real shocker - I've never read a book before that has to have warnings before certain chapters). So I decided to have a go at packing to see how much culling I was in for next weekend and that's when I got the shock - the rucksack is barely two-thirds full! which begs the question, what's missing? what have I forgotten?

the photographer not the model

A quick lunch time dash to Sainsbury's saw me tick two more items off my list today. The first was easy - straight to the travel money counter to get my US dollars. Got a crappy rate of only 1.52, but at least it's done.
Next stop was the photo booth for my two visa photos. I don't know if you've ever been in one of these new digital passport photo booths, but my first experience today in the one inside Crawley's Sainsbury's has to go down as something I hope I never have to do again. The first problem is its' location... not discreetly placed at one end, or in the hidden away customer facilities area, or even in the entrance foyer area, oh no, this one is stuck at right angles to the end of the busy tills, right slap bang in the middle of the store. So the people paying and packing their shopping can practically sit on your lap. Not only can they see your lower half beneath the pathetic excuse for a curtain hanging across the booth entrance, but the machine is so bloody loud, they can also hear you being instructed "press green if you are happy with your image, or the left hand button if you'd like to try again", the volume for some unknown reason then seems to increase enormously to ensure half of frickin Crawley can hear your vanity being announced with "Please be aware you only have one attempt left!"
After an agonising 30 second wait I ripped the sheet of 5 printed images from the front of the machine and trotted out of the store. By the time I got to the car I had to laugh as I gazed at the strip of highly uncomfortable, slightly mad looking women staring back at me. Let's hope the Cambodian customs officials aren't so fussy!