My hubby and I visited Cambodia for our late summer vacation. The purpose of our visit was solely to see Angkor Wat and other World Heritage sites in the area. As I have been there 18 years before, I knew what the ruins looked like. So, my interest was different from my hubby’s. My motivation of the visit was to see improvement of the town as I was told by my friends who have been there with me once and visited there again recently, that there has been a lot of development and changes with the increase of the tourists.
We flew to Siem Reap via Bangkok. Though I am not sure if it is right to compare those two countries, Siem Reap airport system was a way behind comparing to the modernized airport of Bangkok where we enjoyed a glass of Singha and Somtam.
When our plane landed at the airport, we walked a runway to the airpot building. Then, we applied for our visa there. To process visa was a complete manual operation without computers. An assembly-line system was formed by six to seven custom control officials sat side by side over the counter, each of whom has a role such as verifying the passport and the application form, putting the visa sticker on the passport, putting a stamp on the passport, etc. When the visa is ready, one of official read our names to a group of applicants. As there were no checks of personal identification to get return his/her passport with the visa, anyone could take the other’s passport if he/she says “it’s me” which made me nervous. After the visa, we went through immigration check which took forty-five minutes due to manual operation again, though this one was with a computer.
Our pick-up from the hotel was supposed to be waiting for us at the airport, however, there were no pick-ups when we got out the airport. A driver arrived finally by my three times calls to the hotel. Though the hotel apologized to us that no show-up was due to their miss-operation, I was so tired, disappointed, and in a low-mood by the time we got the hotel. Still, we had to carry our battle with mosquitos in our room…
*The flight movie “Fun mom dinner” was good, I say it’s a motherhood version of “Sex and the city”.