Flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia and a Dinner Show (Tuesday, November 8th, 2016)

As we drove through heavy traffic on our way to the airport, I looked out my window and noticed the motor bikes below. They were not driving in a lane. They were driving between our lane and the sidewalk, weaving in and out as objects got in their way. 

As we continue to watch the drivers we are starting to see some order and rhythm to the way they drive, even in the midst of all the chaos.

It is only about 200 miles from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, but the roads are so bad that it would take seven hours to drive, and we can get there by air in about an hour.

The airport in Phnom Penh is really pretty easy to navigate, as are all of the airports we've been in.  All of the important signs have English captions.  Just relax and work your way through things is what we always try and tell ourselves!

It's always a little crazy when you have a big group, but unloading luggage went very smoothly.  In Cambodia luggage carts are free, so people with a lot of luggage had no problem getting it into the terminal.

When we got into the terminal they opened two additional gates in order to get our group checked in quickly.  It sounds like this is something that they do at all the airports.  We still check in individually, but it kind of keeps us together and makes the process run quickly.

All of the check-in lines have English captions.

We took a short flight on Vietnam Airlines, flying north from Phnom Phen to Siem Reap.  We checked in pretty early and checked in together, so we just assumed that we would be sitting together and never looked at our tickets, but when we got to the boarding gate, we realized that they had separated us by about 6 rows.  Bummer but no biggie!






































Making our way into Siem Reap, there is water everywhere!  I'm starting to wonder where we are going to land, but there must be a runway somewhere.

The Siem Reap airport is small, so we just unloaded into the tarmac.

Steve ended up flying with two people from our tour group, and I was with two Cambodian boys about the same age as our daughters.  One of them was super quiet, but the other one struck up a conversation with me.  He was 22 and was flying to Siem Reap to visit a friend over their independence day holiday.  He was super friendly and a lot of fun to talk to.  He finally got brave enough to ask if they could take a picture with me (something I get asked often in Asian countries) and of course I was happy to do that.   So we had our photo op in front of the plane.  

At first I was really bummed that Steve and I were separated on the plane, but it ended up being a good thing.  My new Cambodian friend got to practice his English, and I had a great time talking with him.  I hope they had a great holiday in Siem Reap!

We had some time to get checked in at the Royal Empire Hotel and look around before we needed to leave for dinner.  It was like many of the rural hotels in southeast Asia, with a combination of indoor and outdoor areas.  It was spacious and very nice.

An indoor/outdoor elevator lobby

It was dark by the time we arrived, so all of my pictures tonight are under the cover of darkness.

A beautiful pool, hopefully I can get some more pictures in the morning

The lobby and lounge area

Once everyone was settled in and had a chance to freshen up, we all met in the lobby for our trip to dinner.  Our dinner show was at the Crystal Angkor Restaurant.  It was a large theatre complex with an indoor/outdoor feel.  They put on very nice show while we enjoyed our dinner.  The dance style they performed is called Aspara, which is a traditional Cambodian dance style.

After dinner, they invited the audience up for pictures with the cast. Helen and I thought we fit right in.

This frog was on the corridor of the theatre.  I wanted to take him with me to protect me from all of the bugs that are here in Siem Reap.  Including mosquitos!!!  Mosquito protection is a must here, especially at night.

It was a really big day today, but we have an even bigger day tomorrow, so good night for now, until we meet again at some famous Cambodian temples.