Getting to Cambodia

            My trip started out with a travelling lesson: NEVER book connecting flights on frontier. They wouldn’t check my bag all the way through so I had to pick it up in L.A. and go back through security, they also charged me for a checked bag and used the domestic weight limits even though I was flying international, so it was insanely expensive. The guy at the counter was a jerk and being ridiculous about the whole thing.

            After I got to L.A. and was walking around the outside of the airport around midnight trying to get to the right terminal I walked inside to a crowd of Asian people in lines with tons of baggage. Everyone was pushing carts of bags and packages. I got in the economy seating line and the lady immediately told me I could move up to the first class line because I was connecting from another flight, some other guy moved with me and immediately everyone in line was asking me where I was going. There were two other white girls in the whole crowd and based on their accents they were from Australia or New Zealand. The crowd was great and I immediately started feeling better. The friendliness hasn’t stopped since.

            So I’m not sure what it is about the Asian culture but it after talking to other students in my group, it wasn’t just my plane in which this occurred... No one moves on the plane. The flight here was like 19 hours and I sat in the middle of two people who each maybe got up one time. It was crazy. I don’t know how they do it, but everyone just sits and sleeps and wakes up like they have internal alarms when food is being served. It was wild.

            When I finally made it Phnom Penh I met two other students from my group (one of which was actually on the plane with me from Taiwan). Another student in our group had actually traveled here before and befriended a Tuk Tuk driver, who met us at the airport to pick us up. Tuk Tuks are Mopeds with trailers attached to the back for people to sit in. They are one of the major forms of transportation in Cambodia and totally remind me of riding in the cart that my grandpa would hook up behind his four wheelers growing up.  Tuk Tuks basically sit 4 adults comfortably but Cambodians pack in these things. We had no idea what we were getting into or what a tuk tuk was but it was quite the experience. There were three of us, immediately sweating from the extreme heat, who had just gotten there with all of our luggage for 2 months. This guy was just packing this thing and wanted us to be as comfortable as possible so he was trying to hold our suitcases on his lap while driving this scooter. It was wild. We had to stop halfway for him to get string to tie things on because he was holding like 4 things while also driving us. 

           

            We got to our hotel (where we are staying for the next 5 weeks) and holy cow is it amazing. It’s a 4 star hotel and way nicer than any of our apartments in San Francisco. 6 of us are staying in this 4 bedroom villa and then the other student in our group has a room with his wife. Our villa is amazing. It has a kitchen, washer, 3 balconies, 2 living rooms, 4 bathrooms, and tvs everywhere you turn. There is a pool, and a huge buffet breakfast every morning. And everyday we get maid service where they change our sheets and clean. We are so spoiled and everyone felt uncomfortable living somewhere so nice at first but it’s so nice, at this point its hard to complain.