Hokay, First things first: ISGP is the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity. I'll get to explaining what the training was all about when we get there.
The date is December 8th, and Avuth has arrived at around 2:00 in a tuk-tuk for us to go check-in early for our 4:30 flight to Kuala Lumpur. The drive to the airport is pretty uneventful, with the only exciting bit being the cheap price. We wait in line, but hop from line ot line until we find the best/fastest moving one. All the excitement happens when we get to the counter to check in: my check in goes smoothly, but when Avuth steps up to the counter he gets rejected HARD. For some reason Cambodians can't leave the country without a return ticket! After haggling with the not-very-happy and not-very-helpful lady at the counter, we decided to call Avuth's mom to see if she could help - eventually, together with Counselor Ludher, they decided to buy a return ticket online, and text us the confirmation code. So we watch everyone check-in for the flight and pass us by (oh how the proud have fallen!). We try and see if I can fit my over-sized shaving-cream into Avuth's bag so that it doesn't get tossed at airport security...it was either that or I pay some extra cash to check my little red duffle-bag. After a tense half-hour or so, Avuth finally gets the text we've been waiting for and we get ready to check him in. Unhelpful lady stays true to her title, and refuses to help us, direct us to another one of the equally unbusy, but definitely more helpful Air Asia ladies.
After forcing Avuth to run outside and half-way around the airport to print off the proof of his ticket, we were finally allowed to pay more money so that we could go through to security. I completely forgot to fill out my departure card while we were waiting, so when we got to immigration I had to run back to a table and fill it out. The whole period is kinda frenzied because we're under the impression that we'll be late for the plane. so after quickly filling it out and getting through security, I pick up my shoulder-bag and happily scoot off with Avuth to go find our gate.
we arrive at the gate only to find that our flight still hasn't been called up...and then it gets delayed by 20 minutes, and then another 50. So we burn time with conversation and a drink from the random dairy-queen. People have been standing in line all this time, and we were left confused...until we realized there is no pre-assigned seating on our flight! so we find an unfortunate seat on the plane, and I come to another startling revelation: I don't have my little red duffle-bag! Oh noes! so I get off the plane and ask them to wait while I go look for it. I couldn't find it around the seats so I ask one of the officials walking around, and he tells me they've been announcing the bag over the intercom for the last hour...in khmer. We go back to security and they tell em they were moments away from sending the bag to some far-off storage unit. LUCKY! I check and see that they decided my clothes were too big to steal, and run back to the plane. Apparently, everyone was waiting for me, but no one gave me a hard time about it :)
The flight was alright. We met a businessman who jumped back and forth between malaysia and he was pretty depressed about businessmen in Cambodia after being cheated pretty badly by a few guys. I was mulling over his misfortune when I almost ran into some of my own: I wanted a bottle of water, and asked the waitress how much it cost. She said "4 ringit" I had some ringit in my wallet, tucked away in my bag, but already had a few USD in my pocket, so I asked, "how much US?" She pulls out a magic calculator, punches in a couple of numbers, and then shows the result to me - 2. (the conversion rate is $1 USD: $3.6 RM!) so Avuth spotted me the Ringits till we got out of the plane.
KL has a cool taxi system: you tell this guy at a kiosk where you want to go and then pay him the amount, he gives you a voucher, and then you give the voucher to the taxi driver, who takes you to the location - no hustle, no hassle. We made it to the Ludher residence at pearl point with no troubles, met Lau, Haifa, and eventually Tahirih, and then crashed for the night.
part 2 will cover the ENTIRETY of the intense 10 days of training...in whatever order I remember them.
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