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| Talking to the P-units |
The check in takes a while, since we booked our tickets separately (we couldn't figure out why we did that), and Emily had her name as "Emily MacDonald" on the ticket, which doesn't match her shiny new "Emily Rushdy" passport. We had to present our marriage certificate, but we got through just fine.
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| Em killing time |
September 8th, 11:10 A.M. Pacific Time, Vancouver International Airport.
We have 3.5 hours to kill.
So we bought some classic Canadian maple syrup and maple-caramel candies to give as presents to people in Cambodia, went through security, found some wifi, and called our parents to say bye.
September 8th, 2:10 P.M. Pacific Time, Vancouver International Airport
Takeoff! We read a bit of Martin Buber's "Between Man and Man", watched Thor, and ate Bee Bim Bap. Asome. Then we discovered best part of the Korean Air in-flight entertainment package: in-flight TETRIS. This was plus drole, and we played several times. You can play anyone else on the plane, but we seemed to be the only two interested in head-to-head tetris. It took us a while to figure out: when you clear more than two lines, your opponent receives those lines unless they clear their own lines, and vice-versa. This made tetris pretty intense. I'm not bad at tetris, but I discovered that Emily is insane! I think the quickest game we played saw her kill me in 10 lines. Ridiculous. In my defense, I won a few, and we both got better as we played more, but she always held the upper-hand.
September ??, ?? P.M., Korean Airplane.
We've been chasing the sun the whole flight,and the cabin lights have been dim for a few hours. Everyone's either sleeping, watching a movie, or trying to sleep. Emily finally manages to fall asleep in the awkward economy-class seats, when the lights pop on, and the flight-attendant wakes us all up! I thought that we would be arriving soon, but we soon discover that they're serving a meal.
Emily has to move her seat back upright because the table-trays don't unfold well unless the seats are upright. We were sure that we'd be served breakfast, but no, it's dinner #2. we could only really handle the dessert with some tea...though, I did my best with the meal as well :)
September 9th, 5:30 P.M., Korean Time, Seoul International Airport.
As we disembark Emily discovers that she has a cramp in her arm from all the tetris playing - apparently I wasn't mashing the buttons as intensely. We worried about our 50 minute transfer, but it turns out that our departure gate was immediately past transfer security, which gave Em enough time to discover the secret world of Korean singing toilets.
September 9th, 10:30 P.M., Cambodia Time, Phnom Penh International Airport.
We get off in a mess of people running to sign up for Visas. We threw our passports into the mix, and an airport worker who looks (and acts) like he'd been drinking, manages to pass our documents down the assembly line of visa-makers. We head down to the other end, where another airport-worker calls out people's names to come and pay for their visa. He calls for Ashrasss, I get my Passport, we go on. the next bit is interesting - they took photos and fingerprinted us (with fancy machines) just before we could get our luggage.
September 9th, a bit later P.M., Cambodia Time, just outside PPIA.
We find Prema waiting to meet us! We were so lucky to have Prema in town, and able to ease us into Cambodian life. After some fine maneuvering to fit all our bags in a taxi, we made our way to the Bur Ly guesthouse, where we crashed for the night.
4:00 A.M., Cambodian Time, Bur Ly room 507.
Em and I both wake up ready for the day. Realizing the time (after re-setting my iPhone), we decided to go back to sleep.
7:00 A.M., Cambodian Time, Bur Ly room 507.
We get up, slip a note under Prema's door to knock when she's up, and get ready for the day. We joined Prema for breakfast, met up with a friend named Naseem (and her almost-2-yr-old twins), and together with Naseem's driver, we headed out to meet some Cambodian friends!
We spent some time chatting, and got to know everyone and their babies. After we spent a bit of time entertaining the kids, Emily and I were quizzed about when we're having some of our own. These kinds of questions are happening too quickly, seriously, we've been married for a few months - why not ask "How is married life?", or "how are you two getting along?", or, "what are your plans for the next little while?". Of course, they were mostly in jest, and all the parents re-iterated how much fun the non-kids time together is. So, if you're wondering, "not just yet". :P
After a brief siesta back at the BL, Emily and Prema and I went to one of my favorite restaurants in Phnom Penh, "The Dosa Corner". I love dosas. A Dosa is like a rice-flour crepe with variable filling, usually a spicy potato and veggie thing. Em tried one, I had two that were super-spicy (I could count the green chillis in it!) and Prema had one as well.
Later, Prema took us to a place called "Lucky Groceries", where we bought a few supplies, and then later to a small cell-phone dealer to hook Emily up with a brand new celly.
After all of that, Prema went to the trouble of negotiating a taxi-ride for us right to GEMS (where we're staying) in Battambang from the BL!
The taxi was a bit late, but that was fine with us, as we had time to have another mini-siesta, and say some prayers. The taxi ride up was quick (since I napped a bit more!) and full of interesting sights, which neither Em, nor I, were on the ball about photographing. We saw motorcycles hooked up to giant trailers, pulling 30-40 factory workers home from their shifts; lots of people "fising" the "fis" from the "fis fahm". Our driver was a wonderful guy named "Own". Apparently, he "Own's" the road, as he drove in the middle of the highway a lot when there were no other cars oncoming...it was a bit strange, but turned out to be for good reason - there were small animals all over the sides of the road at night.
We got in safe and sound at around 8:00 P.M. to a home-cooked malaysian meal! Aunty Grace (Prema's mom) received us, and helped us settle in to our new (but temporary) digs.
Note: Emily's also an author on the blog, so she'll post some articles up now and then as well.
Love from the Kingdom (of Cambodia),
Ashraf
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| Bee Bim Bap! |
September ??, ?? P.M., Korean Airplane.
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| She isn't actually that excited about the seaweed soup |
Emily has to move her seat back upright because the table-trays don't unfold well unless the seats are upright. We were sure that we'd be served breakfast, but no, it's dinner #2. we could only really handle the dessert with some tea...though, I did my best with the meal as well :)
September 9th, 5:30 P.M., Korean Time, Seoul International Airport.
As we disembark Emily discovers that she has a cramp in her arm from all the tetris playing - apparently I wasn't mashing the buttons as intensely. We worried about our 50 minute transfer, but it turns out that our departure gate was immediately past transfer security, which gave Em enough time to discover the secret world of Korean singing toilets.
September 9th, 10:30 P.M., Cambodia Time, Phnom Penh International Airport.
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| Collecting bags in Phnom Penh |
September 9th, a bit later P.M., Cambodia Time, just outside PPIA.
We find Prema waiting to meet us! We were so lucky to have Prema in town, and able to ease us into Cambodian life. After some fine maneuvering to fit all our bags in a taxi, we made our way to the Bur Ly guesthouse, where we crashed for the night.
4:00 A.M., Cambodian Time, Bur Ly room 507.
Em and I both wake up ready for the day. Realizing the time (after re-setting my iPhone), we decided to go back to sleep.
7:00 A.M., Cambodian Time, Bur Ly room 507.
 |
| Chilling with some new friends and old friends |
We spent some time chatting, and got to know everyone and their babies. After we spent a bit of time entertaining the kids, Emily and I were quizzed about when we're having some of our own. These kinds of questions are happening too quickly, seriously, we've been married for a few months - why not ask "How is married life?", or "how are you two getting along?", or, "what are your plans for the next little while?". Of course, they were mostly in jest, and all the parents re-iterated how much fun the non-kids time together is. So, if you're wondering, "not just yet". :P
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| Prema and I at the Dosa Corner |
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| Em's new cell; She's pumped. |
Later, Prema took us to a place called "Lucky Groceries", where we bought a few supplies, and then later to a small cell-phone dealer to hook Emily up with a brand new celly.
After all of that, Prema went to the trouble of negotiating a taxi-ride for us right to GEMS (where we're staying) in Battambang from the BL!
The taxi was a bit late, but that was fine with us, as we had time to have another mini-siesta, and say some prayers. The taxi ride up was quick (since I napped a bit more!) and full of interesting sights, which neither Em, nor I, were on the ball about photographing. We saw motorcycles hooked up to giant trailers, pulling 30-40 factory workers home from their shifts; lots of people "fising" the "fis" from the "fis fahm". Our driver was a wonderful guy named "Own". Apparently, he "Own's" the road, as he drove in the middle of the highway a lot when there were no other cars oncoming...it was a bit strange, but turned out to be for good reason - there were small animals all over the sides of the road at night.
We got in safe and sound at around 8:00 P.M. to a home-cooked malaysian meal! Aunty Grace (Prema's mom) received us, and helped us settle in to our new (but temporary) digs.
Note: Emily's also an author on the blog, so she'll post some articles up now and then as well.
Love from the Kingdom (of Cambodia),
Ashraf
4 comments:
Ah, love the pictures! (and the words too!)
So good to see your smiley faces!
An he is back! .. Sweet! Missed Cambodge adventures!
love the post!
how bout blogging on FB or Google+? There's no "Like" or "+1" button here. ;)
(shameless plug, i know)
Yay! Thanks for taking the time to post about your first few hours on the ground! Looking forward to more stories and pics!
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