The Long, Winding Road to Phnom Penh

    Ottawa Airport. Sister drops me off, Hugs all around. Get pulled from first line I'm in and swabbed on the hands, shoes and luggage, many others (shiftier than me) walk on by. Oh well, wasn't a big delay. Wait for plane, is on time and thus begins the journey.

    Vancouver at 2:20 am, waiting for 3 hours, then leave at 2:20 am,,,,what the? Oh yeah time lines were crossed....as many more will be, soon enough. So I fought to stay up till 5:20 am....Ottawa time, so I will sleep well on 12 hour flight. I took a sleeping pill and dozed off for a deep slu....what the heck???? ! hour later and somehow I've woken up and am unable to fall back asleep. I am glad my sister told me to wear long pants, as it is quit cool on the flights.

    Taipei, Taiwan. 4:40 am, now just need to wait for a few hours to reach last leg. The sun is rising, ready to burn off the fog...and it'd pretty thick. I keep watching so I can get a feel for the city skyscape, but it's not fog, it's smog, and it's not going away. People start to mill about, some with "smog masks", most without. I am chatting with family and friends as I wait, I wonder how we traveled before the internet.

There are buildings and hills back there

     The last flight to Phnom Penh, uneventful, yet pretty neat view of the Mekong river, snaking it's way in all it's brown glory across the land right to the South China Sea. The Mekong really is mighty, at 5000 kms, it's the twelfth largest river in the world.

      I land and we get herded out to the airport immigration area to get our Visas, the line up is quite long and very slow, I try my luck in the art of bribing a government official, I see a uniformed security type person and offer him $5 to process my application. He takes my paperwork and returns in about 2 minutes and I avoid 2 or 3 lines of waiting, I saved at least 45 minutes doing this.

    Someone is supposed to meet me at the airport and I don't see him anywhere, I exit the doors and get hit by a sweaty, hot 36 degree wall, and being in my jeans, was perfect. I look around at the crowd of people waiting for loved ones, when this quy approaches me and introduces himself as Mom and tells me that he is my taxi.  He brings me to the Riverstar hotel and I have finally arrived.

Hotel is at the end of this road