Getting off to a great start.
An early morning pickup on an overcast and drizzly day. Driver turns up early, so in a mad rush, throw cables, chargers, cards and magnifying glass into my backpack.
Just about at the airport when I realise that I forgot one important bit- my laptop!!
A dreary day just got a lot darker. One trouble with lots of secure passwords, it hard to remember them all. At the airport I pick up a dinky little laptop – at least it’s a pretty blue.
Typically boring flight to Singapore. The airport gods sure don’t like me. When we check the gate number, it is in another terminal, which turns out to be a 15 minute bus ride away. Get off the bus and check the signs for directions to Gate F59. The arrow points the way, then I notice the little note after it ‘up to 14 minute walk’ !! One day the airport gods are going to stop hating me and give me a boarding gate near the entrance to the airport. The cynical part of me thinks that the reason is all the shops that one has to walk past.
At least in Changi they have stuck a little tropical garden in the middle of the airport.
Phnom Penh
Back to reality and smoky Asian skies. The driver informs us that it is only a 10km drive, but may take up to an hour!
They have clearly imported their road rules from Vietnam. Drive on the right hand side of the road (most of the time). Don’t bother with lane markings, just let the cars, motor bikes, scooters, tuk-tuks and very occasional push bike work out how many they can fit across the road, and make it pretty by weaving patterns by dodging around as many other vehicles as you can.
Talking of imports, the driver told us that a lot of the cars are imported second hand cars from USA.
Red lights? No problem- just test your mettle by pushing across anyway. At one intersection the bikes and scooters just kept coming for at least 30 seconds after the lights changed, in part because cars were blocking the intersection anyway. So our driver just calmly pushed ahead, swerving around the other cars.
At one point there was a strange scraping noise beside the car. I looked out the window, and there was a riderless motor scooter sliding along the road on its side. The driver just shrugged his shoulders and said ‘must have been an accident behind us’.
All I can say-thank heavens it is a Buddhist country, so minimal road rage