The Kingdom of Cambodia

We went to the Bangkok airport for our flight to Phnom Pehn. Let me tell you a little story about the Bangkok Airport. We went through security and were about to go down to the area where we would wait for our flight and we realized that we were in a holding area between security and the gate. It had no food and no bathrooms. We decided, since the flight was delayed and we had time, and because we were basically being held hostage, to go back through security. We talked to the women at the gate area and they told us they had to take our boarding passes to hang onto them to make sure they knew who was gone because it was delayed and at takeoff they could look down and see whose name they still had. I knew that was a ridiculous thing to do, because clearly we wouldn't be able to go through security and come back without boarding passes. Oh but we did. Fantastic security at the Bangkok airport, let me tell ya. Don't have a boarding pass? Well come on in! We were able to get a snack before heading back to the gate. The snack I speak of is an Italian guy's leftover chocolate cake. When he saw me "eating over his shoulder" and drooling at his dish, he said that he was done with it and that I could have it. I of course refused and said thank you anyway. He then insisted that it would be a waste - and who am I to waste good food? So, I ate a partially eaten chocolate cake from a strange Italian man at the airport. And it tasted oh so good.

We got back to the gate and finally were on our way to the Kingdom of Cambodia! We arrived and I was tricked into giving more money at customs because I didn't have US dollars with me. Stinkers didn't tell me that ahead of time. I complained for a good five minutes about five dollars and then got over it. We made our way to the Pavillion hotel and it was beautiful. We had two rooms - a living area and a bedroom - and a patio all to ourselves!

We changed and headed to dinner a the suggestion of the French woman at the front counter: Frizz. It was a traditional Khmer restaurant. We sat with our Lonely Planet Cambodia and split a bottle of wine, Amok (traditional amazing Cambodian cuisine that is a fish or meat steamed in a savoury coconut based curry) and sticky rice and mango for dessert. And . . . for the first time in four days we were able to breathe the air again without feeling like we'd inhaled a pile of soot. Things were looking up.