neilythere

Arriving at Penang was a bit hair raising, the Air Asia pilot who thought he was Tom Cruise overshot the small runway and had to pull up before we went straight on in to the river; this is not a good feeling when you are already clenching for all your worth with food poisoning. He circled one more time, then tried to land again, even then he hit the ground quite hard, we were just glad we were going to be off this plane in a few minutes.  After going through passport control and a trip to the loo, we were met by a large man who looked like a Samoan rugby player who loaded our cases into the minibus and sat us next to an Australian couple. The Australian couple constantly talked about how many time they’d been there and how it was only a short hop for them, all the time I couldn't stop staring at the man who seemed to have no neck and rather sweaty.   After about an hour in heavy traffic, we arrived at the Holiday Inn Penang and we’re dropped off on the "wrong" side ...

Arriving at Siem Reap airport is a very strange experience, once you get off the plane you have to queue to have a visa stamped in your passport and pay for the pleasure of it. You enter the terminal building told to stand in line before being summoned by one of the twelve or so Generals sitting holding court. Your passport seems to get shown to every one of them twice, before someone makes a decision to stamp it and wave you on your way 20 dollars lighter. We made a point of getting some US dollars before we went because everyone seems to prefer this currency instead of their own and everything seemed to cost 2 dollars. Our transfers were included in the price so we didn’t have to wait long and it was only a short distance to the splendid colonial style Victoria Angkor Hotel.After checking in we went for a walk to see what was near the hotel, not much really a shopping mall and a few shops, everything else was in town by the market 5 minutes away by Tuk-Tuk and costs 2 do...