Day 66 - Saturday March 4 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phnom Penh photos

temperature: 80F at 8:00am, sunny and hazy
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Angkor Wat & Cambodia's Colonial Capital

Duration: 2 Nights.
Walking.


NEW OVERLAND PROGRAM FOR WORLD CRUISE 2006 If you have not already pre-booked this Optional Shore Excursion you may Contact Radisson Seven Seas Reservations on 1 (800) 285-1835 to verify current status of this program. Limited space may be available and should be booked via reservations. You may also check with the Tour Manager upon embarkation to verify if this tour is still available. The following cancellation penalties apply, and cancellation charges will be billed to shipboard accounts.

90-75 Days 50% of per person Cost 74-0 Days 100% of per person Cost

March 4th 2006 -Ho Chi Minh - Phnom Penh Disembark the ship and transfer to the airport for your flight to Phnom Penh. Once there, your sightseeing will pass crumbling colonial mansions and quiet back streets en route to the Silver Pagoda, which features floor tiles made of solid silver. Beyond lies the Royal Palace and the National Museum, where you gain insight into the rich history of the Khmer people. Dinner tonight will be at a local restaurant serving Khmer specialties in an elegant outdoor garden setting. Overnight accommodations will be at the Le Royal Hotel, a Raffles property, situated in the heart of this fascinating city.

March 5th - Phnom Penh - Angkor Wat Take early morning flight from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap to visit the incredible Khmer ruins of Angkor, an acknowledged marvel of Asia and one of the wonders of the world. This sacred site enjoys a splendid jungle setting and consists of numerous complexes covering a very substantial area. Your exploration will also include the Bayon Temple, an imposing stone edifice which although smaller than Angkor Wat, is equally impressive. During the late afternoon, return to Angkor. You cannot fail to be impressed by the sheer size and magnificence of the main temple of Angkor Wat itself. Its walls are intricately carved with bas reliefs depicting mythological battles and scenes of everyday life. Later, continue exploring the temples of Angkor with exploration of one of the most mysterious sites. This is the jungle enclosed temple of Ta Phrom, which boasts a most impressive natural setting. Dinner at your hotel as you watch a performance of traditional Khmer dance. Overnight accommodations will be at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor, in Siem Reap.

March 6th - Siem Reap - Bangkok After breakfast at the hotel, travel to the airport for a direct flight to Bangkok.

Program Includes:
* Scheduled economy air Ho Chi Minh/Phnom Penh/Siem Reap/Bangkok
* 1 Nights accommodation at the The le Royal Hotel Pnnom Penh
* 1 Nights accommodation at the The Grand Hotel d'Angkor
* All entrance fees as outlined in the itinerary including All transfers, sightseeing & overland touring by privately chartered vehicle
* All meals, dinner to include two glasses of house wine and local beer
* Visa arrangements and fess for Cambodia Note: You need to have with you two passport size photographs.
Price: $1,595 pp
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Today is the day we fly to Phnom Penh to start our 3 overnights off the ship. We ate an early berakfast in LaVeranda. The special was Eggs Benedict and Debbie ordered it immediately after checking that there were no chocolate croissants. Well, after waiting 25 minutes with no Eggs Benedict, she decided to just go up to the buffet and eat some scrambled eggs with bacon. As she was buttering her toast, her Egg Benedict arrived. It is not clear what went wrong, but the waitress who took her order, brought the raspberries she ordered and a caffe latte with the explanation that something was wrong with the machine and they could not make cappuchino and was the latte alright instead. It was fine. But, then the waitress disappeared, not to be seen for the rest of the meal. Horst, the head waiter, came by and asked Debbie if she was not eating this morning and she told him she was waiting for Eggs Benedict. He asked if she had ordered it, um, yes as soon as she was seated and with the coffee. He left and asked the waiter standing at the station next to our table how long we had been there. The waiter checked his watch and said 20 minutes. Horst said, that is not right and went into the kitchen. He came back with a plate of Eggs Benedict and delivered it to another table. About 5 minutes later, Horst came back out with 2 more plates of Eggs Benedict and gave them to the waiter at the station. The waiter delivered them to tables outside. All of these tables had been seated after Debbie had ordered, so she just went and got the scrambled eggs off the buffet. Oh, well. It will be a long time before lunch today.

We went to the Constellation Theatre around 8:10am, about 10 minutes before we were scheduled to be there. By 8:30am, there were about 60 people in the room. We later learned that 61 + 2 ship's people (Manuela from the tour team and Patrick from the Dining Room) would be making the trip. At 8:30am, Manuela had everyone get in line to have their paperwork checked, and this took about 35 minutes. At about 9am, they started boarding 2 buses to take us to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, and we left about 9:15am. The flight was scheduled to leave at 11:55am. The ride to the airport was hectic as expected, lots of motor bikes, etc. But it did not prepare us for the drop off at the airport itself. There had to be at least 10,000 people waiting on the curb where we were dropped off (a couple of parked cars from the sidewalk). You can imagine our group of sixty being dropped off in the sea of humanity. We had instructions to eyeball, but not touch, our luggage to make sure it got to the airport. It took about 20 minutes to get the group to walk about 100 feet to get inside where there was only about half the frenetic activity going on. In another 20 minutes, they had us standing in a waiting area that was OK and there we waited until about 11:25am as the local guide negotiated with customs and the airline trying to get all the paperwork done. In the end, there was no room on the plane for the 2 Radisson people to fly with us. Only 1 local guide made the flight. At about, 11:45am, we finally left the waiting area and were given our passports and told to go through the Vietnam immigration check point. Well, that turned out to be quite intimidating. As our large group came into the waiting line, they opened about a half dozen new checkpoints and Clay was first in one of these new lines. Well, the checker wanted to know where his O form was. Clay told him that if it wasn't in the passport, he did not know where it was, and he was told by the local guide that his passport had all the information he needed. Well, the checker huffed and puffed a while and in about 3 minutes after clicking on his computer terminal, the checker stamped Clay's passport and Clay was off. Debbie followed, but was not asked for an O form. It was a zoo and the whole process was not handled well by the local guide company in Saigon. It was apparently a regularly scheduled flight and that is how the last 2 got bumped off because there were non-Radisson people on the flight, though only a couple of them. It was a prop plane with 16 rows of 2 seats on each side and a 17th row with only 2 seats and 2 jumpseats in the back for the steward and stewardess. From the time they handed out our tickets to the time we were wheels up was only about 10 minutes. We sat and stood for over an hour in the hot public area with few seats available and then when we got into the part of the airport with shops, A/C and plenty of seating and something to do, we just had to race through to board the plane. (Patrick said that he and Manuela got on a 2pm flight and the same thing happened to them. They did not get their tickets until the flight was boarding and after they had spent most of the day sitting out there with the throngs with no amenities they had to race to board.) We were assigned seats 3B and 3D and the seats were AB aisle CD, so we were not assigned to sit together. We rode a bus out on the tarmac to the plane and filled in from one door in the rear. Row 17 was at the back. When we got to row 3, our seats were taken. The people in them said we were just filling in and ignoring the assignments. Well, if we had been told that we would have sat together in an empty row further back. We wound up on row 1, an exit row. The flight attendants brought around wet wipes. Then they served cold drinks. Then they brought around Cambodian paperwork for us to fill out. (It was only about a 35 minute flight!) They had handed out this paperwork all the way down the plane and Sam, the local guide, had to come to each row behind them and tell us not to fill out the papers, that it was already done for us and would be ready in Phnom Pehn when we arrived. OK.
The flight to Phnom Penh left about 12 noon and we made it in under an hour. We had to exit through the back door of the plane again and board a bus. When the bus passed the plane, Debbie looked back and pointed with an appalled look on her face. All but Clay's camera may have come out for the picture of the cockpit windows almost completely covered with newspapers. It looked like a newspaper factory exploded in there. Someone said it was to keep the sun out, but were those papers up there the whole time!? Well, the ineptness we saw in Saigon was not present in Phnom Penh. Here, all the wheels had been properly greased, and we slipped right through the rest of the day with no nagging letdowns. As an illustration, the Radisson checkin-at the Beverly Wilshire in LA was marked with people waiting in hour long lines just to be told there were no rooms. The checkin to the Raffles Hotel Le Royal here in Phnom Penh took less than 5 minutes for all 61 people. We literally did not stop walking as we were asked our name and were given a key. It was that quick. Obviously, this is how it should always happen when a hotel knows that a group is coming. They should have their names and they should have assigned the rooms and be ready. But, this was a pleasure to behold. We walked in to bowing doormen and were welcomed with cold, wet cloths and an iced fruity beverage, asked our names, given our keys and sent off in the proper direction. We got a room directly behind the lobby area on the ground floor and when we opened the door our suitcase was already here. Lovely.

Here are some details of our day here in Phnom Penh. We were on two buses by 1:05pm. We did not see our checked bags, but were told not to worry as tour ground crew would handle them. (Ours was in our room when we got there around 5:45pm.) We took a computer bag as carry-on and just left that on the tour bus for the day as we toured. The guide assured us anything we left on the bus would be safe, and it was. The first stop was about 1:45pm at the Juliana Hotel for a Cambodian buffet lunch. It was a tasty lunch and Debbie was able to find some things to eat. They had a noodle lady, so Debbie had some noodles with pork similar to what she had at the restaurant in the Rex Hotel in Saigon. The local beer was Angkor Bier and it was tasty as well. The buffet was extensive and the restaurant staff was ready and waiting for us. Everyone got served quickly and efficiently and there was plenty of food for everyone.

Around 2:45pm, we got back on the bus to go to what might turn out to be one of the most memorable parts of the whole 122-day trip, the Royal Palace. This is a compound that was rebuilt in the mid 1800's and is still the home of the King of Cambodia. There are maybe six or eight buildings in the walled area surround by gardens. The buildings are just so different than what we see in the west, and the whole experience of viewing them just seems to go on and on. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the buildings, but could take pictures outside by paying a $2 fee. In some of the buildings, like the coronation hall and the Silver Pagoda, you had to remove your shoes. Also, to enter the compound, you could not be wearing shorts and women could not be sleeveless. The tour company provided white t-shirts for a few of the women who were sleeveless. Take a look at the pictures to get an idea of the architecture and the gardens. As far as describing the insides of the building, each building had a purpose, but all were spectacular. The Coronation Hall was regal. The treasury is between it and the Silver Pagoda. The Silver Pagoda has a floor of solid silver tiles (wall to wall). Everywhere you turned in it, you would see gold Buddhas with 20 carat diamonds on them. There was also a solid jade Buddha about 3 feet high. We spent about an hour or so here before we moved on to the National Museum where the only hiccup in the Phnom Penh portion of the tour occurred. It was 4:25pm and we knew the museum was closing at 5pm. So, instead of just letting us off the bus to see what we could see before 5pm, the guide (who was a little too hard for a lot of people to understand) wanted to talk about Cambodian history on the bus parked in front of the museum. Finally, about 4:30pm after a couple of people just got up and told him to let them off and in the museum, we were off and running through the museum, and it turned out the 30 minutes was sufficient time for most people.

We then drove over to Independence Monument for a photo stop, and finally around 5:30pm were on the way to Raffles Hotel, where we were staying. Along the way, we saw an elephant walking down the road in the opposite direction, so we had the guide tell the driver to turn the bus around so we could see the elephant again. It was a nice surprise to end a very nice afternoon touring in Phnom Penh. It was hot. The temperature was around 90F and the sun was shining with about 75% humidity. For everyone on Voyager who has been wondering where the sun went, we found it. It is shining brightly over Cambodia.

As mentioned before, the checkin at Raffles was strictly first class. The room was small but very nice and well air conditioned. It faced the road and not the pool courtyard and we got some noise at inconvenient times, like 5am. It had high ceilings and marble floors with an area carpet covering most of the bedroom area. We had two small beds in our room, so we just each took one. (They actually seemed shorter than normal beds. Debbie commented that at 5'2" she rarely has the top and bottom of her body in contact with the top and bottom of the bed, but she did here. Clay was happy to see no duvets and sheets and blankets.) We showered and changed before the 7:30pm buffet dinner out by the pool. (We missed the turndown service because we had the DND sign turned on while showering and changing.) The hotel information said they spray twice a week to try to hold down mosquitoes, and one of those times is Saturday mornings, but what they spray with will not hurt you. We decided to wear our own bug spray in addition as the mosquitoes around here can carry some nasty diseases. Another thing Debbie noticed in the hotel literature was that their spa prices were about 1/4 the ship's prices for twice the time. So, she made an appointment for an hour-long massage at 9pm. (price $33 including VAT).

The buffet dinner was ok, but not exceptional. We thought the lunch was better, but dinner was still good and we enjoyed it. Manuela and Patrick showed up at dinner. They had taken a 2pm flight over from Saigon. This fight was also fully booked, and they were given tickets about 10 minutes before it took off. So, it was touch and go whether they would actually make it on the trip. We still aren't sure how this got so botched up. We never heard Sam, or Manuela or Patrick say in HCMC airport that they were not going with us. We saw they had their luggage and each of them rode in a bus with 30 or so of us, so we assumed we were all going together. We looked around after racing through the immigration and security screening and they were no where to be seen and no one knew what had happened to them. One of the other guests told us that they too had booked this months in advance, as that is what the literature said you had to do, that it could not be booked aboard the ship. She said that she had asked at the Tour Desk 4 days beforehand how many people were going and she was told 20. When she got to the Constellation Theater this morning, she was told 61. She said no one explained the change in numbers to her, but the assumption was that the Tour Desk sold last minute bookings on this and that caused the flights problems. But, as we said we still aren't really sure what went wrong and anyway everyone is back together now. Someone else said that the reason our hotel in Siem Reap was changed was because of the large group size as well, but we were never given any explanation officially.

The Amrita Spa facility was just stunningly beautiful and well laid out. It looked like the hotel courtyard down to the pool on a smaller scale and with air conditioning and no bugs. Debbie had an aromatherapy massage and it was a very good experience. They had a bowl set on the floor under her face with lotus blossoms and other flowers floating in it. It was just wonderful.

We need to have our bags in the lobby by 7am tomorrow and leave for the airport at 7:45am for our flight to Siem Reap. We hope the good experiences we have had in Cambodia will continue.

Phnom Penh photos