Thomson Airlines Boeing 757 Explorer One (G-OOBF)
Port Douglas, Australia and Siem Reap, Cambodia
Monday, February 15, 2010

    After another good night of sleep, I think that I am now nearly back to normal and I am ready to get on with the expedition. This morning, following breakfast, I checked out of the hotel and took the bus over to the Rainforest Habitat, which is essentially a zoo with a lot of the inmates in a common cage with the visitors.

    It was already quite warm and the humidity is very high. Just walking around, I was quickly drenched in my own perspiration. They had some nice specimens, but the habitat is small and as a visitor, you are often on a raised platform. Photographing down on a bird is not flattering. The wallabies and kangaroos are more accessible and pretty friendly. Children were hand feeding them. Not surprisingly, the crocodiles were fenced off.

    The ride back to the airport was about an hour along the coral coast – quite beautiful. During our seven and a half hour flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia, our experts presented us with three more talks onboard. The flight time combined with the three hours we regain from the time zone change put us into Cambodia about 4:30 pm. Arrival was easy. Our expedition leaders collected all our passports and immigration entry cards onboard before we landed and took care of getting our passports stamped for us. We walked off the plane into buses that took us to the terminal building, right passed immigration, and onto mini-buses that took us to hotel. We did make one stop on the way at the Angkor Wat ticketing building. We exited the bus, formed our own private line, walked up to the window where our digital picture was taken, and then re-boarded our bus. The guide then carried over our individual photo passes for visiting Angkor Wat tomorrow.

    Arriving at the Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, we were greeted with refreshments, our dinner reservations were taken, we were handed our keys, and individually guided to our rooms. This is the epitome of a grand hotel of the 1920’s and 30’s, where you expect to see Agatha Christie characters walking the halls and sitting in the lobby.

    Jay and I had dinner in the Cafe tonight. We both opted for a simple bowl of Poh Bo soup. It was just enough and just right for how we felt. We had a good conversation, but I was in my room and ready for bed by 9 pm.