A very long journey

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Everything is in order and we hit the road. It’s a 5 hour drive to reach Paris and catch our plane in late afternoon. Traffic in Paris being unpredictable, we need to leave relatively early. Still, it gets a bit longer than expected to reach the airport. Time to park, leave the car to the agency and moving to the right terminal. As we reach the terminal 2A, we look at the board to see where we shall check in. It’s 1 hour and 20 mns before our plane takes off. It indicates: check in counter closed!!!! We suddenly panic. How is this possible that check in closes so early??!!! We just can’t imagine missing our flights. Since all planes are fully booked, our holidays would be completely spoiled and nowhere to go. We start running like crazy, with our mountain of luggages, all over the terminal, looking for where Cathay Pacific check in facility is located. Of course, it is at the complete end of the terminal… When running I was thinking of all possible arguments to use to allow us in, trying not to think about what we would do if we miss this flight. We run over some people with luggage who understandably scream at us, but hey sorry, we’re in a hurry. Out of breath, we reach Cathay Pacific and run into a hostess. Check in is not over! It’s just about to close. Five minutes later and we would have missed our flight. Don’t ask me why they have this policy of closing the check-in counter so early. In all those years of travelling, I’ve never seen this before.

The journey will be no problem. A 12 hour long flight to Hong Kong. Flight is okay, the service is good. But the food is disgusting and the movie system in the plane doesn’t function well, with a very poor choice of movies. Luckily, we have some reading to do. Landing at Hong Kong, a couple of hours of transit and we take a second plane to Phnom Penh. Needless to say we are quite tired. We’ve left Brittany more than 30 hours ago with barely an hour of sleep. We pick up a hotel randomly and go for a deep sleep.

Tip of the Day

We were told that because it’s low season in Cambodia in July, no need to book a hotel in advance. Certainly true if you’re looking for budget, backpacker type of place. If looking for a hotel in Sisowath Quay, it is quite likely to be full. At least for the most popular ones. We were tired so after 3 unsuccessful attempts in the hotels we wanted, we end up in Mekong Palace Hotel, 253 St Preah Sisowath. 30 usd for a room with a river view. Rooms are nothing to write home about but ok. There are windowless rooms at 15 usd. Breakfast usually is not included in the room.

Bougainvillier Hotel (www.bougainvillierhotel.com, 277 Sisowath Quay) is one of the best mid range of the area. Great rooms starting at 58 usd (suite at 85 usd). Breakfast not included. Book ahead as it’s almost always full. (bougainvillierhotel@bougainvillierhotel.com)