Siem Reap to Bangkok
I am getting good at this. Up at 4.10am … checking to make sure I know where I am going with grab and accidentally order one … quickly cancel. I will probably get charged but is only 5500 KHR so I should not worry too much.
I shower and finish packing. It is 4.50am and I am ordering my grab to CDF Angkor Duty Free Store, where the airport bus evidently leaves from. First bus is at 5.30am. I could have got a tuk tuk all the way but the bus is cheaper at only $8 for a 1.25 hour trip.
The bus arrives on time and I pay the driver. All the other passengers are airport staff … I am the only tourist. Nice bus, clean and good air con.
The next bus was 7am. I am well early for my flight. I see that my flight is the first one out for the day at 9.50am.
This is a brand new airport and only opened in October 2023. I see that there are only 11 departing flights for the day and the last one being 5.10pm. Services are a bit limited prior to check in with just a small kiosk for food and coffee etc.
Check in is a breeze with Thai Smile Airline. The check in guy is nice and chatty … telling me that the kiwi bird can not fly … but I am flying. They tell me that the flight is full and they allocate me seat 55C … must be a big plane. The flight is only one hour so I am not stressing it … just up and down … my kind of flight.
The facilities the other side of security are much better. Food, duty free and courtyard areas … aka smoking areas.
Today is my 14th flight of this trip.
The flight climb was a little bit rocky but coming down into Bangkok was a bit scary … I swore out loud … I don’t think many on the plane spoke English anyway.
Where I am staying is so far away from the airport … one bonus being that I am learning how to use the trains. I also managed to buy both tickets that I needed from machines.
The owner of the place where I am staying is called Kong and it is also the name of the property. Kong is deaf and has excellent ratings for his property and evidently he is very helpful and nice.
Kong has been communicating with me via WhatsApp and booking.com messages for the past few days. He is giving me information on how to get to his property.
He has told me what trains to catch and I am now at the suggested station where he said he could pick me up from. Sapan Mai is the station and it is on the green line of the BTS.
I have turned on my international roaming and that is not working so I have purchased a sim. That is not working either so I went back to the shop to sort that. Evidently I could not use the internet with the package I bought. So I now buy data and everything seems to be working.
So I can now contact Kong and he comes to pick me up. Good think I now have internet as I was stranded without it. I landed at the airport at 11am and it is now 2.30pm so I have been trying to sort this for too long.
Kong is nice. As I said earlier, he is deaf but talks a lot in mostly not understandable words. He also uses google translate with lightening speed. He is kind of full on.
He shows me around his property and suggests that he take me for an easy rider tour of temples tomorrow. He said that there is also a special function at a temple tomorrow night and that I should go to this.
He also gives me advice for my trip back to the airport when I leave. He then goes out and buys me beer. So I am sitting here drinking beer while he rushes around and does his chores.
