Oddly enough, I didn’t cry when I left our home or my long-time job or when I said goodbye to my kids or my parents. I cried only once, and it was at the airport, and I cried about how much we had to pay for extra and overweight luggage. I rarely cry, and never in public if I can help it, but the tears just rolled. I was certainly frustrated and pained by the amount of money, but I suppose it was not so surprising that something would put me over the edge on the day we were really leaving.
It’s not as if I didn’t try to find out what the baggage charges would be. Asiana Airlines doesn’t list them on their website, and my two attempts to call and ask just led me into a voicemail labyrinth from which I could find no escape – and no live person to talk to. It was also frustrating because while PDX staff kept insisting that certain things were “TSA rules,” they had never been mentioned or enforced on our way from BTV – PDX or on any other flight I’ve ever been on. In fact, I gloated a little in an earlier post about how I could actually board a JetBlue flight with five carry-on items, but in Portland everyone seemed terrified to bend the “TSA rule” that allegedly limits everyone to two carry-ons only, no exceptions. And sometimes people in positions of small power like to wield that power unpleasantly. Let’s just say I left PDX with a lighter wallet and a heavy dose of frustration, and we ended up with five checked bags rather than four.
Our time in the Seattle airport, on the other hand, was easy and time passed very quickly as we met up with my cousin Julien for coffee. I hadn’t seen Julien in more than 30 years, so we had some serious catching up to do, and I was delighted that he would take the time to come all the way to the airport to see us. An hour slipped away before we knew it, but that still left us plenty of time to get through security easily (even with our abundance of carry-on items) and then get to our gate an hour before take-off. Of course, someone had managed to reassign us seats that were in different rows, but we easily found someone on the plane willing to make a switch so we could sit together. And the Asiana Airline flight attendants are the most charming and pleasant I’ve seen in a long time – or maybe that’s just relative to the unsmiling faces we dealt with all day before boarding.
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| A cousin reunion at Starbucks in the SEA airport - see any resemblance? |
Our flights to Seoul and then on to Phnom Penh passed as flights usually do - I watched a movie or two, dozed, ate mediocre airline food, and tried to stay hydrated.We landed in Phnom Penh around 11 pm and got through the gauntlet of visa applications, passport control, baggage claim and customs. I was pleased that all our bags were already waiting for us at the baggage carousel, and even more pleased to see Rethy and Mr Hang waiting for us with the van to bring us to our hotel. (I love the awkward greetings with Khmer male friends - they approach us smiling, hands out for shaking, and then continue to move in closer for the obligatory American-style hug, which they tolerate passively with arms limp at their sides.) Our hotel was perfectly lovely, though apparently no one got the memo with our reservation which requested a ground-floor room to avoid dragging our luggage any further than necessary, so we schlepped it all up two flights of stairs. Then we practically raced each other for long-overdue showers. What a surprise when I opened one of our bags to get my shampoo and discovered granola bars that I hadn't packed...and diapers! This certainly was not our bag! Thanks to the luggage tag that included the owner's email address, by 2:00 am we had made contact with the family who had grabbed our identical bag by mistake, and made a plan to swap the bags the next morning.
We spent Friday morning visiting the National Museum with our Khmer entourage: the family had taken advantage of the opportunity to come to Phnom Penh to pick us up, so Rethy, Mr Hang and his wife and 2-year-old son, Dara and his wife Areni and their 5-year-old daughter Yaya, Dara's sister Srei, Dara and Srei's 5-year-old niece Alice, and Dara's mom all had come to town, so the van ride back to Siem Reap was cozy. We were here at the guest house by 5:30, happy to be done with traveling and especially happy to see Jaz and the rest of the family.
We're finally here! It feels so familiar, as if I haven't been away very long at all. Now it's time for a good night's sleep before we start our search for a place to live.
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