Pergh at Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA (Part 1: The Arrival)

Standing tall at Wat Phnom

This is the third or fourth trip overseas that I made during fasting month. It started off as work assignment and later was extended to kinda sorta backpacking adventure on my own. Considering this is the first time I stepped foot at the worldly famous Angkor Wat (I didn't get to go to Siem Riep though), the excitement almost blew my mind.

My initial plan was of course to go to Siem Riep and stroll along the famous Angkor Wat. But fate has it, my boss seemed to sniff my plan and assigned me to another meeting that kind of screw the whole road trip. Well, what to do. When you travel on assignment, these things are almost expected to happen (and it did).

1. I boarded MH762 (Yerp, Malaysia Airlines). Well, when you travel with company, why not use the perks right? And the flight departed from KLIA at 1520 hours. Since I fast, the air crew kindly 'tapau' for me.

MAS over Phnom Penh

2. Despite all the bad lucks with MAS, the service and inflight entertainment were updated with selection of new movies and good songs.

3. I arrived at about 1630 hours, Phnom Penh time. Smooth immigration process and entry. Prolly because of ASEAN country and heck , there's even ASEAN lane. That cut off queuing time because there were few more flight arriving at the same time and it caused a bit of congestion with few immigration officers resulted in shouting and giving instructions to unruly white tourists. The funny thing is, they shouted in Khmer. Well, that kinda beat the purpose and obviously none of the foreigners understood what they were shouting about. Hmmm.

Phnom Penh International Airport

4. For an international airport and the main entrance to Cambodia, the Phnom Penh International Airport is surprisingly small. I was thinking if not big, it should be as spacious as Yangon Airport and I was wrong. The walk from the flight to the immigration gate was around 5-7 minutes or so. And to the exit, it was just a dash of another 5 minutes. Yup, that is all.

5. Oh, while you are fresh from Malaysia, don't forget to get local simcard. The aisle of telco and internet provider readily awaits for you as you exit. And yes, you can get the simcard for FREE here. Use SMART. With free simcard, all you need to do is to just top up USD5 which will allow you for call, sms and most importantly, 1.5gb worth of internet. It is more than ok for me.

The rate for SMART Simcard

You know what, I didn't even ran out of data on for the whole 6 days in Phnom Penh. Power tak? Power tak? :P