Janice had the foresight to check us all in the night before and print out our boarding passes. Cat and I didn't have luggage to check so we waited with our printed boarding passes for the others to finish checking in. George mentioned that they changed his seat so Cat and I decided to double check our confirmed seating. We headed over to the Vietnam Air ticket desk (different than the boarding counter) to have a chat with the ladies there. They pointed us to the boarding counter where our compadres had just finished and a long line has since formed, indicating that we need to turn in our paper passes for actual boarding passes. UUUUGGHHHH!!!
Ok, this is one of the reasons I love Cat. "Come on" she quipped and dragged me over to the Business Class line where there wasn't a soul waiting. The long line of people waiting in the economy line gave us some dirty looks but she ignored them and addressed the boarding counter agents. Pointing to the ticket counter agents, "Those ladies told us to come here to check in!" she said, oozing so much confidence nobody would have dared questioned the validity of her statement. The counter ladies smiled and checked us in without hesitation. You go Cat!
We had to go through customs to enter the boarding area. Will they be smiling today or will they be stone faced? Cat and I have a little competition going on to see who can get their Vietnamese custom agent to crack a smile. I scanned the agents and saw one that smiled. AHA!!! I head over to his line. My turn. "Hi, how are you?" I turn a 1000 watt smile on him. He smiles and squints at me.
"Sarah Collins?"
"Huh?"
"Sarah Collins?"
"No, Sarah Woo"
He smiles again, "Sarah Collins the singer?"
Ahhhh, he's trying to joke with me.
"Oh no, you don't want to hear me sing", I responded with a laugh.
He smiles, stamps my passport and waves me on.
HA! I win this one.
2 hours later, we start our descent over the ocean to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Having gone through the madness of the Landing Visa in HCM, we knew exactly what to do and rushed directly over to the Landing Visa counter. We wave our pre completed visa forms. "No, short form!" the guards threw at us pointing to the stack of papers on tables where other passengers were already scribbling like crazy. What?!!! But, but, but....ugh. Gotta love efficiency.
We hurriedly complete new visa forms, rip our photos off the old ones and pass the glue stick around. The glue stick was a brilliant idea considering how many times we've had to paste our visa photos to various forms. Visas completed, we shuffle back to the line and hand over the documents. The counter where the visas were processed was an assembly line, quite impressive. There were about 6-7 agents processing and in less than 10 minutes we had our visas in hand and it was time to go through customs. Cambodians are MUCH nicer than the Vietnamese. They actually smiled, but my guys kept saying "tip, tip". Hmmm...I hope it didn't mean what it sounded like so I ignored him.
We pile into the van and were at the Angkor Miracle Resort and Spa in about 10 short minutes. The hotel was beautiful and definitely had a resort feel. The rooms weren't ready so we head to the restaurant and sit outside. It was about 3pm and the kitchen was closing down to get ready for the Christmas Eve gala. Apparently there was a huge buffet with dancing and singing. We order puffy rice cakes with minced pork in coconut curry sauce, spring rolls, and a few other tasties and relax planning out the rest of the evening. The shindig started at 7pm so we had time to freshen up before dinner.
Cat and I head up to our rooms to relax and possibly take a little siesta, but wait...what the hell is that racket? The singers had started to practice for this evening and were howling, it was soooo loud. Cat managed to fall asleep (how I have no idea) and put in earplugs to drown out the noise.
7pm
We dress up for the evening and head downstairs. They welcomed us placing scarves around our necks and motioned towards the drinks area. Janice, Rich, George and Rodney joined us shortly and we head towards our table. The buffet was MASSIVE with fruit and ice sculptures.
There was a "shrimp cage" that reminded me of the "Thunderdome". All those shrimpies hanging onto the cage. It was actually a bit creepy.
All throughout dinner there was something going on on the stage from singing to dancing. The dancing was beautiful with traditional Cambodian headdress.
I didn't eat much as I was still full from the late lunch but decided to hit the dessert table first. Who said you can't have dessert before your meal?!!! I slowly moved my way up the ladder to taste the duck and squid. There was soooo much food. We get together and toast to an amazing trip.
As the evening wore on, our energy wore down compounded by the massive amounts of food being consumed and the entertainment got more cheesy. The band brought up this little boy to sing (he wasn't very good) and we were convinced he was the son of the owner or something that got dragged into this affair. They held a limbo competition where the winner with the short skirt also gave all the guys in the front row some "interesting" photos to take home and then they held a musical chairs competition. The singing reminded me of very bad Asian karaoke. At one point some kids did a dance number that was so bad it was quite hilarious.
"We can't leave yet! There's a drawing!!!"
Cat held us all hostage at the table threatening that if we all leave, she'll keep any gifts we win with our tickets. They were giving out quite a number of gifts, unfortunately about half of the tables have up and left. I actually felt sorry for the performers. At one point they literally called 10 - 20 different numbers before someone won. Finally, it was the last drawing, yay!!! We shuffle upstairs to our respective rooms. We won nothing. Bah.
It was time to set up the Christmas tree. Aldona had given us a Chia type Christmas tree that takes about 12 hours to fully bloom so Cat set that up after getting back to the room. It was quite curious, we wondered how it would turn out.
The tree even came with garlands and a star! Tomorrow, we get to celebrate Christmas with our very own tree.
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