Travel to Southeast Asia

I embarked on my big journey on Wed, Jan 21, with a departure at noon. First leg was a 15 hour flight on Korean Airlines to Seoul, South Korea. I never knew I would take a flight where I would watch the sunrise and sunset on the same flight, amazing! Ok, so Korean Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown. The in-flight entertainment and customer service was spectacular! 50+ movies to choose from, video games (I got in at least 2 hours of blackjack), good food, and drinks flowing. After a good meal and a few glasses of wine, I settled in for a few hours of sleep (stayed up really late before I left, and want to start sleeping on my new time zone to eliminate jet lag). I ended up watching 3 movies total, and we had arrived before I knew it.

Second leg of the flight was from Seoul to Siem Reap, Cambodia. This was a 5 hour flight, and not nearly as good with the in-flight entertainment, but I lucked out and got the entire row to myself...which I enjoyed stretching out. Towards the end of the flight a Korean man start asking me some questions, then introduced me to his son to chat with (people love to practice english with me I guess)!

I finally arrived in Cambodia at 9:45pm on Thursday, Jan 22nd...WAHOOO!! It was a balmy 75 degrees upon arrival, much better than the freezing weather in DC!! My first encounter with tuk-tuk drivers was not a good one. A tuk tuk is a moped with a rickshaw attached to the back and they are famous for ripping people off. I was determined to not let this happen to me, so I negotiated like crazy with 10 of them, but could not get them below $4 for a ride from the airport to my hotel (whichmy "Lonely Planet"said should only cost $1). Oh well, we settled on $13 for a ride from the airport, and driving me around all day on Friday to tour the temples.

Checked with the first hotel room, and they had no availability (I didn't have a reservation and am just winging it). The tuk-tuk driver said he had a recommendation...which I was VERY skeptical about. He took me to the other hotel, which was nearby and great location to the center of town, and it was a great room that I negotiated to $9. Private room and bathroom (cold water shower - yikes)...and great location, this is going to be a great launch point for my adventures!!