So You Think We Can Blog?

Originally we planned to take a bus from Siem Reap to Bangkok where we would board the World Odyssey ship, however, the ship was in need of some kind of service or repair (foreshadowing?) which could only be done in Pattaya Thailand. We weighed our options: either travel to Bangkok anyway, stay in our modest hotel room and use public transit around the city, then take a second bus ride to Pattaya a couple of day later, or forfeit our non-refundable bus tickets, book new travel directly to Pattaya and stay in a hotel near the beach. We chose the latter. I can tell you that there were moments we thought we might regret this decision, but ultimately we are glad we chose this alternative. First the challenges: We learned that bus travel was a bit more comfortable than travel by van, but there were no busses available from Siem Reap to Pattaya so our 8 hour trip from Cambodia to Thailand would be via van.  What we weren't expecting was how much more discomfort awaited us this time!...

 There isn't much to say about the bus ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, although the one bit of excitement was that the bus station had moved so our taxi driver dropped us off at an old location (where another bus company now was), and we had to run (or stumble/walk) with our 4-month supply of luggage nearly a kilometer to the new location where we barely made it on time. We packed ourselves, and our formidable luggage, into a van of 12 passengers and made the 6-hour journey.  We arrived at our hotel and checked into a 4th floor walk-up room. Remember all the luggage we mentioned?   After showering and unpacking we met up with Makara and looked for a place to eat. We were pretty exhausted after travelling and hoping for something relatively simple.  Google maps informed us we were near a "pet friendly" restaurant, which is exactly the kind of establishment Jacob was interested in.  Jacob sees who he would rather be sitting with and makes it ha...