We needed a little break from the streets of Phnom Penh…something different…but packing us all up on an airplane is craziness (for one thing, Daddy has NEVER flown with ALL of us)…but mainly, it’s just too much money without any planning…so it was either Kep, Siem Reap or Ho Chi Minh…so a few photos and $200 later, we had these for our visas:
(Sidenote…of COURSE Zachary needed to have a photo with his Superman costume on…so we now have about 40 photos of Zachary for visas and what not!! I love that!! His personality just tickles me!)
Now…we were up at 5 am so that we could beat the traffic, get to the border and into Vietnam…so we thought! There were 9 of us, so stops for coffee, muffins, shoes, vomit, milk, peeing were all in the cards…but that didn’t stop our happy group! (HA HA) Fortunately, all the boys got a little nap…and then it was time walk the border in Kampong Cham.
There were no taxis waiting for us…so we all hung out while Daddy and Uncle Robert went to track some wheels down for us…which took about 40 minutes…
Then we ended up having to walk a kilometer with all our stuff on this dirt road to catch our “bus” that they bought all the seats on just so it would leave now instead of 2 hours later…
I wasn’t feeling too adventurous when we walked up to this:
…but broken English, Khmer and Vietnamese finally had us understanding that this bus was only going to drop us on the outskirts of town…with all of us and all our stuff…no thanks…so for $50 more…this is what we rode in:
We had to wait for this bus to come back…it somehow disappeared during negotiations…don’t worry…we found a rest stop and put our feet up and had some iced coffees (mama), cold beers (Daddy & Robert), Cokes (Sokím and Khamary and Zachary) and milk “babas”!
Hey hey…make the most of it, right?! We were on our way and luckily for us, Robert convinced us to book this five star hotel…which was a little away from the city center…but OH SO WORTH IT!!! More on that later!
We were maybe just a tad restless…
It was quiet and raining and peaceful tho…we saw a lot of this…
We arrive around 4:30 pm…(I tell you this because, remember, we left at 6 am…this is NORMALLY a 5 hour trip…so yes, nerves a little shot, bums a little sore, brains a little fried…but we booked the CLUB floor at our hotel…)
We were ushered to the 23rd floor because we were “privileged guests”…the only other time I’ve stayed on the club floor is when I’m tagging along with Robbi at the Ritz or Mandarin (you DO know how to work that!!). Excuse me while I rave about the Hotel Nikko…it was PERFECT! Every other hotel in the center of town was more expensive and not as nice…so even with the club floor, we spent less money…and breakfast, afternoon tea and happy hour were included! Heck to the yeah!! We were greeted with some kind of YUMMY lemongrass drink and a COLD COLD towel…it felt like heaven on our dusty faces! We hit the room and hit the pool…Dad’s & Uncles needed a break from the riff raff of 3 little boys being pinned up for 10 hours!!! We hit the pool, ordered some delish food and “wined” on down!!!
It was the perfect getaway for us…and the boys loved their bath time!!!
…and we can’t forget about THIS little delight…I mean, I thought the sprayers were pretty awesome…this thing heats the seat, sprays your butt and then blows it dry…(to which Zachary said, “Oh, wow! That feels good!)…TOTALLY a must have!
By 7 pm…ALL the boys were asleep, the girls were tired and fed…and it was time for us to enjoy our club floor with some wine and appetizers and THEN hit the town for some yummy Hard Rock…I KNOW…pathetic, right? I live in Asia…I should be trying new things…but I’m up to my eyeballs trying new things…I just want some bomb nachos and a big cobb salad!!…we listened to music, visited and tried to hit this place called Acoustic…but, seriously, we were toast…home by 10:30 pm…I couldn’t keep my eyes open another minute, but the boys were able to enjoy a cigar at the bar downstairs!
Now let me tell you…HCM is not like you would imagine in some ways…it has EVERYTHING (except McDonalds and Starbucks)…but shopping wise, it was a heaven. The malls were huge and western and clean and playgrounds galore…I got each of the girls something special from Vietnam and we hung out in the play area for hours…and then had Carl’s Jr. for lunch…mmmmmmhhhmmmmm…
During naptime…
I took my Z out for a day date and we hit up the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and thought about Auntie Cake and our walks in Hawaii!!!
Pretty much the rest of the trip, we played, ate, took pictures and enjoyed that club floor!!! The “big boys” went to sushi and I stayed with the littles for some giggles and bath time!
The morning cappuccino came with this view:
and I also found these when out buying milk…
Some street shots heading out of town with THE worst driver in the city…Seriously, I thought (all of us thought) Jim’s head was going to pop off his body…and NOBODY could communicate…all we could do is sit there and go 15 KM/Hour and look at each other and laugh at Jim’s steam coming out of his ears~!
Rest stop on the “highway”!!
…and then we crossed back into Cambodia two hours later than we expected…and you know what, it felt GOOD to be “home”!!!
It was a great trip, great food, great sites, great city…truly, so much fun…and I’ve already forgotten that Jim has vowed to not travel as a group until the twins are 4…HA HA HA…
