Wednesday, August 16 and Thursday, August 17, 2006

we woke up to an early alarm clock to have one last great tropical fruit basket on the ocean. the wind was still howling and the rain was still pelting but at this point neither of us cared. it was still quite beautiful out and the food was still good.

unfortunately (well, it was mostly my fault truth be told) we were a bit behind schedule and had problems finding a taxi that would take us to the airport...must of taken us about 20 minutes to find one. coupled with the fact that our driver took his leisurely sweet time, and we got to the airport at 8:15 for an 8:45 flight. suffice to say that the employees werent entirely happy with us, warning us that "you shouldnt do this again." we werent the only late ones, though, so they quick checked all the late people through (after paying yet another airport departure tax...) and we got on the plane no problem.

we got into phnom penh and the city for some reason looked much better this time around. we decided to just stay at the area around the guesthouse (the same guesthouse as the last time) and relax. that meant having a shower, wandering around the deck on the water, having some beer, and going for dinner at the flying elephant. we met a canadian couple there that was staying at our guesthouse and talked to them that night...they were teachers in korea so we had similar experiences to share. it was a good night.

in the morning the plane didnt leave until 12 so we could have a relaxing breakfast before taking a tuk tuk to the airport. the only thing i remember from phnom penh airport was the security dog. usually they have big intimidating german shephards or dobermans, but here they had a cocker spaniel. he had big droopy eyes and i think he was less interested in finding any drugs in luggage than taking a break. i wanted to pet him but didnt think the security guard would be impressed.

the only problem was when we got to taipei. the immigration agent took a look at my passport and said i needed a visa...canadians dont need a visa, but apparently while we were on ko samui my passport went under 6 months to expiry. so they didnt let me into taipei. usually this would be a disaster, but considering how early the flight was in the morning and how much we hated the city the first time around, it wasnt a huge blow, just an annoying one. we had to stay in the transfer terminal for the night, we were told.

some airports have great terminals, others not so great, some big, some small. chiang kai shek's airport was somewhere in the middle. it was certainly big, lots of space to explore. but it was short on restaurants...only the subway for dinner and the starbucks for breakfast would be feasible. and at night, when we tried to sleep on couches, we had two problems. one, they use the nighttime to do all of their construction, so we had nice background music full of jackhammers and buzzsaws. the second was the full blast of the air conditioner which made all areas of the terminal unreasonably chilly.

i think we started sleeping around 2 in the morning or so, not much time until we had to get up.