Post
by Guest999 » Sat Nov 14, 2020 8:44 am
In a cheap (circa 2003) mom and pop place at the moment, although the owner is Chinese, speaks no Khmer, and all notices posted on the walls are Chinese only, not a word of Khmer or English to be seen.
No chains on the doors, but they would certainly notice if someone tried to go for a stroll up the street. I didn't notice big, tough security guards, but they might be about somewhere.
Room is about 5 x 8m, so the 3 twin beds still leave plenty of space for the kids to fight noisily at 5 am, working through the jet-lag. Asked $60/night, bargained down to $50, by sitting smaller kids, masked, on the counter before the owner and her Khmer translators. Everyone pretty serious about masking, disinfection, and, a bit less so, distancing. So that's good.
A big plus, I'm the only one required to pay another $30/day for food, my khmer family just pay hotel staff to deliver any food they want, and it is hung on the room door knob. Room has it's own wifi router, and it is fast too. Pretty happy with it, but hope we won't be here more than 2 nights.
3 flight legs to arrive at PNH, and boarding each time was a bit of a hurdle. Initial check-in was a bit slow and meticulous, but, that was kind of reassuring more than stressful. Baggage was checked right through, and boarding passes for full flight issued. Walking from counter, I felt unjustified early relief: "Made it!"
Next leg they checked everything again, and told us boarding was far from certain. Not a great moment!!! Our signed and stamped covid tests had been emailed to us the day before, and the airline pointed out Khmer regulations stipulate original docs only. (Yes, I had read that before flying, but 4 days before departure, our home province suddenly moved to a centralized, single, for-profit Lab to do all travel covid tests, and those emailed certificates were all they offer. However, each certificate has a unique QR code that when scanned verifies the test result, dates, test type, name, and passport of the holder. The airline staff at the boarding gate played with the QR scans, thought it was cool, and sent pictures of the QR codes to airline staff at PNH. Then they showed them to Cambodian immigration. I guess they thought it was cool too, because they gave us the OK to board. (Thank you internet.)
Maybe QR verification is the best way to go, but in the near term, I'd save some stress and get a doctor to sign and stamp the signature and stamp.
Taiwan was fine, though they did shuffle us around and back and forth quite a bit. (I kind of liked Taiwan already, but give them a LOT more cred now just because I sympathize with them, and HKG, for standing up to the Mother Land.)
Was happy to experience two Covid tests on arrival at PNH: a throat swab, and DEEP nasal swab. No, not a masochist, rather I was happy because two tests reduces the chance of a passenger false positive forcing us all to quarantine exclusively at Government mandated locations. Should know soon!