November Trip to Bangkok

Tomorrow I go to see the surgeon in Bangkok who in May removed part of my kidney, for a six-month checkup. I suspect it will all be rather routine but it requires a trip to Bangkok. The beginning of that trip was not routine–beset by horrendous Phnom Penh traffic–but then, maybe that unfortunately is becoming routine also.

The first thirty minutes on the tuk-tuk ride to the airport were not so bad but then about a mile from the airport chaos reigned. This is on the street in front of the airport. These are the three westbound lanes with cars going in every direction, some trying to turn into the airport, others trying to turn around and go back the way they came. But the eastbound lanes are just the same. Gridlock.
This is a view back to the highway from inside the airport grounds. I sat in my tuk-tuk in that mess for about fifteen minutes and then paid off the driver and just walked between cars in the middle of the highway to the airport entrance.
These are cars and tuk-tuks trying to get out of the airport on to the highway.
Once I got in the airport, I checked in within three minutes. Finally it was time to board. This view from the jetway shows much less congestion on the airside of the airport.







I was on an economy airline and limited to just a carryon so I exited quickly, bought a Thailand SIM card, and headed for the airport bus stop. I took at A3 bus to Lumphini Park, the closest I could get by bus to the Maryknoll house. From the park I then took a taxi to Maryknoll. Today the the US dollar = 34.21 Thai baht so the 50-minute airport bus ride was 50 baht, about US$1.50.

What is going on?

One of the conundrums of life in Cambodia is interpreting what is seen on the street. Is the woman above living on the street? Is that where she is sleeping and eating? Or is she cooking on the street? Is she there every day? Why ten different plates and bowls and pots? What is going on? A local might be able to evaluate the situation immediately. For us foreigners, it is usually a lot of questions and very few answers.

It’s a BIG machine!

In the last ten or fifteen years I have every year spent more time in B747s and B777s than I have in automobiles. (In Phnom Penh I ride a bicycle or tuk-tuk for long distances.) I have a good sense of the big wide-body aircraft but seeing the image of President Biden descending from Air Force One really impressed me large a 747 is! I

An interesting Saturday…

Yesterday turned out to be a very interesting Saturday. President Biden flew in on Air Force One in the morning for the ASEAN summit meeting held in Phnom Penh this weekend. He is Catholic and I had read that he tries to go to mass on Sundays wherever he is, so I was not too surprised when the US Embassy here asked me to have mass with him yesterday. The time for the mass changed three times during the week but finally we had a morning mass at the Raffles Hotel where the United States delegation was staying.

President Biden is a very warm and personable person, a good human being guided by gospel values. We had a group of ten people for mass, staff from the White House and the Phnom Penh U.S. Embassy. At the end of mass, noting that it was lunch time, President Biden invited me to eat with them!
This is The Beast, the vehicle used to transport President Biden on the ground. It rated its own separate enclosure on the grounds of the Raffles Hotel. I was hoping they would offer me a ride home in The Beast but I had to settle for the usual tuk-tuk.
The U.S. delegation took over the entire Raffles Hotel and made many adjustments. Here the main lobby and reception desk is blocked off by partitions erected to move people like me through security. Secret Service personnel were everywhere!

Quite an interesting day!

Bank Hours

Today I had to meet a St. Vincent de Paul Society client to talk about his needs and I suggested an easy-to-find site in a Phnom Penh mall. While waiting, I noticed that the bank hours for this branch extended to 8:00 PM in the evening! Is that something common in the US? It certainly didn’t happen when I was spending my time there!