bangkok-siem reap: off to a confusing start

i'm here in the villa right now, resting after having such a tiring day, with 9 hours spent on unfamiliar roads.

where should i start? soooo many things have happened on this trip, but everything went off relatively well. it was a blast tying the things i learned online together with reality. things are never what you expect them to be. :)

okay. let me start from the very beginning: naia terminal 3. while a nice, impressive airport, still hasn't completely ironed out its kinks. all 4 of us were dumbfounded with cebu pacific's check-in process.

we're all used to falling in right at the check-in counter when we arrive at the airport, because checking in is usually the first thing you do. though we already knew that we had to pay P1,620 for travel tax, there was no sign that told us where to go. upon checking our bags in, we asked about this, and the cebu pacific lady at the counter told us that we will have to pay the fee after she checks our luggage in, but she will only give us our boarding pass once we present to her the receipt for the travel tax payment.

this meant that we had to leave our luggage with her, go to the counters near the end of the airport, fall in line, and have three ladies scrutinize our passports for nothing. it took them about 20 minutes to process a passenger's payment, because they had to pass the passport around, when in my opinion, the job could have been done by one person.

so after paying, you rush back to the check-in counters, forced to cut lines to get your boarding pass from attendants who are busy taking care of other passengers who are checking in. it's a mess of a process, and it can be remedied by just putting a sign on where people can pay the travel tax before checking in (yes, this can be done, and is actually the ideal procedure).

aside from this flaw, though, things went off smoothly. after checking in, you pay your P750 "airport user's fee," go through immigration, go through security checks, and finally, you get to eat at seattle's or bo's. and cebu pacific didn't foul up this time, thank goodness. boarding was done quickly, and we were taking off in no time.

we landed, and had just a short glimpse of bangkok before taking off for aranyaprathet.

but more on that later. :)