Mini heart attack

Everything was going so so well up until the moment I got to the check in desk. The guy at the counter took my name and passport and then started to panic a little while going through some paperwork in front of me as if he had lost something… or someone. He finally looked up and said “I cant find your name anywhere on my forms” to which I replied “ummmmmmmmmmmm?!?”. I told him where I was flying too which confused him even more before I gave him a glimmer of hope by saying that I had all my booking information with me for him to take a look at. After taking a quick look the panic in his eyes went away and he happily told me I was at the wrong desk. Although I have all my flights booked through Malaysia Airways it turns out that my first flight was actually with Quantas so I had to go and queue up again and check in with them. No worries, shit happens, move on.

I queued and waited about 10 minutes for economy check before a guy then comes up to all of us standing in line and tell us that we are in the queue for online check ins by mistake (as it wasn’t signposted properly) and so we needed to join another queue yet again. No worries, shit happens, move on.

After waiting for an age it was finally my turn at the front of the queue. Yey for me! “Quick in and out” I though…. but no. It turns out that unbeknownst to me Cambodia has stricter travel rules than was lead to believe. I knew I could obtain a visa on arrival with 2 passport photos (which I had) and I knew that I could stay for a maximum of 30 days which is all I was planning to do. The issue is that since I intend to fly back to New Zealand from Bangkok on the 1st June the time between my flights is actually 5 weeks. Now in theory that isn’t an issue as I planned on leaving Cambodia after about 4 weeks to head to Thailand via bus but I need to be there to book the bus ticket. This isn’t good enough for immigration though as they need to know that I will definitely be out of Cambodia in 30 days and need proof of onward travel. This wouldn’t have been an issue if I had known about it as I would have found a way to book the bus online and get some sort of travel proof sent through to me but since I didn’t know (and the travel agent didn’t make me aware) then it left me a bit stuck. Using my superior blaggage skills I told the lady at the desk that I had something booked but my friend I was meeting there had all the confirmation. After a call to her boss they said they could let me through but warned me that I needed to have that proof when I got to Cambodia or customs may not let me into the country. With boarding passes in hand I left the check-in desk successful but slightly worried as I now had to somehow get confirmation for travel that I don’t have in order to get to a country that I am on the way to! Thank god for the internet and smartphones is all I can say to that. I found a seat and within 5 mins found out I couldn’t book the bus online from anywhere I could see so remembering that South East Asia is cheap I did the next best thing and booked a flight from Phnom Penn to Bangkok which cost me about £75 but means that I have a way out of Cambodia and so my journey should be able to continue without to many issues. No worries, shit happens, move on.

As I skipped merrily away, finally happy with my accomplishments I looked up at the board to check my gate number to be greeted with “Delayed”

…FUCK!