I really couldn’t face spending Christmas on my own here in the UK. Last year I went to Venice for the duration, which worked extremely well, but did have the major drawback that Italy is a Catholic country, so everything was closed on Christmas Day. I spent the day pottering up and down the Grand Canal on a vaporetto, which was enjoyable but rather limiting. Christopher and I used to go away most years, and avoided Christmas completely by going somewhere Muslim, where they were most definitely not celebrating and everything was open all holiday. But this year the fall-out from the Arab Spring means I’m not keen on going anywhere in North Africa or the Middle East. Escaping Christmas is one thing, but getting caught up in a civil war is another matter entirely!
So I had to look further afield for a safe, interesting and non-Christian country in which to spend Christmas.
Christopher and I had wanted to visit the splendid temples of Angkor Wat for many years, and in fact had it tentatively pencilled in for our twentieth wedding anniversary in 2013. Obviously, that’s never going to happen now. And it always seemed such a stupidly long way away. But it is never going to get any closer, and I decided that if I continued to think like that I’d never get there. So I determined to go away for a long weekend over Christmas. To Angkor Wat. In Cambodia. I flew out on the Thursday morning before Christmas, arrived the Friday afternoon, spent Christmas Eve to Boxing Day sightseeing, and flew back on Tuesday 27th arriving home in the late evening. It’s now the middle of the night and I’m jet lagged out of my tiny mind and blogging cos I can’t sleep!
The pretty much universal response among those people I told where I was going was “You must be mad!” followed swiftly by “You’re not going on your own are you?”. Well, I may well be slightly unhinged – bereavement does that to you – and yes of course I went on my own. That’s rather the issue, that I haven’t got anyone to go with. But I didn’t go to the other side of the world for three days completely unsupported. I booked with Explore Worldwide, a company who came highly recommended by several friends. I initially looked into one of their group tours, but decided that wouldn’t suit my current needs or mood. I didn’t want enforced jollity with a large group, nor did I want to have to do things at someone else’s pace. So I decided to pay a little bit more and go fully tailor-made. So I had a private car, driver and guide for just me for my entire time in Cambodia. They picked me up at the airport, took me to my hotel, and collected me each morning for a full day of sightseeing tailored to exactly what I wanted to do, at my pace.
I spent quite a lot of time organising the holiday up front, and negotiating with the agent about the itinerary. The original draft they sent me gave me a free afternoon to relax at the hotel, followed by a cultural evening of dancing and folklore. Well, I wasn’t having that! I told them to take out the folkloric evening and leave me in peace to sleep, but to cram in another few temples into the afternoon. It all worked extremely well. The guide soon got the measure of me, and marched me round temples at a pace at least twice as fast as Christopher would have considered the maximum acceptable, and about four times as fast as he would have considered optimal. But it suited me just fine. Photos and a more detailed account of the trip will follow in the next few days as I get over the jet lag and sort myself out.
