I was enjoying my apartment walk this morning when I got a message from Hans who is the leader of the dental group. "Sogol and Graham are already in Phnom Penh; they left Canada a day early. Can you go to the airport to meet them?" I told Hans the plane had already landed so they could be anywhere. I decided it was pointless because they may be on the way to the city centre while we are on our way to the airport. Later on I heard that Sogol was inside the airport, trying to find Graham who could be anywhere. She didn't want to go out of the airport to look for him as she might be able to get back inside. We had no rooms books for them in the hotel so I had to get my travel agent to see if he could get a couple more rooms. The group isn't staying at the hotel so I was worried as to which address they'd used on their arrival documents.
It was all chaotic. Sogol finally got hold of me and said it was frustrating looking for someone when you didn't know what he looked like. Eventually, she was alone inside the arrivals area so she decided to go outside. a tuk tuk man tried to take her somewhere but she said she was looking for someone. Cambodian tuk tuk people love to help so he asked her questions. She said she was looking for someone who was supposed to be going to the Angkor International Hotel. The man said, "I've just been there and dropped an old white man with white hair." That was Graham.
Eventually, I connected up with them and heard their story. We've still no idea why they were issued with tickets two days earlier than the rest of the group. I was so frazzled I suggested walking down to the river and having a drink.
While all this is going on, I'm trying to deal with Val's time in the city. Srun, the tuk tuk driver came and dropped her at the royal palace. He left and she found out it was closed until after lunch. My job was to find him and get him back to pick her up. I met them and we went to a shopping mall for lunch. Meanwhile, I'm also dealing with the dentists but my phone had almost no charge. I went to the travel office to charge my phone and Vuth and Cina were phoning the airline to see what they could do to locate Graham. We'd no idea he was relaxing in the hotel.
Boroith, one of my main translators was arriving in Phnom Penh from another city so I had to locate him and tell him what to do so that I could meet him. It was like a circus. I finally got everyone together and at 6pm we met to walk to a restaurant for dinner. What a relief. Now I'm hoping they are packing a small bag for just one day of work.
Tomorrow I'll meet them at the airport and hopefully they will be able to come out of the airport with their dental equipment. It'll be a busy day for them as they've been travelling for a long time but we have to do some tourism jaunts because there's no other time during the programme. Such is life.
