The Not So Easy Flight to Siem Reap

Several days ago booked the flight to Siem Reap.  There was a direct flight, but it departed at 6:20 AM, and I did not feel like waking at 3:30 AM and taking a tuktuk 5 miles in the dark at 4:30 AM.

So I opted for a 2 leg flight - first leg to Pakse, Lao, (in the southern panhandle....near the Ho Chi Minh trail and another bombed to death place) at 11:20 AM and the second leg from Pakse to Siem Reap. 

Awoke early - about 5 AM - showered, packed and departed the Guest House around 9,AM.  At the airport they said to wait 20 minutes for check in, so had an egg and potato omlet, served over white rice, and a soda for $3.50.  The cheapest airport meal I have ever eaten.  Usually, you can barely get a bottled water for that price.

Made it through the passport/immigration station to the waiting room.  

It was hot, crowded, stuffy and crammed with about 200 people.   Almost every seat was taken.  Minutes passed, a planefull of people boarded - off to Louang Prabang - and it began to look as though my flight was running late.  

At 11:30, 10 minutes past departure time I asked about the flight and was told 12 noon.  Around 12:15 they made an announcement in Lao which I clearly could not comprehend.  Went to a service agent and was told that new departure time was 3:20 PM, and that the second leg flight to Siem Reap would wait for us.  

Mostly Frenchies - about 20 of them - were scheduled on same flight.  One lady started asking over and over.........3:20??  3:20??? 3:20 PM???    What will we be given to eat?  

I thought, "Good grief, you can eat like a pig for 3 Euros here and you are asking about a free meal just because the flight is delayed?"   Sure enough, they all complained and they got a free chicken and rice lunch.  Frenchies.  Go figure.  

I declined a free lunch,  as I am strictly following Dr's orders (Dr. D. Coulter) and focused on my liquid intake.

Resigned myself to an afternoon of sitting alone in the departing passenger restaurant of the Vientiane Airport.  Went to the snack bar, ordered a BeerLao, put on the headphones and started burning time and reading.  Worst part of the wait is there is no wifi.  But the BeerLao was cold.

In Vientiane I picked up (for only $8.00 US), a copy of Christopher Robbins's "The Ravens - Pilots of the Secret War in Laos."  A really good read about the 30 or so guys who had the brass balls to be a FAC - a Forward Air Controller - in the Steve Canyon Program of the Secret War.  They did the low flying, identified the targets and took lots of small arms fire......... and the odds of a Raven making it through a 1 year voluntary assignment were about 50%.

My father was piloting an Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center (ABCCC) that was the radio relay between the Ravens, the the CIA in Vientiene and the fighter/bombers that were dropping all the ordinance.  The ABCCC also coordinated Search and Rescue of downed USAF pilots by Air America, the CIA's air force.

Most of the Ravens were based in Long Tieng, also,known as The Most Secret Place In The World.  See my earlier posts with the map for more on Long Tieng.