I’ve always known that there are three steps to heaven, but I hadn’t realised before today that British Airways was quite so closely involved.
I turned up at Heathrow with an extra suitcase full of all the toys and other materials donated by friends and colleagues for the children’s project in Cambodia, quite prepared to fork out the extra £65 to get it all over there. But when the check-in clerk put all the luggage through, there was no extra charge for it on the system. We agreed that BA must somehow know that this was excess baggage for a worthy cause, and not the sloppy packing of a woman who simply empties her entire wardrobe into suitcases rather than being selective about what to take.
We arrived in Bangkok in brilliant sunshine and boarded what looked like a cartoon plane, covered with pictures of palm trees, fish and star fish.
Unfortunately, it didn’t look quite so jolly when we landed in the pouring rain in Siem Reap.
Mr Vibol met me in his tuk-tuk at the airport.
He was dressed in waterproofs from head to toe, and he handed me into the tuk-tuk where I sat gingerly on a very soggy banquette for half an hour while we toodled into town. Everyone seems to be on bikes or motorbikes – everyone except the cows, they’re just wandering up the street.