Pnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh - Danang - Freating Feathers 5 July - Maverick Scribed by James

James looking tired after the big travel day

Maverick the flying kakapo reporting for another holiday update:

We had an interesting day today and I hope you enjoy it.

The family all woke really early in Phnom Penh.and disturbed me from my peace and quiet. We all were in a rush to pack and get ready for are bus ride before we had breakfast it made no sense to my bird brain. After we organised ourselves we all went down to breakfast.  The buffet was huge, though sadly for me there were no seeds or New Zealand forest berries for me to eat. I pecked away at a piece of plain toast. Lucy pigged herself with thirteen Danish pastries while James had toast with seconds of cereal then finished with a serving of fruit.

After breakfast we set out to see the Kings palace which was massive.  We saw elephant chairs and lots of gifts to the king.  He had the biggest collection of artifacts and Buddhas I've ever seen.

I saw a swarm of pigeons fly hooting, flapping and bomb dropping. Glad I scared then off with a kakapo screech.

After I fought the pigeons in an epic battle of bird versus bird. We went on a Tuk tuk to the bus station and went on the bus which John said was old. The bus had brown, leathery, plastic seats, with a leg rest. On the last bus we were given yummy snacks though no one on the bus got food only a bottle of water. At the stop John bought some sweets and lollies. An hour later we got out of the bus and walked out of Cambodia and into Vietnam.  They had to sign forms get our passports checked while I got left in the bag unseen and unnoticed. While we drove further into Vietnam it started to rain and it rained so hard that the roads were layered with water.  We heard the whoosh coming up from the tyres which I found quite funny.  Bikes were getting sprayed so I started screeching and squawking. Sadly our bus stopped. Everyone went straight to their bags and hailed taxis in the rain.

We spent over ten minutes trying to find a taxi to get us to the airport. When we arrived at the airport mum and dad told us that they didn't book a flight as they weren't sure how long the bus would take.  This was a big mistake as we had to find a flight. Jetstar Pacific didn't have enough seats but there were enough seats on Vietnam Airlines.  Whereas the prices online were cheap, when we booked a flight, the prices went sky high. The lady said it was a surcharge and Toni got stressed because things didn't head to plan.

Everyone was getting hungry while we waited,for the plane so we decided to have some croissant's but the waitress got our order incorrect and we had three plain croissants and one bacon and egg croissant instead of three bacon and egg croissants.  Finally we went on our flight to Danang which was awful for the price we paid, we only got a bottle of water and the safety features display person thingy was all the way down on the other side of the aircraft. They didn't dim the lights off so we had minimal sleep on the plane.

To everyone's relief we landed at Danang and got to our hotel called Lam Hung. We chose our beds and organised our luggage and then finally fell into our dreams.  For me it was off to the garden and the beach for my dreams.