Well 5.15am saw me complete with ironing board and iron. Don't ask me why but I decided I had to iron my mozzie shirt as it looked like a road map of Great Britain.

We were on an early flight at 8.20 and we had to be there two hours before as it was an international flight, Vietnam to Cambodia. 

 The hotel had provided us with a packed breakfast. It was a faintly toasted (don't get me started!) triple decker sandwich, a boiled egg, a yoghurt and the inevitable devil fruit, aka a banana and a passion fruit, presumably to go into the yoghurt. Mine had leaked in the bag, so I gave it and the devil fruit back to the hotel. The roads were a bit quieter on the way to the airport but still quite busy despite the early hour..

I haven't mentioned this before but nearly everyone in this part of the world goes round in a surgical mask. They seem to only take them off for meals. You can buy them at any street corner, in any colour or pattern, the trendy ones match their mask to their scarf. Yes, scarf, it is bordering on 30 degrees C and they are all done up in scarves and Puffa jackets.

They actually look a lot like Darth Vader!! 

Nam said he wasn't allowed in the airport due to security, so we said our goodbyes and gave him a hefty tip. He has been an excellent ambassador for both Vietnam and Exodus Travel. He asked us to text him once we were all checked in, then he would leave for his four day break between groups.

I had arranged my Cambodian visa in advance, direct with the embassy in London, most of the others had obtained e-visas, only three were visaless.

We stood in the check in queue for quite a while until someone noticed that our flight was now cancelled! Paula had mentioned that they were renown for cancelling flights without much notice. She volunteered to see if she could find out what plans they had made to get us to Cambodia, meanwhile we texted Nam to tell him and he promised to get hold of his Exodus office and see what information they had.

Paula came back and said we were on the midday flight, only 5 hours to wait, then! We were told that we could check in our luggage so waited in the queue for our turn.

Martin and Rhonda were first to check in and his two new suits sailed off into Never Never Land and the baggage handlers. He was checked in and then Rhonda discovered that they would not check her in because her passport had less than six months before it expired. She knew this would be the case and asked Exodus before she left but they thought it would be ok, so she did nothing about it.

A more regular tourist would know that you never let your passport get that old. You always renew before the last six months of its life.

The check in girl called over her supervisor and she rang the Cambodian embassy and they confirmed Rhonda wouldn't be accepted into Cambodia. At this point they called Nam and he said he would get onto the British Embassy as soon as they opened at 8am and see if they could provide an emergency travel document. So the rest of us checked in and Martin requested his suits back.

We all then adjourned to a coffee shop to wait for Nam to work his magic. By the way, when we checked in we were told that we could go to the Daisy Lounge for a free drink and a meal, due to the disruption to our first flight. We didn't want to leave Martin and Rhonda so we stayed with them until they knew what would happen.

Eventually, after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing it turned out that the department at the embassy that dealt with these emergencies was shut on a Friday so they would have to stay in Saigon until their flight home.

So it was goodbye to Martin and Rhonda and we tagged on the end of a huge queue to go through passport checks and security. It took ages but eventually we trekked up to the Daisy Lounge, which the notice on the door said, was for people whose flights had been delayed or cancelled. Obviously such a common occurence that they had to build a special lounge!

The food was atrocious, a Rice Burger with chicken. Just imaging a flattened ball of rice, or a soggy rice cake with some limp lettuce and a few strips of chicken. Yum.

The whole place was depressing so we decided to go and look at the shops and wait by the gate. The clothes shops were very reasonable and a lot of people bought scarves. I just can't carry a scarf off and look like an untidy parcel!

Whilst we sat around, I thought I recognised my name being given out over the tannoy. Except it was Margaret Frampton. So I went up to see if it was me they wanted and it was. I had been upgraded to Business Class, as had the rest of our party. Result!

Once on board we sat there for ages and the pilot eventually informed us that there was a technical problem with our Airbus. Would we ever get to Cambodia? At least we were comfortable in our posh seats, Business Class seats being a first ever experience for three of the others..

 We finally left at 3.30 instead of 8.20, so our afternoon of exploring the local town was cancelled unfortunately. Siem Reap airport is quite new and a very attractive little airport it is too. We were met outside by our new tour guide Minear and whisked off to our hotel.

The Tara is a lovely hotel, my bed must be at least 7 feet wide - two 3ft 6ins beds together.

Everybody here in Cambodia greet you with their hands in the prayer position and bow a lot. I don't really feel comfortable with people bowing but it is their tradition and it is what they do to be polite.

We only had about 10 minutes to get into our rooms before we met up again and zoomed off to what was called the Sunset Temple.Its correct name is Phnom Bakhing, which is a bit of a mouthful. This was our first temple in Cambodia and was covered in beautiful carvings which we admired as we went up to the top platform and waited for the sun to work its magic.

Sadly, the sunset wasn't great, far too much cloud, so we went back to the coach. As we hadn't eaten since our delightful, epicurean Rice Burger, we arranged to be dropped off at a local restaurant for dinner. It was a very fishy menu, also a bit spicy, such as curries and chillis. I decided to cook my own chicken on a hot volcanic stone. It was huge, obviously not local as the chickens I had seen today were very scrawny. As I ate my way through, the stone seemed to be cooling, so I didn't finish it because I was a little unsure that it would be cooked through. Anyway, I was full enough.

We were able to walk back to the hotel from the restaurant but by this time, I really just wanted my bed!

We were to meet up at 5am for the sunrise over Angkor Wat and then back here at the hotel for brekkie afterwards. As the sunset was a washout, I couldn't see that the sunrise would be much better so I declined the sunrise visit, in favour of a weeny lie in instead.

It will be a hugely busy day tomorrow with four temples to visit, so an early night was perfect.