Murphy's Law of Travel

Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Murphy's Law of Travel: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong when you are tired, dirty, jet-lagged, and don't speak the language.

Your favorite public health nerd is at it again, this time for a two-month stint in Cambodia working on some research with my colleagues at Tulane.  I have always been an anxious traveler, mostly because of my fear of Murphy's Law of Travel.  In most cases, my fears aren't justified and things go more or less smoothly.  However, when I traveled to Phnom Penh to start my summer adventure last week, Murphy's Law of Travel rang true.

I left the sweltering heat of New Orleans at 3 pm on Tuesday.  My car had developed yet another mechanical problem, so I dropped it off at the mechanics and went straight to the airport.  I had a long journey ahead, with my first flight leaving New Orleans at 7 pm on Tuesday and my last flight touching down in Phnom Penh at 10:30 pm on Thursday (although there is a 12 hour time difference, so it would feel like 10:30 am instead of 10:30 pm).

Things started off well enough.  I arrived at the airport with plenty of time and even had a meeting over the phone to hand-off some of my work in NOLA before boarding my flight.  I arrived in San Francisco, grabbed a little food and settled in for the night.  I had opted not to get a hotel since I figured I'd only end up with 6 or 7 hours there by the time I took into account security and transport and whatnot.  All things considered, San Fran is a pretty great airport to sleep in: free wifi, some pretty posh couches...  So far, so good.

The next leg of my journey was a 12-hour flight to Seoul.  It was brutal, but I made it through with limited moments of feeling like I would lose my mind if I had to stay on the plane for one more minute.  So far, everything had been pretty smooth and I was about to tackle the last leg of my journey.  Aside from general exhaustion, I was alright.

The flight was a bit delayed, so I arrived in Phnom Penh at almost midnight and breezed through immigration without a hitch.  Then I went to pick up my bag.  My bag had other ideas though, and didn't arrive.  So I made my claim and headed out to get a tuk tuk to my hotel.

Key terms: A tuk tuk is a small rickshaw attached to a motorbike.  They are the most common form of transportation in Phnom Penh.

After about 10 minutes, the engine on the tuk tuk started to sputter and died.  The driver got it restarted and we kept going, but at a much slower pace.  After about 20 meters, it died again.  It turns out the driver had run out of gas, so we waited for a friend to show up and give him enough to make it to a gas station and then we were on our way again.  At about 1 am, we arrived at the hotel, which was completely dark.  I knocked on the door and it was answered by a security guard who spoke no English.  The tuk tuk driver translated and it turned out that although I had a reservation, the receptionist was gone so I couldn't stay there.  Luckily for me, there was another hotel across the road that had rooms.  Given, they were triple the price, but the time for bartering or searching for a better deal had passed.  The mighty Amelia had struck out.