To Wii, or not to Wii?

To Wii, or not to Wii? That is the question.


I was the first one from the team to arrive at the Lotus Lodge in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The three of us involved in Hotel Cambodia, Mitch, Javier and myself, were supposed to come all together, but things came up back home that kept the others temporarily grounded. Mitch's left eye for some unforeseen reason started going blurry so he had to receive last minute eye surgery. We figured it was better to have eye surgery in Canada than in a Cambodia. As for Javier, I'm still unclear about his excuse. He said he couldn't get the time off  from his job in the Air Force, but I'm more convinced it was because Christmas was just around the corner and he didn't want to be in trouble with his girlfriend. 

And then there was one.....................

It was up to me to make the solo trek to Cambodia and oversee the takeover of the Lotus Lodge. I left the comforts of home, not sure what to expect or where this next journey would take me. While making last minute preparations before my departure, we were tossing around grandiose ideas of what we could do to the hotel once we arrived. During one of these high-energy brainstorming sessions, one of us blurted out that we should have a games room with a Nintendo Wii. At the time, we thought this was a brilliant idea. Maybe it was the whiskey talking. Either way, Javier was off on a new mission--to scour the city for a decent second-hand Wii. It didn't take long before he found one.
Wii was never really my thing. I had no idea how many attachments come with the console until we went to pick the thing up from a guy selling one on the Internet. He sold us his used Wii and all the extras  that went with it. There were games, and steering wheels, a couple of guitars, and even a drum set. When we returned home and the Wii, with all the gadgets, lay in a heap on the floor, I started to have second thoughts.  Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. It definitely  had been the whiskey talking.

Skot at Poipet, border of Thailand and Cambodia

I was standing in the blistering heat in Poipet after taking a bus from Bangkok. It's the border town between Cambodia and Thailand. I was waiting to cross, cursing the weight of the damned Wii in my luggage bag. I was cursing Javier for buying the thing and cursing the genius who had the bright idea to have a Wii at the hotel (which I think was me). Most of all, I was cursing the luggage bag the Wii was stuffed in.  This particular suitcase had been tossed around and manhandled through my stop-overs in New York and Hong Kong, and when  I finally arrived in Bangkok, the bag was in dire condition. The wheels were breaking off, the handle had pulled through the frame and was hanging on by a thread, and the other extension handle had completely broken off.



I was on the verge of abandoning the bag and all its contents, but the thought of coming across the world with this thing, and giving up now, was downright unacceptable.  I had to finish the last leg of the journey. The Wii finally made it to Siem Reap and its new home at the Lotus Lodge. I remember my sister telling me when I told her about the Wii, not to turn the place into a 'dude pad'. She was right. The Wii didn't belong in the lush surroundings, the authentic Cambodia experience just outside our gates, or anywhere I could think of. The Wii continues to occupy the broken luggage in a storage area of the hotel, at least until we find a good place to donate it... Anyone out there in Siem Reap need a Nintendo Wii?