This morning we left Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam for that matter. Next stop Cambodia. At the moment my plans are a bit up in the air. I was hoping to stay traveling south east Asia until mid December but it looks like I will have to go home early.

During my travels down Vietnam I was lucky enough to get myself a phone interview for a job in Dublin. Trying to do a phone interview in a country where Internet is often sporadic was no easy affair I can tell you especially factoring in the 6 hour time difference but I had it none the less and amazingly I got the job.
This is amazing and I am absolutely delighted as it means I won't be unemployed for even a minute when I get home (a worry that was playing in the back of my mind) the one and only down fall is that my travels will have to be cut short.

Before I even left Ireland the main thing I wanted to do was a scuba diving course in Koh Tao. This I was planning on doing just before returning to Ireland which will now be in two or if I am lucky three weeks.
The predicament is do I cut Cambodia short, and leave the people I am traveling with to head back to Thailand for my scuba diving or do I stay in Cambodia until my flight home and put scuba diving on the long finger...
Decisions, decisions...

Anyway just wanted to explain why my visit to Cambodia may be shamefully short but for now I will get back to the present.
I am at present on a bus and I am officially in Cambodia after successfully crossing the boarder. Crossing the boarder by land can often be a stressful situation involving scams where you may be cheated out of money before even making it to the boarder and long waits at the boarder waiting for your visa.
Somehow I was spared all this hassle. The bus driver took our passports plus $25 when we got on the bus and did all the work for us so we just had to walk across the boarder and get back on the bus.

The only stress was in Ho Chi Minh that morning. We got up early as we needed to buy some US dollars for our visas. With an hour to spare before the bus collected us we went to a bank where we were informed that banks no longer sold US dollars. This was a worry as without the cash we were stuck in Vietnam so we rushed about trying to find somewhere that would exchange our money for us. Thankfully Katie pulled through for us and got dollars in a jewlery shop of all places. We were a bit nervous that the money was fake but had no choice but to carry on and hope for the best. Luckily the money was accepted and we weren't left on the side of the street crying.
The bus should arrive in Phnom Penh the Capitol of Cambodia in an hour or two so I will update this in a later hour with news of my new destination.

Update time, I am in a nice hotel in Phnom Penh watching the bucket list. After we got off the bus we looked for an ATM or somewhere we could exchange our money. This turned out to be impossible and as we had no money we ended up walking towards our accommodation. We were looking for a lively hostel called happy monkey or something but we weren't even sure where we were on the map. After about twenty minutes walk we saw a sign for a hotel and have up our search. The hotel is quiet a bit more expensive than the hostel but we were so so tired that the luxury or a nice room overruled the money factor.

Obviously we have only seen a small bit of the city but my first impressions are pretty grim. There is a lot of poverty here, no real shops and streets dirty and full of rubbish. On the way in we saw trailers full of people crammed in, standing up with no room to turn, the majority of people were female sand this was obviously their means of travel, definitely strange for a westerner to witness.

After dumping our bags myself and Andy left the girls in search of food. We went into an all you can eat buffet. I loved it but Andy ate nothing and paid $10 to do so.
The buffet was Asian style and I had seen them before, you are provided with a hot plate in the center of the table, you pick whatever food you want from the buffet, bring it to your table and cook it, either grilling on the hot plate or making into a soup around the plate. I sound like i knew what i was doing but i didn't have a clue at the time and had to get the waiters help on numerous occasions. It was good food, I had lots of fish and veg soup, sushi, spring rolls, fruit and ice cream..... Andy had some rice and a beer.. Needless to say he won't be heading back there too soon.