Day 32: 10/7/13
Today we headed for Vietnam. Two vans (wans) picked us up at the hotel at 8am and brought us to the bus station. We got a bus from the station then that was bringing us all the way to Ho Chi Minh City. It was the same company as the bus we got in Phnom Penh and had for the home stay. So it's a private bus really, but there were other passengers on this bus, not just our group.
We gave all our passports at the start to a man with the bus company- not the driver- who checked all our visas and looks after them until they needed to be checked. We drove for about three hours straight- I was taking photos, chatting and writing the blog. The time went quickly enough.
We stopped at a rest stop near the border for everyone to go to the toilet. Then when we got to the Cambodian side he gave us all our passports one by one so we could go in and they could stamp out passport and take our fingerprints. Then we got back on the bus and drove through the border and had to get out again on the Vietnamese side. There the guy handed all our passports in to the guy stamping them and they called us all up one by one to scan all our luggage and check the passport. The guy that was supposed to be looking at the luggage was playing a game on his phone and never even looked at the screen! We got through within a half hour I'd say so it wasn't too bad at all. We were ready to leave again by about 1:30.
We drove for two hours then to Ho Chi Minh. There were some noticeable differences fairly on in our journey across the border- they be little wooden houses and stalls outside aswell, but it's cleaner looking. There seem to be more concrete buildings aswell. The big difference though was the writing on the buildings. Cambodians have symbols like Chinese writing and they write it in Cambodian in our alphabet underneath and in some places in English aswell. Here they use our alphabet so even though the signs are in Vietnamese they look easier to read as they are in letters and not symbols. Even the motorbikes look shinier here!!
We got to the hotel around 4pm and we dropped our backs, dropped our 'waluables at reception'. The guide brought us on a short walk then to go to the ATM, to exchange money and to show us the markets. Neither myself or Ann-Marie really wanted to buy anything but we said we'd have a quick look anyway. Of course, we ended up buying more than any other day! We were there at the end of the market day so they really wanted to sell. We weren't too pushed about buying anything so when they think you're not interested and when you walk away they keep putting down the price- so we felt we got good prices. It was mostly souvenirs we bought- the fun wil be fitting them all in the case!
We just had time to have a quick shower then and we were of for our last group dinner. Eight of the group are continuing on and eight going home. So it's good that we'll know people. Continuing on, we have myself and Annmarie, Hannah & Steff (two English tennis players, 19 and 21, who were travelling in Africa before this), Dan & Mike (from Tasmania who are travelling for six months), Ian (from England- very, very sunburned!!) and Geoff (from New Zealand who likes to pull all-nighters in random bars!!). The eight we are leaving behind are Amy (an English girl), Jess and Anthea (from Melbourne), Colin (a born performer from Melbourne), Nikki & Andrew (from Canberra) and Karen & Hayden (from New South Wales).
We had to walk about 15 minutes to the restaurant which was fine until we had to cross the road! There are millions of motorbikes here and they don't stop! You just have to walk slowly across the road and they will go around you!! I just held on to the guide and learned very quickly not to even look either side or I'd just stop up in the middle of the road!! They do actually go around you, but crossing the road is definitely a skill in itself!!
The restaurant was on the backpacker street where it is full of pubs and restaurants. There are loads of plastic chairs on the side of the road and when people are finished their meals they sit out there and drink, watching all the people go up and down!
As it was our last night we all had a few drinks with our meals. Our guide, Channa, doesn't drink. She's 28, but she was born the same year as Shell. In Cambodia you are 1 when you we born and when the new year comes in April you turn 2- even though you could be just born a few months!! She's younger than Shell is but two years older!!
We all had given her a tip and written her a note as she was a really good guide. So Colin said a speech to thank her and we took lots of pictures with her. Hannah is a real comedian and she was getting her to do different poses but Channa just kept laughing all the time- so she just had two different faces- a serious one and a laughing one! I was in stitches laughing at them!! Hannah was pretending her thumb was in two halves with her fingers which scared the life out of Channa and then Hannah made a lizard with her hands and was pretending the lizard was talking. She showed Channa how to make the lizard but Channa couldn't figure out why hers wasn't talking!! It doesn't seem like drama is a big part of their play over here!! It was hilarious for us though! Hayden then picked her up so she was squealing- I thought the restaurant would throw us out but they seemed to be just laughing!
Some of us went to another bar afterwards. We went to one with a pool table as Hayden, Hannah and Steff wanted to play pool. There was only ourselves in it really. A young boy came in trying to sell bracelets. He asked for a shot at the pool and he was class- way too young to be that good! He cleared the table a few times! He had all the dance moves aswell- a lot of them inappropriate for someone his age! The Macarena came on aswell and we were all up dancing it! After he had bet them at pool we were asking how old he was and he's only 10. I told him he should give the girls a free bracelet because he bet them so badly, but he said he couldn't because of his Mum and he nodded outside. He actually seemed scared. Sure enough there was a woman outside watching his every move!! The poor lad should be reading bed-time stories, not selling bracelets in bars in the middle of the night.
There was a club upstairs so we went up there for a look too. There was a guy that worked there that seemed to have the job of bringing people in and making them buy drink! He even went up to the bar with you. None of us really had money as we had been warned not to bring out too much. So he didn't get much business out of us!! We stayed there for a little while and then walked back to the hotel. It was 2am when we were going to bed- latest night in a while!!