We were up bright and early as our bus was collecting us at 8.30am. We had breakfast before being collected in a small mini bus to go 20metres up the road to where the coach was waiting for us!! We boarded and set off! The guide introduced herself before giving us all a bottle of water, a hot dog and a chocolate muffin from the bakery! We were chuffed with that, especially as we weren't expecting it!! Driving through Ho Chi Minh was just as crazy as watching it! We went through the outskirts which were just as busy as the centre of town! The journey to the border took about 2.5 hours and we passed through some real poor areas of Vietnam. Once at the border there was much faffing about! The guide had taken our passports to sort our visas and we had to stop twice to get off the bus for various reasons! It was all very confusing and we even had a temperature gun pointed at our foreheads to check our temperature!! They issued our visa without evening seeing us or speaking to us!! From the border we carried on a short while before stopping at a roadside cafe. These places are the cheapest way to eat out here and are present everywhere you go. However, standards of hygiene vary considerably and you can never be sure how long the food has been sat there! The smell is also quite bizarre and often puts us off! This all applied to this cafe, in addition to the amount of flies buzzing around! We passed on the food and stuck to our pringles instead! From the cafe it took about 3 hours to the bus station in Phnom Penh. We drove through some very poor areas where people were living in shacks that looked like they could fall down at any point and where animals just roamed around freely, including huge cow things with horns!! We had to cross the Mekong river by ferry and while on there two young boys were walking along the bus knocking on the windows begging for food. We didn't see one school while in Vietnam but while driving through Cambodia we saw at least 10 of them and 2 teacher training colleges! We also saw a number of policemen here, whereas in Vietnam we only saw 2 and that was on our way towards the border! Anyhoo, once we got closer to Phnom Penh there was more development and the centre of town was similar to what we had seen in Vietnam. It is just as busy but the shops here look poorer than Vietnam. Once at the bus station the Tuk Tuk drivers are like hawks trying to get you to go on their Tuk Tuk. Luckily our hostel offered free pick ups and we were very relieved to see my name on a sign being held by one of the Tuk Tuk drivers! We were whisked away from all the hassle and through the streets! It was an experience as they too don't have any road rules and they drive wherever they want! We arrived in one piece though and checked into another lovely room, we've even got a balcony this time..not that we can go out on it because of the mozzies!!
We relaxed for a bit and then went for a mooch in the local area. We went down to the river where many of the locals were hanging out! There was a gym class happening and lots of people playing badminton. You could see on the other side of the river where lots of shacks were built on stilts.
We spent the rest of the evening hiding from the mozzies in the bar, planning our time in Thailand!