The journey to Phnom Penh

Just a quick one. We arrived in Phnom Penh after an 'interesting' journey. Will update soon. Due to leave Phnom Penh on 19th November (Monday) for Siem Reap. Also will update with Ho Chi Minh City pics soon too.

xoxoxox

ADDED ENTRY BELOW

We arranged a two day trip to take us from HCMC to Phnom Penh which included a trip down the Mekong Delta. We set off yesterday at 7am. There were perhaps 12 other people; most of them tourists and I ended up sitting next to a rather interesting 81 year old Italian lady called Clara. A bit like Matt's Aunty Monica she has done lots of travelling and therefore had lots of tales to tell so that made the 3 hours pass quickly. We arrived at a harbour where the group split. As we were going on to Phnom Penh we basically had to lug our bags around with us all day. We boarded a small boat (by 'boarded' I mean we had to climb - me on hands and knees - onto the bow of one boat (it was over a metre high) then cross from this to the next one.) I managed to accrue another corker of a bruise en route. We sailed around a floating market on the Mekong which would have been great had we arrived a bit earlier to see it in action. Never mind. We transferred to a bus and travelled a further 5 or so hours to a border town called Chau Doc. We spent the night in a rather dingy guesthouse; our room was covered in tiny ants. It turned out that most rooms were so we stayed put.

An early start this morning (6.30am) we firstly visited a fishing village. We got onto yet another boat with very hard wooden seats, for the 2 hour journey to the Vietnamese border. At this point we had a guide who was to help us through the border crossing; Matt and I already had our Cambodian visas and as our boat had 2 too many people on it the guide asked if we would give her our passports (she was going to take them all to get an exit stamp at the border) and get on another boat…and leave our bags on her boat. We put up a fuss as there's no way we're handing our passports over and sailing off on some other boat. She seemed to take this a bit personally assuring us she did this everyday. In the end 2 other girls said they would go. I'm not being funny but this seems to have been the case throughout Vietnam; all the hostels and hotels have asked for our passport on arrival, to keep during our stay. We have said 'no' so they took the details and gave them back but it's surprising how many people just happily hand their passport over, usually to be kept in an unlocked drawer. In one hotel, one girl, upon leaving asked for her passport back and the receptionist said, 'we'll just check the room then give it you back.' I mean, like it's some kind of deposit. It's a passport! I'll step down from the soap box again but the only people getting our passports are customs, police or government.

Anyway, at the Vietnamese border we had lunch, got our passports back then donned our bags again and boarded yet another, even more uncomfortable boat. This time we had no guide just a captain of sorts (this is possibly a slightly grand title for a guy who was probably heading up river anyway). We got off after 20 minutes to enter Cambodia by foot. We queued for ages in the blistering heat to get our passport stamped then we set off for the alleged 2 hour (actual 4 hour) journey (still by boat) to a bus that would take us to Phnom Penh. When we finally arrived - not sure where -we clambered off down a very precarious skinny plank, walked through a muddy toilet and onto a dirt track. We all waited and realised we didn't know where to go. Eventually a couple of crappy decrepit buses turned up; on trying to establish whether these were for us, the non-English speaking drivers pointed at the bus and pointed to the road ahead. We all got on. The journey to Phnom Penh was part road, part dirt track. Half way the driver stopped to let what looked like his family and large pots of dinner on. We arrived at a guesthouse in Phnom Penh at around 7.30pm. We did actually decide to stay as it seemed ok. A nice finish to the day was a rather delicious Khmer curry we had at the guesthouse.