Goodbye to Cambodia, For Now

So, my plan ended being to go to Southern Vietnam before heading back into Cambodia.  This would actually work out quite well, because it would mean less backtracking further into my trip.  In order to get to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) it meant having to switch buses in Phnom Penh.  On the bus I ran into the Brit I had met on the bus to Kampot, Liam.  Remember before when I thought the trip would only be two hours?  Well, apparently there isn't a direct bus and since we had to go through Kep, a small seaside village, the trip was going to be four to five hours depending on how often we had to stop.  I guess the good thing was that I got to see Kep, albeit quickly, since I had wanted to go there before all the rain.

As we drove along, I felt bad for the people that we passed as the majority of them got soaked from the mud puddles that we went through.  One thing I noticed about Cambodia is that it is extremely muddy, especially in the towns which doesn't make it very pleasant for walking or very pretty to look at when driving through them.  However, the countryside was quite beautiful, especially those houses that lily ponds in front of them.

We arrived at bustling Phnom Penh.  Navigating through the streets was quite an adventure.  It didn't seem like there were many traffic laws at all!  At the busy bus station, Liam and I tried to get onto an earlier bus and as we waited to find out, we were inundated with hawkers and one little girl, with her father who had lost a leg, begging for money.  We found out that the earlier bus was full, which meant having to wait another hour and a half.  Liam had been to Phnom Penh before and knew of an internet place close by, which was good in order to get away from the chaos.

Once on the bus, the seats were pretty small, even for me.  I felt bad for anyone that was bigger than me.  At least I had Liam next to me and not some complete stranger.  The trip overall was pretty uneventful.  A few movies were shown, but the sound wasn't really loud enough to totally hear everything that was going on.  We made our obligatory pit stops before reaching the border.

We had already handed over our passports and so on the Cambodian side, we just had to all get off the bus, and then as our names were called in front of an immigration officer, we got back onto the bus.  Then we drove to the Vietnam side.  Here we had to collect our bags and go into the immigration building.  Once again, we didn't have to do anything, but wait for our names to be called, but this time, the process took a lot longer.  I guess there were quite a few people trying to cross the border that evening, so after about 45 minutes or so, we finally were on our way again.

We ended up reaching Ho Chi Minh CIty around 8:15 after a 13 hour trip.