25th – Go west!

Today’s main plan was to jump onto a bus at 0800 from the hotel and take it to cross the border into Cambodia and drive to the capitol Phnom Penh. Our guide had informed us that instead of a private bus we would be going on a public one, so I was expecting a day on a rickety bus barely holding itself together. Instead we were picked up by a very nice bus with functioning AC (the most important) and even though every seat was booked and eventually occupied there was – relatively – enough space for a fairly comfortable drive. There were two small kids that were quite rowdy for most of the time, though, and their parents didn’t really do anything to keep them in check. Oh, well, you can’t have it all.

Nearing the border a guy with the bus collected all our passports and visas or visa applications to make sure everything was in order, and when reaching the Vietnamese border he then handed them back. We went through the border, returned to the bus, and those without visas handed in their passports once again. We drove for a few minutes through no man’s land before reaching the Cambodian side where we with visas could go through immediately. I realized that I couldn’t, though, because somewhere between collecting my passport and handing it back he had thrown away my entry/departure card (and visa proof of purchase) so I had to find a new card to fill out first. I managed to get through, and when the last group had crossed the border (those with visa applications who got a visa on arrival) we returned to the bus and continued.

After a few minutes’ drive we stopped for lunch before continuing the drive which around 1645 brought us to our hotel. At some point along the way the bus-passport-guy returned my visa proof of purchase – but my arrival/departure card was still missing. After having filled out a new one the old was irrelevant, but still, as the two had been in the same place the entire situation was just weird.

At 1730 we went on a cycle tour – seated in a seat on the front of a bike with a local driver so we didn’t have to do any work ourselves. We came by a statue of Lady Penh, according to legend the founder of Phnom Penh. From there we went by the independence monument before bringing us down near the river where we were picked up by tuk-tuks that took us a bit out of the city to a private family who had a local dinner ready for us. It was absolutely delicious; spring rolls, beef & noodles, chicken curry, vegetables, meat skewers and of course plenty of rice. We ended the day when we returned to the hotel at around 2100.

Independence monument.

This little fellow was hanging out at the dinner place.

When entering Phnom Penh it felt a lot like HCMC, but with less scooters and more cars. Seems to be slightly more orderly, too. There are a lot of large buildings and large buildings being built which you didn’t really see much of in HCMC, so in that sense this city seems a fair bit more modern.