Southern Cambodia

Rather than make our own way across the Vietnam-Cambodia border we had opted for a guided border crossing which included, in addition to our ferry back to the mainland, a car to take us to the border, a man to lead us through, and a bus to take us further into Cambodia. So when we got off our ferry we were greeted by our Cambodian guide who was easy enough to spot in his straw hat and abnormally flamboyant shirt for someone in this part of the world. The two of us were loaded into a car and handed all the necessary paper work we would need for the border so we could have it filled out in advance. The Vietnamese border gate was a surprisingly grand archway and after a couple of minutes at immigration our passports were stamped and we had officially left Vietnam.

The clearest indication of how we felt about Vietnam is shown by the fact we have seriously jeopardised later parts of our trip by opting to overstay our planned time here by a week. We ended up staying in the country for three weeks when we have just eight weeks to cover the entire of south-east Asia. Vietnam is a perfect combination of extremely friendly people, stunning scenery and an amazing history. Although I enjoyed my month in China so much, this country may have beaten it in every way.

Entering Cambodia

Having had our passports stamped we found ourselves in a kind of no-man’s land as we hadn’t officially entered Cambodia yet as we had to walk a sweltering few hundred meters to the entry point. It seemed we weren’t the only people to recognise the lack of government in this small patch of land as multiple casinos had staked claim to parts of it as they aren’t welcome in either neighbouring country. It was at this point that our guide dropped the bombshell that a Cambodian visa costs more than we had been informed and that we didn't have enough money. Having found out that, given their lack of a country, the casinos have no cash points we were starting to wonder how we were going to get out of the limbo we found ourselves in. Very kindly our driver offered to lend us the extra few dollars we needed to be able to enter the country as we soon arrived at the considerably less impressive Cambodian gate. This time our guide did all the work as he took our forms and passports and dealt with almost everything while we just sat at a small cafe with the driver. The only thing we were required to do was stop at the Ministry of Health office to confirm we weren’t bringing in any diseases. This sounds like a big deal but the government building was more of a government shack were we merely gave in some forms confirming we didn't have a cold. It turned out we also had to give him a dollar so we found ourselves once again at the mercy of our poor Cambodian taxi driver.

With our thorough medical over we were stamped into our next country and boarded a new minibus which would take us to our first town; Kampot. With a population of just 33,000, Kampot was by far the smallest town we had seen so far and predominately makes its money from farming and the travellers which pass between Cambodia and Vietnam due to its location so close to the border. Having been turned away from our first choice guesthouse we checked into one over the road called The Orchid where we had ourselves a small wooden hut for the night. Having dumped our bags we headed out into what can only be described as a ghost town as we barely saw anyone. I started to wonder whether the population of 33,000 had been massively over exaggerated. Our first stop was lunch in one of the towns few restaurants which proved such a success we ended up going back for dinner as well. The only real sight in town was the old French bridge which is quite unique. Weather and conflict has destroyed it so many times over the years that different sections of it have had to be rebuilt but each in a different time period making it a mismatch of different styles. Having completed our homemade walking tour of Kampot in considerably less time than planned we returned to the hotel to rest before dinner. At night a few more locals seemed to appear but it was hard to tell given the scarcity of streetlamps to such an extent we found ourselves walking down pitch black roads.

The Old French Bridge in Kampot

The following day we were up early to visit the beach town of Sihanoukville named after the long reigning king in the period before Pol Pot tore the country apart not so long ago. Once again our transport would be a minibus and we started to get the idea that the relatively luxurious coaches of Vietnam were a thing of the past. We boarded the minibus having watched our bags be wedged in the boot and then tied shut with rope to find we would be sharing the five hour trip with a few other tourists. However, not long after setting off we deviated off the main road into a small local village where we picked up a family of five who continued to cram themselves into the remaining three seats behind us making for quite a cramped trip. Other than this the journey went smoothly and we even got dropped off right outside our pre-booked accommodation. We had reserved a room at Mick and Craig’s guesthouse which seemed to be in a pretty lively spot however we were fairly gutted to find the weather was far from what we had hoped for at this beach town. Suddenly we found ourselves at a very loose end wondering what there actually was in this town other than the beach to such an extent that we settled on a makeshift tuk tuk tour including a brewery and a hilltop view point. Our time in Sihanoukville continued to fail as we arrived at the brewery of Cambodia’s number one lager (Angkor Beer) to find the guards very confused why tourists were trying to enter and who told us to leave. The brewery tours we had heard about proving to be lies.

Sihanoukville as seen from the peak

Following this though we had a more successful trip up the highest peak in the town where for the first time we could spot the sea since arriving. We also found a particularly cute puppy which we approached only to find two considerably larger and fully grown versions had appeared behind us effectively blocking our escape path.

Stopped in our tracks by a ferocious beast

Having edged passed them we returned hastily to our tuk tuk and started our way down the hill. However we soon stopped as we spotted a troop of monkeys feeding in a tree so jumped out to watch for a while. The only downside was a lady had appeared and was encouraging her small daughter to follow us around looking sad and repeating the phrase “money please”. This was a shame as we had passed her earlier looking so happy to see us drive by that she was jumping up and down, waving and shouting to us. The mother unfortunately felt a depressed looking girl had a better chance of scoring some change.

A monkey tucking into some jackfruit

We returned to our part of town to plan our next destination a bit better than we had planned either Kampot or Sihanoukville. We had already decided not to use our room that evening an instead make back some time we had used up in Vietnam and move on while just accepting Sihanoukville as a mistake. While we planned we did get to enjoy quite a soap opera as a distressed looking American guy wandered the streets looking for his girlfriend who had decide to leave without telling him where she was going. Curiously it seemed to be him doing the apologising when she eventually returned. The highlight of our time here was possibly dinner where Linz opted to be highly adventurous for her and choose something fairly exotic. Odd that she chose to venture into Mexican food though.

Later that evening we were picked up by our transport to the capital city of Phnom Penh which we were glad to see was a full sized coach as opposed to a minibus. Even more pleasingly the seats seemed more like armchairs than usual coach seats meaning I was actually comfortable on a bus for the first time in Asia. We could also enjoy quite a dramatic storm outside the windows which lasted almost the entire trip. The journey was only five hours and would get us to the capital at 1am so we decided it would be best not to sleep on board so we would definitely sleep when we arrived at our hostel. Neither of us managed this.