I booked all my Cambodian tickets on the bus company Capital tour, and, until I left for Thailand, they had been flawless. I left Phnom Pen right on time (ie, I tried to get on the wrong bus 3 minutes before my designated departure time, and they told me as if it was obvious that my bus would pull in front of the station at 7:30, and it was only 7:27), and enjoyed the 4 hour ride down, except for the constant Karaoke VCDs that were playing (see Video from the Phnom Pen Blog for an example). My seat companion was another lovely middle aged women who spoke no English. She came to my aid at a rest stop, where a vendor would not sell my the banana wrapped in sticky rice snack for the same ... read more

The only option for crossing from Laos straight into Cambodia is, it seems, to work with this one company that charges $20 to get to a city half way between the border and Phnom Pen. As soon as I got to the border, I knew that this was going to be a unique experience. Actually, it was before that. I was picked up from the Island at 8am, delivered to the bus station by 8:10, and then found out that we were not leaving until 9. I was thinking, "then why the heck did I get up at the crack of dawn?". On arrival at the border, we all lined up at this little hut and immigration just opened up for our bus and then closed down after our group went through. I was able to ... read more

Upon leaving Pakse for Champasak, we had are only real frustrating experience with the local transport. We all got on a tuktuk, negotiated a fair price to the bus station, and were dropped off only 2 out of the 10ks into the trip at a market, where we were told the bus would pick us up. There were many sawngthaews (big tuk tuks) leaving the area, so we got out, paid the driver and went to wait for bus. No sooner did our tuktuk pull out than other tuk tuk drivers come up offering to drive us to the bus station. Growl. We decided to wait until the bus should have come, and then negotiated a price for a tuktuk to just take us all the way to Champasak. I was done waiting for buses by ... read more

Well, after a 22 hour busride with Vietnamese people, anything would look good. No doubt about it, the whole 'leaving Vietnam thing' didn't really do a whole lot to change my attitude about that country. Well, lets see, where to start. Oh, about 30 minutes out of Hanoi, a motorcycle cop came along side our bus with his light and siren on and pulled over the driver for the sole purpose of getting some early retirement money. Yeah, no problem, our scheduled time was just two hours shy of a full freakin day, but go ahead, spend a half hour in a scream filled interchange with the bus driver about the cost of the bribe. My fellow travelers made it clear that I was better off not being seen (being the only white person, only non-Vietnamese, ... read more

The pics tell most of the story, and I don't have time to add the text now. To be updated shortly.... read more