Kampot to Ho Chi Minh- Epic Border Crossing Avec les Francais!

---

Kampot is a lovely little ghost town in southern Vietnam, lovely but not enough to keep you entertained for long- the local are even so stretched for things to do they have started a 'Spoof' new journal for Kampot! So after one chilled out nite we, and some french girls we have collected along the way, head out in a Tuk Tuk towards the Cambodia / Vietnam Border. Plan seems simple enough- tuk tuk to border, walk through nomans land between the 2 and then bus from the bustation to Ho Chi Minh / Saigon...... how naive we are, lesson to be learnt about nothing ever being as simple as it looks!!

The tuk tuk took us down a tiny off road back st- think about 1 hr in a cart without suspension- fun!!! eventually to get stuck, after we had already had to get out several times to reduce the load for the thing to negotiate all the holes in the road, so the tuk tuk driver calls motos and all four of us hop on little bikes with little cambodian men, and big bags on our backs!! The Border crossing is essentailly a shed with a man and a stamp- keeping it old school!

Hop back on the motos for about 5 km to the bus station- but no buses!!! Great! get on the motos again for another 20km! and the bus price has suddenly shot up- thinking at this stage that Vietnam and i may not get on too well!! awesome ride on the back of the moto for soo long- great views of the coast and the Mekong delta! but also got burnt and a sore bum!!!

Any way after waiting round at a bustation for about 4 hours, eating french bread-
(yup the french colonisation of some of these countrys left an amazing legacy of baked goodies!!!) We got tickets to just get a local bus to a place called Rach Gia, which none of us were aware off- always fill you with confidence, but we are assured that this is the best place to get a bus to HCMC if we can get one today it will be from here!!

the Bus is ' character ' building, no leg room as you sit on your luggage and a bossy old lady instructs everyone when to get on / off/ move seats etc- very strange! Incredibly we all sleep, and wake up in Rach gia, just in time to get the bus to HCMC, arrive late after a boat trip in the rain, and think i have pretty much covered every possible mode of transport today!!!

All part of the adventure!!

---