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Published: February 9th 2006
Feb 8, 2006
On Feb 4, we are still in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Our second driver did not show up. We hired a third driver, this time a middle aged gentleman who has 5 children, but he always has a big smile. We continue our tour of the temples and went to Angkor Thom. It is a tiring day as we visited 12 temples. Some of the temples require climbing as the stairs are steep and narrow. Some of the temples include Ta Keo, Ta Prohm (the famous one where some scenes of Tomb Raider was filmed).
On Feb 5, we hired the same (third) tuk-tuk driver to go to Beng Mealea. This temple is 60 kilometers away from Siem Reap. Some of the road and good, but part of the road is very dusty and bumpy. This temple was just opened to the public for 2 years. It's main feature is that it is not restored, only some trees and plants were cut down. It gives us a glimpse of what Angkor Wat looked like when it was first "discovered". We had a lot of fun exploring inside this temple. Often we had to climb over rocks to get from one place to the next.
On Feb 6, we went to Angkor Wat for a morning tour. We are ready to leave the next day to Phnom Penh and booked our guesthouse.
On Feb 7, we took a bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. A 4.5 hour trip was extended to 6 due to two lunch breaks. However, the bus was very comfortable and cost only $4 for the trip. After arriving in Phnom Penh, we were picked up by the guesthouse (Floating Island Guesthouse).
A few days ago, we left our passport with an agent in Siem Reap to get our Vietnam visa. They promised to deliver the passports to Phnom Penh, to her sister's agent in Phnom Penh.
So, we went to sister's company and glad to find out the passports did arrive safely. So, we happily picked up our passports. After that, we arranged transportation to Saigon. The bus ticket only cost $3.5 and it keeps us wondering how the bus companies can make money as other bus companies charge as much as $12.
On Feb 8, we took the bus from Phnom Penh to the border and it took about 4 hours. We stopped for lunch for about one half hour before we cross the border into Vietnam. We exchanged a few dollars into Vietamese money ($1 = 15850 Dong).
Exiting Cambodia is simple, but the process was slow as they only have one officer helping us, and there are about 3 busloads of foreigners. After exiting the Cambodian immigration, we then walked to the Vietnam border. At the immigration, there were many Vietnamese "officers" helping people fill out the declaration. It turned out they will charge each of us $1. We quickly declined the offer and obtained two forms from the real officer and started lining up. There were only two officers checking the passports and the process was slow. After getting our passports stamped, we were asked to pay 2000 Dong (about US 12 cents) for entry fee. From the time we walked into the immigration area to the time we exit it, our passports were checked a total of about 5 times by different officers. Then we exited the immigration area and look for our bus.
Unlike our experience in Koh Kong, we quickly found the bus company (a different name, run by Vietnamese). After a short while, a group of us who got out of immigration early were loaded into mini-buses (about 18 passengers). It took the bus about 1.5 hours to get to our destination in Ho Chi Ming City.
Ho Chi Ming City is a big city. The traffic is slow. There are 7 million people living here. We were dropped off in the backpackers area -- Phu Ngam Lao street. The bus company (TNK Travel) representative greeted us and told us to leave our luggage with them while we look for accommodation. Wow, Vietnamese tour companies really know how to take care of their customers !!!
We started to look for a guesthouse and a woman approached us and told us she has a guesthouse for $5 a night. So, we followed her and looked at the place. We did not like it and thank her for showing us the place. She continued to follow us and show us more guesthouses. Now, we realize she is not the owner of the first guesthouse, but a tout who takes commission from the guesthouse owners. We politely leave her and started on our own. We found a nice, clean and quiet place for $8 a night, with breakfast included. In the backpackers area, it is pretty difficult to find a quiet room. The music is loud on the streets and usually do not stop until midnight. Whereas the traffic's noise (honking) start as early as 5 am as Vietnamese are early risers. So, we are happy with our guesthouse.
We decided not to visit the famous Cu Chi tunnels, which is now a reconstruction of the real tunnel. As we will be visiting central Vietnam where there is another real tunnel, we will save the visit until then.
We booked a 3 day Mekong Delta Tour for $23, with other tour operators offering similar tours for $28 to $35. Before retiring to bed, we packed a day pack for the Delta tour.
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Grace Cheung
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I remembered climbing the steep steps in Angkor Wat
When you mentioned Cambodia and Angkor Wat, I remembered climbing the steps so vividly even though it is over 30 years ago. It was quite scary actually. Climbing up is OK, but trying to climb down facing forward is almost impossible. It felt like bungie jumping! I ended up climbing down backwards. Still you need to turn your feet sideways as the steps are very narrow and steep. Hope you folks handled the steps well! Keep having fun.