James and Jo’s south east Asia adventure

A couple of days earlier, as part of the world’s effort to make visiting Cambodia as awkward as possible, I had a message saying that the 9.45am coach that we’d booked wasn’t available due to ‘temporary maintenance’, but there was another one available at 8.00am. It meant an early start and no breakfast but only a slight inconvenience.

We arrived at the departure office half an hour early where we discovered that we needed visas to visit Cambodia. Fortunately they could be purchased on the spot for $40 each. Travelling with giant ibis, the premium coach company meant that everything was dealt with as well as possible. There were about 10 of us on a coach that would’ve seated c.40, I was expecting it to be packed given the cancellation. The seats were very comfortable, the aircon was great and it was possibly the most spacious coach I’d been on. Such is the vastness of the sprawling Ho Chi Minh City we were still within the city limits after travelling for an hour!

When we got to the Vietnam border there was a lot of cash changing hands between people who didn’t really look like they were operating in an official capacity. Still we’d paid 40 bucks each to get across the border and I guess it didn’t really matter to us where it went, our guide or ‘fixer’ took care of everything.

We had a mediocre lunch in the restaurant/duty free area between the border crossing points. It had a circular facade with the glass only translucent, potentially due to pollution and not being washed in a long time. The hall with the stacks of duty free products had huge sheets of paper taped across all of the walls. I got the impression that it was in a permanent state of refurbishment with little urgency for any improvement to take place. 

A flash flood hit out of nowhere during this time, despite sitting by the window we were only alerted to this by the all-encompassing thrumming noise that sounded like a generator idling as the grimy film made it nigh on impossible to see what was happening outside. It didn’t take long to pass through the Cambodian checkpoint either and there was a sign on the wall to the effect of ‘no cash required’, there was an absence of shady men with hands full of noted here. Despite only having to travel a few metres to get back in the coach our feet got soaked as a couple of inches of rainwater had accumulated across the concrete.

We arrived in Phnom Penh at about 16.00, but the 8 hours had gone comparatively quickly due to the comfort of the coach, adequate breaks and interesting views.

It was a short tuk tuk journey to the hotel where we were greeted with a glass of tamarind juice, it’s similar to apple juice and very refreshing! After dropping off our bags we headed out for a walk, whilst the car to motorbike ratio is much more even in Cambodia compared to Vietnam crossing the road is still hazardous and they have the same disregard for zebra crossings. There’s a big park near our hotel which seemed like a popular gathering point for locals and there were large groups of runners doing laps.

We didn’t see anything similar in Vietnam and I can’t recall any green spaces in the parts we visited. We happened across a food hall and opted to eat at what looked like the most popular restaurant, as the only white face there I felt comfortable that it was an authentic Cambodian eatery, although they did also have an English menu brought over that covered about half of the options. I went for the traditional Khmer noodle soup from the original menu and jo went for the crab and papaya salad. I think that’s they got our orders mixed up as they came over and asked jo if she liked spice, she replied ‘no spice’; they then placed the noodle soup in front of her, we moved it across to me and although nicely flavoured did not have a hint of spice. Jo’s meal then appeared and was rendered almost inedible as far as she was concerned due to a healthy seasoning of spice. She made a good effort, eating almost all of the crab meat. I’m not sure how many crabs went into the dish but there were an awful lot of spiky legs sticking out!

Whilst we were sat at the table eating we had the first instance of a child begging for money which made me very uncomfortable, as I hate children and I hate giving away money.