Day 12- 16+ hours of bus travel
Departure day from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh a mere 4 hr bus ride and a short stopover before hopping the bus to Vietnam. It’s the New Year Holiday weekend in Cambodia, so it can be expected that “normal” travel times will NOT be happening.
The estimated time for travel to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam is approximately 6 hours. Well I had no idea what I would be in for when I hopped on the bus. About an hour and half into our journey we came to a dead stop! We were surrounded by motorbikes, vans exceeding capacity in not only the amount of passengers but luggage precariously strapped to the opened hatch, and several people on foot. As time ticked away and the afternoon rolled into evening we all started to realize that this bus ride was going to take a bit longer than anticipated. We were all waiting in several traffic “lanes” to approach the ferry dock. After 4 hours passed and we moved only a few meters, the bus/tour guide announced that the ferry dock would be closing in about 10 minutes. He spoke with one of the local policemen and made some sort of deal to get us into the “fast” lane. Well lets just call it what is was…. Good ‘ole fashion bribery! Everyone on the bus agreed to fork over $1 to expedite our journey. It didn’t exactly speed things up, but the ferry did continue to run and we eventually crossed. Had we not had our packs, we could have swam across quicker.
Now that we had crossed, the next hurdle was getting to the Cambodia/Vietnam border before it’s closing time of 10pm. Well, it was already 9:40pm and we had a good 1.5 hours to go, so lets just say this bus ride was just not shaping up to well. What do we do? Sleep at the border? Cross our fingers that they decide to stay open, so we can pass? We reached the border at midnight, the gates closed and looking very bleak. Our guide hopped out with our passports (all 50 of them) and ran to the guard house where he successfully got our exit stamps. Next stop, Vietnam entry crossing at which point he again ran in with passports in hand to get approval for entry. After I’m sure money $$$ exchanged hands, he returned and we were all asked to exit the bus with our baggage so that we could proceed through the security checkpoint and have our bags scanned. At which point our passports were returned and we could be on our merry way. Ho Chi Min City was still another 2 hours away, but at least we wouldn’t have to sleep on the bus until the border reopened the following morning.
We arrived in HCM City at 2:30am, and I’ve never been happier to find a hotel and get some sleep.
As I continue to travel I realize that the only thing I have control over is my patience & my willingness to go with the flow. It’s all in a 16 hour travel day 🙂
gadabout gal 