Leaving Cambodia

  Cantho, Vietnam
Monday, June 2, 2008

I had to leave the kids and that has been the hardest experience of  my trip so far. Indeed, I had trouble with my vietnamese visa as I went through an agency in Siem Reap and like every organisation in Cambodia, corruption did not help. So I ended up having to go to the Vietnam embassy in Pnomh Penh myself to get my visa and I got it in less than 24 hours ! Back to more crazy bus rides in Cambodia and here I am, in the capital of Cambodia. It is a very chaotic big city, similar to what I have seen about Cambodia all along, except this time, corruption did help me. To get to any hotel in Cambodia, you have to give your passport and they keep it overnight. You do not ask why, it is common pratice and it is the same everywhere. But I had to leave my passport at the embassy so no passport, no room...unless... a lot of talking, a couple of dollars under the table and you've got a place to crash for the night. It was extremely dirty and filthy but it was on the lake, with beautiful views (from the lobby cause my room had no window) and more mosquitos than I have ever seen. I am not talking about european mosquitos that bite you and you get a little scratchy red spot, no not those ones, I am talking about the asian mosquitos, the ones that give you ugly scars for months !

Anyway, I had a good time in Pnohm Penh and visited the whole city mainly walking and with motorbike (taxi-motorbike). Once my visa was sorted out, I made my way towards the border of Vietnam,  but not the touristy way, I went through the newly open border of Ha-tien on the coast

Ha Tien border

. The most remote border crossing, very entertaining ! To get there, you have to take a 3-hour tuk-tuk ride in the dust on dirt roads,

The road to the border

then a cambodian motorbike in no-man's land to get to the actual border, then a vietnamese motorbike (same same as a cambodian one except it is ridden by a vietnamese person) to the first town, 10 km from the border. Then you and your bag get grabbed and shevelled into a 3-hour local bus ride to a town you did not want to go to. Well the thing is, in Vietnam, when speaking there are 6 tones and if you prononce them wrong, they have a completely different meaning. For example, (I am using a Thai keyboard at the moment so there are no accents on this particular one) dua
 with an accent on the u going from bottom left to top  right means pineapple but dua with an accent on the u going from top left to bottom right means coconut. Luckily enough, I like them both cause needless to say getting one or the other was always a gamble, but funny game. Also the "d" is pronounced "z", well sometimes it is and most letters are not pronounced the way they appear to you. All this to say that if you want to go somewhere in Vietnam, you would be better of writing down the name of the town you are trying to get to if you do not want to end up somewhere else. You learn by your mistakes don't you?

After a full ten-hour day of travelling from Kampot, Cambodia to Cantho, Vietnam, I finally arrived at my destination. The Mekong delta has been part of Cambodia for many years and most of the inhabitants today are still Kmers. You are in the middle of Kmers and Vietnamese people and they do not like each other, it makes it very interesting. While in Cantho, I visited the biggest floating market there Bao Cai. Apart from the fact that you have to leave before 5 am because by 9 am, it is too hot and the market closes down, it is absolutely breathtaking ! See it for yourself with the pictures.

The floating market 3

The floating market 2

I'll tell you more in a week or so, but for some reason, I mainly mingle with Vietnamese, American and English people. I just wanted to let all my friends from Brighton know why there are no cute English guys in England... it is because they are all travelling around southeast Asia !

My friends 1

,

My friends 6