I woke up at 4:30am because there was such a crazy thunderstorm, it was shaking the building. We had two coffees each before heading down to breakfast. During breakfast the power turned off and never did go back on before we left, which made checking out a bit tricky. Thankfully we had packed as our room was very dark to pack in. The lady at the front desk arranged a tuk tuk for us to Sakura Avenue where our bus to Ho Chi Minh Vietnam would be leaving from. The ride cost us $5. I  love riding in tuk tuks so much. In  Phnom Penh the tuk tuks are more like theIndian ones now. The tuk tuks in Cambodia used to all be like the ones in Siem Reap, a motorcycle pulling a cart. The ride took about 15 minutes. Jives paid the man $6 and he seemed pretty happy. 

We walked inside the Giant Ibis terminal and a lady checked our booking and told us to sit down. A few minutes later a different lady asked to see our passports for the border crossing later on. We waited about thirty minutes before boarding the bus, as more people arrived. We boarded the bus at 9:43am, a few minutes before our slated departure time. We had seats 1A and 1B, right behind the driver. We were given a croissant, water and a Nescafe coffee in a can. We set off a little later at 9:45am. There was a cute kid on the bus as we left who must have been a worker’s son. He had a paper replica of the bus steering wheel and was playing at bus driver which was adorable. We drove through Phnom Penh and picked up a random couple in an industrial district thirty minutes later.

We drove a few hours before stopping for ten minutes at a roadside stop to have a washroom break. We then continued to the Cambodian border, which took about 4.5 hours. We got off the bus with our passports. Jives went first. The border guard checked our passport photos against our visas and then we stood awkwardly . The lady from Giant Ibis (the bus company) told us to go to the “last counter” so we wandered down to the end of the covered area. Being first was a bit awkward. Eventually the one bus driver yelled over to me to go where he was, so I did…and everyone followed me. The bus company lady then collected our passports to go and get them stamped out of Cambodia. We then hopped back on the bus and the one driver took us to the duty free where we had a thirty minute break for lunch. 

The duty free building had one restaurant and a lot of liquor stores, clothing and watch shops. We bought a tin of peanuts and some chips that tasted like fruit loops. With only thirty minutes and a bus full of people clamouring to get food, I didn’t think we had time to wait at the restaurant. 

We then jumped back on the bus and rode a short distance to Vietnam immigration. Here the driver instructed us to take our bags and walk into a building. Everyone else followed my lead. Inside I found the bus lady and she handed me my passport and told me to walk through immigration…. The immigration official did not like this, and being the leader of the pack, I felt super uncomfortable. The lady from the bus finished handing out passports and yelled at me to keep walking despite the angry immigration man. The immigration man noticed her and his expression changed and he waved me through. 

Next we had to put our bags through a scanner. We then walked outside the building and handed our passports to another man who checked our visas over. Afterwards I led our group to a curb where we sat and waited for the bus to pass through inspection. I had no idea what I was doing, and really hated that I had become the “leader”. 

Eventually we hopped back on the bus and continued our drive to Ho Chi Minh City, another hour and a bit away. We witnessed some serious road rage on the way. A car was driving slowly in the passing lane so a truck driver drove in front of him blocking the whole lane and jumped out of his car with a giant metal pipe to beat up the driver. 

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh city at about 4:30pm. The bus dropped us off at 23 September park, just a 8 minute walk from our airbnb. We walked through the park where locals were playing sports, walking, resting and practising music. 

We found our Airbnb entrance by a series of pictures and walked up two floors of a very local looking building. The room was very nice with an amazing view of the night life down below. We got unpacked and situated, resting for a bit before heading out to a place nearby for dinner. We walked once again through 23 September park and down a smaller side street which was lined with little restaurants. We chose one because it advertised vegetarian food. I ordered a veggie curry with potato, onion, carrot and fish, while Jives ordered a fried tofu and tomato dish. Both dishes came with rice, and we ordered a green Saigon beer to share. The food was lovely and we loved sitting at the edge of the road. We had a really great time, until it came time to pay. A lady who had not previously served us stormed over with our bill. The total was 219,000. I gave her 300,000 as this was our first purchase in Vietnam and I didn’t have much in the way of small bills (for perspective 100,000 is equal to about $4). The lady refused to give us change for the bill yelling “give me” and grabbing money out of my wallet herself. The restaurant was pretty full, there is no way she couldn’t give us change. The lady grabbed the bills she wanted out of my wallet and stormed away. The staff was all looking at me…I walked away. The nice guy who had served us said “ please come back again”. The pity was I really wanted to go back for breakfast the next day, Jives and I had even talked about what we were going to order… 

We then went to a Family Mart on the way back to the Airbnb and got some supplies to make our own breakfast the next day as well as a beer to have on our balcony before bed.