Shinoukville - Ho Chi Minh

During the remainder of our time in Sihnoukville we found out we pretty much aren't going to be able to go Thailand, not only is the political situation unpredictable but our insurance would be invalid if we did! (insurance is BULL! lol) So we've changed our plans, we're flying home in THREE WEEKS time, from Hanoi because Laos is not very well connected with airlines and beacuse the travel in Laos is very slow and we may now find ourselves pushed for time! It sucks that we're now not going to Laos but it means that we can not be too rushed through Vietnam and we'll be able to go as far up as Hanoi and perhaps to a cruise on Halong Bay! Pretty sweet end to the trip! lol

After making all these decisions we booked a coach to Ho Chi Minh with Monkey Republic, thinking it would be a reputable travel company and we would get to HCMC with relative ease, this was NOT the case! lol.

We got picked up at 7AM and drove to Phnom Penh where we were supposed to get on another coach which would take us through the border all the way to HCMC. However, when we arrived in Phom Penh we were told there was no bus coming because the bus for HCMC that day was full. The guy at first said we could either have a refund or get a partial refund which would get us to the border! We were lucky enough find ourselves thrown together with 9 lovely people! There were: some other girls travelling (one of which was from Redditch, small world! lol); a couple who teach in a British international school in HCMC; an argentinian guy who is currently living in Kabul; an unusually tall japanese guy; a swedish girl travelling alone and another guy travelling alonwe. We all tried to reason with the guy at the travel company who refused to pay out any money for us to get a minibus so in the end we decided we needed to get a move on because the border crossing would close, so we got refunds and got ourselves a minibus for $9 each. The bags were shoehorned in, we took the back row and had to have our feet on bags wedged under the seats! lol. After an uncomfortable but very sociable 4 hour drive to the border we all got stamped out of Cambodia and filled in arrival card to enter Vietnam. We queued (like good brits!) to get stamped into Vietnam, there were constantly tour co-ordinators and bus drivers bringing piles of passports to the front of the queue and bribing the officer guy to do them before ours! This only stopped when we PHYSICALLY stopped the pushers-in getting through! lol. Eventually we all got through the border (by this point it was dark!) and so we found another minibus that would take us to HCMC for $5 each. This was an easy journey, Emma was chatting to the teacher guy about teaching and we were all larking about, there was a great sense of comradery between us all and we headed to the backpacker district of the city and all found places to stay before meeting at a restaurant run by a friend of the teacher couple. We three all had an amazing Vietnamese Yellow Curry. In the end we made some friends and were only down $1, que cera cera! lol.

We spent yesterday around the city we visted the War Remnants Museum (which used to be called the museum of American War Crimes!) and saw all these amazing photos of the war, amazing! After that we went to Notre Dame Cathedral (not as good as the one in Paris I must admit! lol) before taking refuge from a downpour in the 'Diamond Plaza' where they had port merion stuff! lol. This morning we've been hanging around, we're catching a bus upto Mui Ne at 3.
xxx