August 15 to 16—Phnom Penh to SaiGon: Getting There Is the Adventure

Dear Family and Friends,

Wednesday, August 15, Dani was up at 6:30 AM to complete packing, and the driver was downstairs inquiring at the front desk at 7:32 AM when we emerged from the elevator. By van, we were carried to the Capital Tours office where we were told to wait in the restaurant until 8:00 AM when our bus would arrive. We bought a large water and two baguettes to finish off the riel in our pockets. Why carry loose money that we cannot spend in other parts of the world when we can carry lunch instead? When the bus arrived, we were the only two on it. Although it waited until 8:00 AM to depart, no other folks showed up to join us. One driver, one guide, and two tourists for a large air-con minibus.

Along the way out of the capital city, we saw new temples being built, the most interesting of which had an entry stairwell made of five scary naga (the mulit headed king cobra who shielded Buddha from the rain as he meditated) heads through which worshipers would enter the temple threshold along a red staircase made to look like a tongue. So sorry not to have gotten a picture of that! The pavement stopped approximately 18 KM outside of the city, and from that point forward, the road was only paved at the bridges. We knew we were in for an adventure. We were quite glad it hadn’t rained in the last two days, since that would have turned our highway into chunky peanut butter. As it was, the road was only bumpy with large holes, and the rickety old bus easily creaked its way along.

Our bus ride ended in the sleepy town of Neak Luong, where we walked through someone’s house and to the backyard on the river where three boats were docked. A group of 10 tourists were ahead of us boarding a quaint looking vessel with bright blue padded folding chairs, so we followed them. Our guide, however, called us onto a larger, rust covered craft! Why are we being segregated?

There were two other local passengers, our guide, and the driver on this boat, which could have held 50 people. Again, we wondered why the lot of us didn’t simply board the other smaller boat. But, off we chugged down the mighty, muddy Mekong River, the third largest river in the world, in all its glory and expansiveness! What fun! We took some photos from inside the vessel before sitting on the railing in towards the bow to get some fresh air and a better view.

We ate a brunch comprising a can of tuna and vegetable salad that Dani had been carrying since Spain (!) on the baguettes purchased that morning. About 11:30 AM, we were guided through the border crossings by our guide. We stopped first on the Cambodian side and said goodbye to this lovely country, feeling a bit of sorrow to be leaving after just under two weeks. Next, on the same side of the river (which confused us because we thought that the Mekong separated the two countries’ borders), we stopped at another building that was the entry to VietNam. We paid the quarantine fee of 2000 dong (0.13 USD) each in the medical inspection room, where we were not inspected, but then were ushered to a ‘restaurant’ to sit while our passports walked away with our guide into another large building. (*shudder* We hate turning over our passports to anyone.)

Dani puts ‘restaurant’ in quotes because we were technically seated in the main room of someone’s home; their clothes closet was directly behind Martha’s seat and family pictures sat on top of the TV. We were sitting about 20 feet from the river’s edge, and another line of homes was between us and the river, though on stilts. Women went about their daily lives, washing vegetables in the river with no concern for the on-looking groups of tourists sitting in the restaurants waiting for their passports. As we entered the establishment that our guide’s ‘daughter’ took us to (perhaps she was the owner’s daughter as well/instead, since she giggled when she said he was her father), another woman sitting along the path with a wok attempted to coax our business. We weren’t hungry, however, so simply entered the restaurant to sit.

It had been 36 hours since our last fruit shake, so we got one each (Martha’s was watermelon with too many seeds and Dani’s was pineapple) and a large bottle of water, using up our last single single-US dollar bills. Within a half an hour, a new guide who was to take us through VietNam appeared with our passports (whew!) and encouraged us to follow him. Our bags were x-rayed, and we were ushered onto another small boat with two lawn chairs set up. Hmm, again, although the border crossing was full of other tourists, we would be sitting alone on this vessel with just the driver and our guide. Did we smell, perhaps?

We did not complain, as we enjoyed a very Heart of Darkness journey through the tree-, house-, and rice-field–lined side waterways of the VietNam border. It was a lovely, serene ride through the old canals, giving us the opportunity to experience first-hand the Vietnamese countryside as it passed us by for more than an hour. Many children running along the river waved at us, some calling out ‘Hello’ and smiling broadly.

As we neared our destination town of Chao Doc, the other water-logged vessels became larger. It occurred to Dani that Cambodia hadn’t had large crafts or vehicles to transport goods; only enough capital to purchase one-day’s supplies. Floating houses lined the coast. We docked and were immediately approached by two cyclo drivers (bicycle-powered carts for single passengers with the bikes in the front) wanting our business. Hmm, no motorized tuk-tuks here. ‘Same Same, But Different.’ As there were only two passengers getting off the boat, most of the drivers left when it seemed apparent that we would be taking the services of only two.

We had contemplated staying in Chao Doc for a night, but were most interested in arriving to SaiGon, so asked the gentlemen to take us to the bus station. Weee! Our packs were placed on the platform between the seat and the bicycle driver, and we were off through the town just 1.5 KM to the ‘bus station.’ Ohhh noooo ... NOT the bus station!! Grumble. Again, we were led to the front of an office (cement floor and a desk with a fridge of snacks) and told that this was the only place one could buy a bus ticket. Ugh, we hate feeling like we’re being scammed, and we’re sure that we were taken for a few extra dollars once again. So, we paid our drivers the agreed-upon price of 1 USD each for transport to the ‘bus station,’ and let them be on their way while we purchased our bus tickets for the four-hour ride to SaiGon for 10 USD each. We were told that the fee included being dropped off wherever we wanted in SaiGon, and settled to wait for the cab to take us to the ACTUAL bus station, which is very close to the docking station and to the left (there was a map of town on the wall that made it very clear we had been at-least partially duped).

The cyclo-driver told us to wait about 15 minutes before we left for the bus station, so Dani went in search of food. A man on the street in front of the house next door was selling soup (pho) but we didn’t want to have to slurp that quickly if the bus arrived. Dani spotted a woman down the street with baguettes on her cart, so approached to ask how much for a sandwich. The woman looked terrified and dragged her cart into the ‘bus station’ office. The woman who had sold us the bus tickets was pulled out to help; though she didn’t speak English either, her presence comforted the sandwich lady. A series of pointing and nodding landed Dani with two baguettes with mystery meat, what appeared to be spicy sauce, parsley, pickled carrots, and cheese; Martha opened her hand filled with dong, and the bus ticket lady selected a 10,000 dong note (0.66 USD) to pay the sandwich cart lady. We said what we hope is ‘thank you’ in Vietnamese to both ladies (sounds like ‘cam ern’ with stress on the ‘cam’ and a slight pause before the ‘ern’) and stuffed the sandwiches into our bags for later.

An SUV appeared about 3:15 PM; we threw our bags in and were whisked to the actual bus station at a very quick pace. Onto the back seat of a mini-bus, we were included in a van with 15 seats that was just about full upon our arrival, except for the seat next to us in the back and, it turned out, one other. We stopped a bit later, picked up more passengers to make the bus completely filled, and were off again. A Buddhist nun turned around and offered Dani some of her langsart fruits and made an attempt to ask some questions. Dani wasn’t sure if she was speaking Vietnamese or English with a very heavy accent, thus felt guilty and sad at not being able to communicate more than hand gestures.

The nun was so sweet to everyone on the bus ride, and we saw many of the other young women enjoying some chatter as the hours passed. Being a 'female monk' is quite a difficult station in life, from what we’ve read in Thailand. A person gets ‘merit’ in Buddhism for giving food or money to a male monk, but nothing is gained by giving to a female monk. You can often see male monks walking down the streets in their saffron robes, stopping in front of homes or businesses to beg for food or money as a means of learning humility. The occupants of the home get a special prayer in return for their offering into the bowls of the monks. The monks end up mashing the mixture of foods together as their only daily sustenance. We see this as a wonderful method of keeping prayer as a part of daily life, and in sharing what you have with others routinely. We wonder how the female monks are fed since we have seen none with the traditional containers for food collection! The women do all look amazingly attractive for wearing the traditional shaved head of the monks and nuns in Buddhism, however!

Another woman sitting in front of us spoke wonderful English; she passed us waters and face towels, welcomed us to VietNam, and informed us when the bus would be stopped long enough for a restroom break. There were three stops along the way; the longest around 8:00 PM where many stopped for a meal and the driver took the van (and all of our belongings! ahhhh!) to get fuel, perhaps. He returned and all was well.

Sometime close to 10:00 PM, we were dropped off at the far Southern bus stop in SaiGon, much to our dismay and contempt towards both the bus driver (who had nodded earlier in the night when Martha showed him the location of our hotel options) and the ‘bus station’ sales people. Dani was told it was the central bus station in SaiGon (which would have been an acceptable 300 M from the backpacker’s district of the city), according to the syllables Dani heard as we were essentially thrown out of the bus. As we stared at the map in dismay at where we had landed, the many taxi and moto drivers standing well within the circumference of our personal space told us we were 15 KM from where we wanted to go. The minivan was long gone, and we were standing in the middle of who-knew-where.

Martha walked off to look for someone reliable who could confirm our location. The ticket counter folk told her she was indeed at the bus station waaaayyy down in the bottom left off of the map, and looked at her as if she had two heads when she asked more questions about bus rides to the center of town. Martha returned to Dani and the bags, and the two opted for the taxi driver who had lowered his price to 7 USD for the two to get to the center of town. We were dropped off in front of an alley filled with mini-hotels; the driver pointed to the left side of the alley and said the name of the mini-hotel we were looking for that would charge 6 USD per night, but a closer look showed the hotel not on this street. We were having a bit of a rough time keeping our cool after such a long day of travel and misunderstandings, and somehow managed to give the cabbie the benefit of the doubt since there was a hotel that held a similar sounding name on the street.

We walked through the alleyways looking for our chosen residence, noting the many Westerners sitting at street side tables enjoying the evening air and a few beers. Finally, we needed to stop and settled on a small guesthouse toward the end of the alley that would be 15 USD per night for a great room with a single large bed, a cabinet that locked, air conditioning, and cable TV. We dropped our packs and headed out into the night to find something quick to eat. It was 11:00 PM before our food was served in a quaint restaurant named ‘Cappucinos’ with Venus paintings on the wall; Martha ordered a simple Vietnamese-style vegetarian rice dish and a banana fruit shake, and Dani enjoyed a banana fruit shake and a squid and veggies dish. A number of people, including children, entered the restaurant to offer their wares for sale to the customers, but were pleasantly not as determined as the children in Cambodia. After walking around the blocks within the area for a short time after dinner, it was time for bed after a long, oh-so-rough day of sitting and watching the world go by. We have made it to country number seven on this journey!

Thursday, August 16, we awoke to find we liked SaiGon much more than we had anticipated after our mixed experiences the day prior. The city, although noisy, offered us some nice down time as we worked to feel our best. We ventured downstairs at noontime after sleeping in a bit and enjoying our air conditioned room to check out of the ‘pricey’ hotel and hit the WiFi access at a local café. We enjoyed breakfast of two eggs and “hash browns” (they were really deep fried potato pancake more than a hash brown) for Dani and an omelet with tomato and ham for Martha. Two ice coffees made it about perfect. We wrote a note to the family to tell them we were safe, and took time for Dani to check out options in the backpacker’s district that offered free WiFi with lodging. The rains had begun, and many other hotel workers attempted to get Dani’s business as she searched for the street number.

The hotel had only one room available: two beds with a balcony at 15 USD per night, which the front-desk man discounted to 14 USD per night at Dani’s request for a room off the street. The balcony doors seemed to block a good bit of the street noise, and the light was nice. It would be a bit of time before the room was available, but it came with a gorgeous greenery-laden balcony overlooking the street, two beds, a mini-fridge, locking closet with internal drawer that also locked, hot water, toothbrushes, soap, and the aforementioned WiFi that allowed us to post all of the Angkor days’ blog pages over the course of the three nights we stayed at Phi Long Hotel’s in Room #1.1. We felt like we were living large for such a small price!

Martha was still feeling the effects from S-21 in Phnom Penh, although her allergy medication was largely keeping full-blown symptoms at bay. So we decided to take it easy for the day. She had also developed a rash on her feet and knees that was a bit concerning since this was one symptom of dengue disease. There is quite a bad and deadly outbreak of the condition (caused by mosquitoes) in Cambodia. Thankfully (perhaps?), Martha has experienced a hemorrhagic disease before—having beaten the Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the summer of 2006—so knows how awful one can feel with these sorts of illnesses. She felt nothing but a bit congested, did research to learn that the incubation period for dengue disease was four to 10 days (okay, so it may have been a spot of the virus), and also that most people simply had to rest to get through it. No other symptoms like nausea, vomiting, petechiae, or high fever developed (thank God)!

However, we will be keeping a rather close eye on her in the coming days, and Dani made note of where local hospitals with English-speaking doctors could be found quickly if necessary! In the meantime, we were glad to be out of Cambodia since most cases of dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome (the dangerous stuff) occur on second infections.

In the evening, we ventured out again to get some food and slowly walk the town. There is not really an option but to walk this town slowly as the traffic has earned its reputation as some of the worst in the world. Crossing the street takes some practice and patience (and no sudden movements!), but the sidewalks are wider here so we have to do less walking in the street than in Phnom Penh, where they were consistently taken up with parked motorbikes or shops sprawling into the streets.

We sat down for some vegetarian food at Tin Nghia, recommended by Lonely Planet, and it was delightful! Martha had a big plate of curried veggies with noodles and white rice and Dani had mushroom-rich veggies in a brown sauce that was delightful. We shared some of the trade-mark fresh spring rolls of VietNam, which reminded us of the ones Doug had shown us how to create after his trip to VietNam in 2006. Martha tried the local Bia 333, which was okay (but she didn't return to it her entire time in VietNam).

Martha was also feeling pretty well after our relaxing afternoon, so we continued on to take a look at how the wares differed between SaiGon and Phnom Penh. As we approached the central market of Ben Thanh, a cyclo driver (different from the style we saw in Chau Doc, these cyclos had the bike on the back instead of the front) informed us that the market was closing. Oh, well, we had heard such things in Bangkok and would see for ourselves! And … we were pleasantly surprised to find that the man had been telling the truth, as the stalls were closing up as we entered the venue. Dani was able to buy some deodorant for 40,000 dong (less than 3 USD), and we headed out to wander the streets for a few hours, mostly watching the people pass and peeking into shops on occasion. We wandered through a fresh-food market before settling at a street-side table around the corner from our place to watch the ‘traffic television’ at the busy intersection and enjoy some more refreshment as locals and tourists passed us by into the evening. It was an easy, ‘weekend-style’ day in our travel schedule!

In love and light,

Martha and Dani

PS—Happy Birthday, KAK!!!