Well the most recent trip is going to Cambodia. Today I will make a very detailed review about this trip and give advice to someone who are going to go or plan to go to Cambodia.
First of all, I would like to make sure that my trip is only at the south of Cambodia not included Phnom Penh capital or Angkor Wat.
I
had a wonderful trip to Kampot province, Sihanouk Ville and Koh Rong Saloem. There
are two ways to go to these areas from Ho Chi Minh - one is going by Phnom Penh
way (Moc Bai border gate) and by Ha Tien way (Xa Xia border gate). Because we
started at 8pm at night, we decided to go by Ha Tien way in order to arrive at
border gate at morning for immigration procedure timely (because border gate
will not open until 6 am).
From
Ho Chi Minh to Ha Tien, we booked Futa bus ticket online with the price of 155k
VND per person. The bus is good with bed seat and you can take a sleep during
the trip. The bus departed at 8pm and arrived at 4:30 at Ha Tien bus station.
Futa has a smaller bus to bring you to Ha Tien border for free (7-8km). We
arrived at border gate at 5am and waited for the gate to open at 6am.
Then
we get in line to stamp our passport when checking out Vietnam and checking in
Cambodia. There is a disappointed thing here that at the Cambodia gate we were
asked to give to the police 50k VND/person to get our passport stamped. Please
note that this practice doesn't have at Vietnam gate. We got really angry about
this practice, how come they do corruption like that. But we had to give them
money because they seem never stamp our passport if we don't. We noticed that
foreigners (not Asian) were stamped very quick even they don't have to give
money. At that time we give the police 100k for our 4 people. He still accepted
and stamped our passports. But when you gave money, please make sure that your
passport is stamped certainly because the guy received money and the guy stamp
your passport may be different. We encountered this problem and we had to
complained them for this. Because they cannot speak English or Vietnamese, it's
very difficult for us to explain. Fortunately they finally understood. We also
noticed that some people gave only 20k/passport and they still stamped
passport. One tip is that when they give you Arrive/Departure Card, don't write
anything on it. Because they will write it for you when you gave them money,
it's a way to mark people who gave them money for their colleagues to
recognize. I finally know that's why Cambodia border gate is more luxurious
than Vietnam border gate.
After
checking in at Cambodia gate, we got Cambodia land. We were so happy for that.
Here we haven't booked any bus ticket yet although there was bus service from
Ha Tien to Sihanouk (at $14/person, $12 to Kampot). Fortunately there are two
groups of Vietnamese also go to Sihanouk and they also haven't booked bus
ticket. So they recommended us to make a deal with coach driver standing at the
gate for seeking customers. We finally got a coach at $70 to Sihanouk with 16
seats. So cheap for the trip even we have only 13 people. Because our group
just went to Kampot (half of trip), so we just paid for $16 for 4 people. Other
group paid $6/person.
We
come to Kampot at 8:30am because the coach just took half hour. We had
breakfast at Captain's Chin restaurant. The noodle soup with beef was not
delicious even it's difficult to eat. It's not our taste. But the price is $2
for each. It's a little expensive compared to Vietnamese food. We check-in at
Apsara Guest House, it's the best guesthouse that I ever stayed. It's not just
a standard of a guesthouse but it's should be a hotel with good location,
cleaning room, cheap price and friendly staff. We got 4 guests room at
$20/night.
At
10am, we hired 2 scooters from our guesthouse at $5/one (some other guesthouses
lend at $4). They advised us to fill $3 of fuel to go to Bokor Hill. But I
advise that you just need to fill $1.5 (or 1,5 - 2 liters in case the fuel
price is increase) because when we went to Bokor and come back to the city, we
drove around so many times and many rounds, there were still a half of fuel
remaining in the scooters. We didn't buy mobile Sim card, but we pre-printed the
maps for our trip from home. So it's easy for us to get Bokor. The road to
Bokor is really beautiful with nice view and the weather is really cool. In
this hotness of summer, it's an ideal idea to go to Bokor. However you should
be careful when driving, because there are so many dangerous bends during the
road (the length of road from the welcome gate to the top of mountain is around
30km). And please keep in mind that the higher you reach the top, the more fog is.
So you should go down before 2pm. If you have to drive in foggy weather, you
should drive your scooter on the white painting line. By doing this, you can locate
the road and bends easily and it's will be safer for your driving. Or you can
stay on the mountain at night because there is a big resort on the top. But you
should book your room first because there is only one resort for your choose.
Bokor
trip is a good experience for biking. It's one of valuable challenges in life.
After
we came back to Kampot city, we had some street good such as fried fish balls,
fried sausages... and went to the river to see sunset. Ah this is the place you
can see the whole Bokor Mount and you can be proud because you already were
there on that huge mountain. The sunset here is really wonderful and romantic.
At first, we just saw a little sunshine on the top of Bokor Mount. We thought
that the sunset just liked that. However, the Sun was shined unexpectedly and
brought the last brightness to the city again before it went down after the
mountain left a wonderful view behind. We were so excited to see this moment.
At
night we rode around the city and had dinner on the street. But I advise that
you should have dinner at restaurants on the riverside it's better than street
foods.
The
next morning we got up and took breakfast at Captain's Chim restaurant again.
This time we tried fried rice with beef and it's really delicious and cheap at
$2. At 11am we checked out and hired a taxi to travel to Sihanouk Ville. There
is no brand name taxi here, but the taxi we rode is just like a private car.
But it's a good taxi with a good price for us ($25/4 people). Please remember
that the driver will offer a very high price what you have to do and always do
when you are in Cambodia is dealing the price (bargaining). You should also ask
them that they cannot pick up others, sometimes they will pick up other
passengers for filling their seats. You should hire taxi unless your group is 4
people or more. If you are solo travelers you should buy ticket at hotels or
restaurants to go to Sihanouk with the price of $5/person.
It
takes around 2 hours to get Sihanouk Ville from Kampot. And it will be part
2...
Uncultivated building on Bokor top
