We had to book another bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. We also needed visas for Vietnam. For quite a few places you can do these things through your accommodation but ours couldn’t do this. Fortunately the well known Mad Monkey hostel just around the corner had a well organised reception area which was able to help us out on both counts.
For getting a Vietnam visa in Phnom Penh you are actively discouraged from getting visas yourself from the embassy; it’s the same price to get them from a hostel/agent and much less hassle and walking! We dropped our passports at the Mad Monkey along with the date we wanted the visa from and $65 each. No forms or passport photos required at all. We dropped them in on the Tues morning and could collect them the following evening.
With the visas sorted the next step was transportation. Given our previous experience with the lowest price option and the fact that this time we had to cross an international border, we decided to research the options and pay a few extra dollars. We booked in for the Mekong Express Limousine Bus 08.30am coach, which had a great reputation and was only $14 from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City.
We got collected by a minibus from the Mad Monkey at 07.30am, right on schedule, the driver did a few rounds collecting others and eventually we were dropped at the Mekong Express departure point by the Russian market in PP.
Once there, the staff checked our passports all had valid visas for Vietnam, checked our luggage and gave us receipts for them (although these weren’t checked later so were actually more of a token gesture) and we got on board.
Once on board we got a complimentary couple of breakfast pastries and a bottle of water, which was a nice gesture and made the extra $3 over the cheapest bus well worth it.
And then we were off, the journey ran fairly smooth at first but we hit a big traffic jam just before the Mekong ferry crossing which held us up for about an hour. Luckily the staff had put the distinctly average movie ‘Olympus Has Fallen’ on the coach tv so that helped pass a couple of hours.
Eventually we crossed the Mekong and made for the border. Just before we left Cambodia we stopped at a small cafe for lunch. I have no idea what we ate – we got given a plate of rice and just pointed at what we wanted – but it was delicious!
After lunch we made for the border. We gave our passports into the guy on the coach and he ensured they were ready. When we got to the border he called our names out and handed us our passports. A quick queue and a stamp and were back to the bus, handing our passports back to our man as we got on.
We made the short hop to the Vietnam side and had to get off again. We had to bring all our bags for a security check too. Our guide brought all our passports to a check desk in a big pile. There were quite a few people waiting already so it was about 20 minutes before our names started being called. There wasn’t a queue as such. Again, we went through one by one and then had to put our bags through an x-ray scanner. Once through we got back on the bus and we were nearly there.
We left at 08.30 and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City around 5pm, a lot longer than the expected 6-7 hours the drive is quoted at! Maybe the traffic at the river was more than usual, I don’t know, but when we crossed we saw a bridge under construction a bit further up. Maybe if you are reading this in the future the bridge will be done and things will be much smoother!
