February 18
Today we buses all day. We booked a bus ticket from Sihanoukville to Ho Chi Minh City, a “10 hour” journey and only switch buses once at the boarder. Instead, it took 14 hours and involved taking a minibus two hours. Then we switched to another minibus for two hours. Then we walked by foot from the Cambodian boarder customs to the Vietnam boarder customs. We then waited for a while for another minibus to pick us up and take us to a travel agency. We waited there for two hours, then got into another minibus and that took us to a bus station with one large bus with sleeper seats. We took this bus 8 hours to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and even had to take a boat at one point. Once in Ho Chi Minh City, we needed to get off of the sleeper and all of the locals scattered. All of the white people were left very confused and eventually we just got off. Some guy then yelled at us to get on a new bus that takes us closer to the city center at District 5. From there we need a tuk tuk to District 1, which is where everyone is staying. We then have to find our hostel by asking people for directions even though no one speaks English. We walked to our hostel, checked in and showered. We went to the rooftop bar a half hour and then went to bed. So that was our day. Travel agents will say anything to sell you tickets. Crossing boarders is always an adventure here and it’s never fun. The only cool thing about today is that since we took a day bus, we could see a lot of the Mekong Delta as we drove through the entire thing to get to Ho Chi Minh City.