Kampot, Cambodia

Mike: After a 8 hour bus ride, we arrived late in Kampot where we ventured the dark streets with our backpacks searching for a place to stay the night. We had our eye on one in particular but no surprise it was full. We then checked out 3 other places all of which were full except one. They had only one room left.... 3rd floor... 1 single bed, 1 double bed. Unfortunately we had no choice but to settle for the only option available to us. The main thing was that the room at A/C because it was extremely warm in Southern Cambodia. After several Rock, Paper, Scissors, we established who slept where. Let's just say Drew and Dean lost.

The following morning was Jan 23rd, Chinese New Years, and we were woken up by a show in the midst of our guesthouse, with drums banging and a Dragon show with two individuals dancing, what looked to be, a ritual dance while many people crowded around to watch.

After breakfast, we ventured out to explore the sights and adventures of Kampot. Unfortunately, the sights were few and the adventures sparked non of our interests, so collectively agreed to leave the next day to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam to meet back up with Max and Jess for two more nights until they flew back home.

Mike: After two uneventful nights in Kampot we departed early on the 2nd morning at 7:30am for Ho Chi Minh City. We paid $15 each for a minivan to the border and then a transfer onto a coach bus for the remaining distance to HCMC.

After about 2 hours we made it to the Vietnam border where our minibus driver introduced us to his friend who he said would take care of us to get to HCMC. We were required to pay $1 to exit Cambodia and we had already organized our Vietnam Visas so it was a matter of walking the distance of ~500m to cross into Vietnam. At several points we were required to show our Passports. Our new guide asked to see our bus tickets, so I handed them over to him while I was waiting for the customs officer to complete the necessary paperwork.
Once we reached the opposite side, our guide directed us to go into the minivan-taxi which was parked waiting for us. After loading all of our bags and getting into the vehicle, a different man entered the drivers seat and began to drive off. We were a little puzzled! We then realized that this man did not have our bus tickets!!! We attempted to talk with him to ask about where the other man is/went, but the driver did not speak a lick of english and just looked at me and smiled.
So really we had no choice but to wait and see what was to happen.

We eventually arrived at the bus station, where we were greeting by another man who asked us where we were going. We replied HCMC, and the man requested our bus tickets.... which we no longer had. We tried to explain the situation but the man did not care. So we asked when the next bus left for HCMC, and he replied 9pm. We arrived at the bus station at 9:30am. We were not impressed! After making a bit of a fuss, we realized that we were the only white people in the area and nobody spoke english except for the the man greeted us on arrival. We asked EVERYONE and ANYONE to help us out and none would compromise except the one man who spoke english. However, we realized he was trying to hussle us by charging us $20 each to get to a "new location" where we could take a bus the rest of the way. We told him to beat it.

After carefully considering the fact that we had no options to wait.. we did just that. We eventually seen some more while tourists arrive by motorbike taxi. I approached them and inquired on where they were going. They replied HCMC, so I immediately tried to get on the same bus as them, but the driver said the bus was full.

Another english speaking man, approached us to help. He was trying to organize with someone to take us to our desired destination. After several attempts, he was interrupted by, what we like to call, a boss lady. She yelled at him in Vietnamese for a solid minute until the man turned to me and said "I have to go" and he then ran out of the bus station.

So, again, we were standing there with our bags wondering what to do... the boss lady pointed to a moving bus and said the words "SAIGON"... so we started moving towards the bus... I looked back at Drew and said, should we get on? Drew said... just do it... So we did.
We jumped on a moving bus which we were not sure of its destination. The boss lady came on the bus with us, but she did not speak any english at all. We sat at the back of the bus (photo below) and were so confused on what we had just done.

Eventually, I pulled out a map and tried to get the boss lady to explain where we were going. What I got out of is was that we were going to a Rach Gia, where we could have purchased a bus ticket to take us the rest of the way to HCMC. After 2.5 hours later, we indeed arrived in Rach Gia and were saved... the bus station had a bus leaving for HCMC shortly after our arrival... our day finally started to turn around.

After another 6 hour bus ride we finally arrived in Ho Chi Min City at around 8:30pm...