Wɔatintim: 14.01.2019
Now we're off the island, and since we stayed within a radius of about 25 meters from our hostels, there's nothing really exciting to tell, except that the beach is one of the top 3 I've seen so far.
The ferry ride was intense, with some people looking into a bag more than outside. I won't go into further detail here. I barely made it myself.
We continue to Kampot by minivan, and the ride is also awful. I think the driver just got out of puberty and it turned into a kind of obstacle course. I sat backwards and could see the faces of the other passengers, who could all look in the direction of travel. It was something between scary and extremely funny. 🙈
In addition, it feels like every pothole between Sihanoukville and Kampot was taken. Why drive at an acceptable speed when you can go fast?!
Relatively quickly, the woman from Holland sitting across from me went crazy and yelled at the driver, who just ignored her in Khmer style and kept driving.
Arrived in Kampot
After a short check-in at the hostel, we rent bikes and ride through the city. It somehow looks like Cienfuegos in Cuba here, and Lippe also thinks it looks very Pan-American. It feels very relaxed and calm, a sympathetic little town is the initial impression.
We go to bed early and are now just behind the Vietnamese border on the way to Can Tho.
In a completely overloaded bus, we drove to the next city, dropping off and picking up people until we arrived at the border after about 2 hours of driving and 2 hours of waiting. That's how it always goes here, by the way.
Two Austrians and a Romanian with her 7-year-old daughter have problems at the border, and they are all allowed to return to Phnom Penh and enter only through an international airport. I had just heard a lecture from the Romanian about shitty Europe and how everything in Asia is so much freer and that she believes in karma. I would say: there you have it! 😂
For us, it continues. We measure our temperature again at the border, pay $1 to the epidemic doctor for whatever, and off we go on the wild ride! By the way, there is more honking in the buses than talking, at least from the locals' perspective.
The vehicle was changed two more times, and we walked around Hà Tiên for about an hour. Slowly but surely, about 2/3 of the specified time has passed and we have managed 100 out of 200 km. I am amused, Lippe is so-so. 😂
In the bus, we drive along the coast to Can Tho, and the awesome music that's playing is definitely worth mentioning. The beats were either copied from German schlager or, which I find much more realistic, German schlager originated in Vietnam.
Somehow it makes a good impression here, many things you see are familiar from movies or photos - rice fields, Vietnamese soldiers, water buffalo, and the landscape, etc.
We'll see, now we've arrived and I'm looking forward to the next four days in Vietnam!
Khmer = Cambodian