From Vietnam 🇻🇳 across the border to Cambodia 🇰🇭

Before we leave Vietnam, we will stay four more nights on the island of Phu Quoc from February 11th to 15th, 2024. We spend the night in the “Ambedo Hotel” and are in a rather untouristy area. Since it is currently a public holiday, many shops and restaurants are closed. But there is a large supermarket across the street that is super cheap and open, as well as 1.2 restaurants where we also went out to eat and twice we had dinner from the delivery service. We don't really feel like doing anything so we pass the time in the accommodation or by the pool and plan our onward journey to Cambodia in the next few days. We perceive the island as quite littered. Through the Internet we know that the government has invested quite a lot of money in a replica of the Amalfi Coast in the south and in the north you can also find a kind of imitation Venice-Las Vegas. It seems rather disturbing to us, especially since the houses on site do not serve their purpose and are simply supposed to be completely empty 🙈 a clear case of missing the target.

On February 15th we take the ferry to Ha Tien . Back on land, the first taxi drivers approach us and offer to take us to the border. We have to stop at the ATM again on the way, which isn't a problem for our driver. We are sitting with 6 men in a packed minivan at the Vietnamese border. When we “check out” from Vietnam and at the border control in Cambodia, where we also have to fill out an arrival card with our details, a man from our minivan is always at our side. Everything goes smoothly. The border guards are in a good mood :)

Our costs: for the Cambodian visa 1 million Vietnamese dong per person, the equivalent of €38 per person (February 2024).

We took a Grab taxi once that day and took the minivan to the border in Ha Tien 🇻🇳 to Kep in Cambodia 🇰🇭 (about 45 minutes from the border) and paid the equivalent of €46 for the transfer.

We are the first to get out of the minivan in Kep and also the only ones. The place is small, unspectacular, sleepy and is right by the sea. We have accommodation for one night and can also withdraw money nearby. You can get US dollar notes and the Cambodian Riel, abbreviated KHR, from the machine. We withdraw 200 US dollars. We go out to eat and get Riel cash back when we pay, which happens almost every time we pay with US dollars. It's better to do the math in your head so that someone doesn't give you enough. 1 US dollar is approximately 4,000 Riels (KHR).

On February 16, 2024 we took the bus for eleven hours to Siem Reap .