It was a smooth travel day between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, having no border to cross helped! We even managed to do a load of washing and started the process for getting our visas for Vietnam on the same day.

 

The following morning I went outside to hear some beautiful singing, in English! A home church was straight across the road. They sung 3 songs and I knew them all from the 90’s.

 

That day and the next were just rest days for us. In the evening we went to the river to go on a lovely sunset cruise. It was a late evening and then an early start, as we went back into the city centre to catch a bus over the border to Vietnam.

 

After the bus hitting a motor cyclist on the way out of the city I was slightly concerned about the driver’s abilities but he was turned out to be fine. A good run up to the border, stamped out of Cambodia with the luggage staying securely on the bus, lunch in ‘no man’s land’ then back onto the bus, luggage off, stamped into Vietnam, our luggage scanned and back onto the bus. Quite simple really.

 

A looooooong ride into Ho Chi Minh city with gridlock traffic and then unceremoniously dumped on the side of the street. We did a quick dash to an ATM then purchased a new SIM card and then we were in an Uber heading for our apartment.

 

We stayed in the beautiful Vin Homes Central Park, by the river but not in the very central city. It was a mini city in itself actually with a good 10 buildings each 49 floors tall with 8 apartments per floor, a lot of people, but what I liked the most, lots of families!

 

By the time we got there and unpacked it was time for dinner, there were lots of restaurants around so we found a pizza place, and an Australian family! We got chatting and it turns out they were doing a year similar to us so we connected on Facebook. We made a plan to go to a water park with our new friends the following day and then on a tour to see the Cu Chi tunnels together the day after.

 

The water park was great, BK was working so just me and the kids went. The Dad from the other family took their boy and Connor on all the slides they were tall enough for. I stayed with the Mum and our girls. I enjoyed the ‘lazy river’ the most, sitting on a tube being pushed round by quite a strong current!

 

The trip to the Cu Chi tunnels the next day was amazing, made even better by our tour guide, Tang. He was fighting on the American side during the war. How he can go back and take tourists to a place he saw so many awful things I’ll never understand. He was keen to tell us ‘2 stories’ what they want you to know and how it actually was! The tour was a bit fast for my liking, it could have done with an extra 30 minutes for wandering around but we saw everything and it was good.

 

So that was Vietnam. The budget got a bit of walloping thanks to the $252 the visas cost…for only 6 days 🙄 I’m regretting the week in Bangkok and wishing I’d shortened it and spent the time in northern Vietnam.

 

It’s their new year holiday called TET here now, everything is closed so a bit difficult for BK to find a place to work the last couple of days, but today we are out of here.

 

Onward we go!

One more flight east before turning around and heading west.

 

We’ll be back Vietnam!

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Vietnam – $21 over

Total budget – $261 under