Siem Reap – Phnom Penh, Day 1: On The Tour Bus To Cambodia

I’d been to Cambodia with a friend once before, in February 2008, just a few months before Vietnam and Cambodia agreed on visa exemption for ordinary passport holders. At that time, we had our passport glued with a paper visa and paid 20 USD at the Moc Bai border gate. This time I went with a tour by Đất Nước Việt, a small tourism company. I had been afraid a lil bit that I couldn’t get in another country because my passport would expire in May 2012, but then nothing weird happened. This should be my 3rd trip using this 5-year-old passport. Luckily, Vietnam has changed passport term to 10 years.

There was a bit of complication at first. I was supposed to wait for the tour bus at some place in District 1, then I had to go to District 4? It took more time than I thought for all the tourists to get in the bus. And the bus departed rather late. I was quite tired.

We stopped somewhere in Tay Ninh District for dinner. They treated us with bánh canh Trảng Bàng, a kind of thick rice noodles, a specialty of this land. I also bought some snack for the trip.

We then reached the Moc Bai/Bavet border gate around midnight and waited a bit to clear the customs and check in Cambodia.
Then a guy got on the bus, introducing himself as a Vietnamese-Cambodian tour guide who would be with us these 3 nights and days.