19. Goodbye Cambodia..... Hello Vietnam

I was very sad to be leaving Cambodia. It had been a wonderful two and a half weeks of travelling and meeting some lovely people on the way. But life moves on and needs must..... And so many more places to explore! 

Crossing the land border between Cambodia and Vietnam was as an interesting experience. I arrived in a tuk tuk from Kep with two girls from Kent. We had to get the tuk tuk to the border as the mini bus we had booked was full. We were assured that a mini bus would meet us and take us on from the border into town, about 20 minutes drive.....

In no mans land between the two countries they are building a casino, aptly named Ha Tien Vegas..... A casino which when open will become a destination in its own right as the locals are not allowed to gamble in their own countries. Most surreal.....

Our passports were taken off us on the Cambodian side and we had to walk across the no mans land in the middle, then we had to fill in a health declaration and our temperature was taken on the Vietnam side. All normal thank goodness..... Then after a wait we were reunited with our passports and our visas duly stamped, and there was space in the mini bus for us...! 

Ha Tien is a fairly nondescript town on the river and it's main claim to fame is the ferry terminal to take people to Phu Quoc Island nearby, which I had decided not to visit as I wanted to see the Mekong....

I explored the town with two girls, one of whom turned out to be sister to one of the girls that I crossed the border with. The river front...

Chillies drying in the sun...

The flower market, which we realised later is was a prelude to all the flowers for the forthcoming Tet celebrations...

 

Dragon fruit. I hadn't realised that they grow on bushes.... They are so tasty.

Fish market where the fishermens wives sell the night's catch...

Fruit and veg market...

We had lunch on a street corner, sitting at children's table and chairs... The food was wonderful and cost about 30,000VD... About £1.... Pho is the local noodle soup and so healthy and nutritious and tasty!

First impressions of Vietnam are that it is much more affluent, much busier, with many many many many many! more motor bikes than Cambodia, (and this wasn't even Saigon!).... It is a country that is travelling fast. The people are still friendly, but in much more of a hurry than their neighbours. 

Vietnam is mostly cheaper than Cambodia, both for accommodation and food, although you can pay the earth if you want to! There is much more choice of everything in Vietnam, more advertising hordings, more neon, more "edge", and a lot of the country appears to have moved much further along the path of affluence. 

The money takes some getting used to, with so many Dong to the £, or US $ as I was now used to thinking in dollars. Cambodia really use dollars for everything and just give Riel for change, 4000 to the $. Dead easy! But the Vietnamese Dong is the currency of choice and it takes a while to get used to all the noughts...! 21,000 to the $, approx 30,000 to the GBP. It's easy to be a millionaire...!