The border to Cambodia can be crossed from Vietnam at several points and by all kind of transportation. Since we already travelled on buses, cars, motorbikes and ships, we wanted to use the speedboat for our crossing, which in about 5 hours time was suppose to get us from Chau Doc in Vietnam to Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia.
We took the bus to Chau Doc late in the afternoon and by the time we got to our destination it was very dark. It took us two tries to find a hotel for 15$ a night (the first one we tried was fully booked).
As everyone was hungry and it was getting late we decided to get some dinner and to just call it a night. On the way to the restaurant we stopped at the travel agency to book the next day trip by speedboat to Phnom Penh. The map at the agency explained the route.
Our hotel window was overlooking the town's square...
... where despite the early hours of morning, some people were playing some ball game.
Finally, our transfer to the pier showed up and instead of the car we were surprised to see the simplified version of tuk-tuk, suitable for one person. There were 3 of them and four of us. After some discussion and the assurance given that the ride will only take 5 minutes, we decided to give it a try.
The ride took exactly 5 minutes and we were at the pier just in time to get on the boat.
The speedboat was quite comfortable, but very noisy of course, because of the engines, so our hope to get some sleep on the boat vanished into the air. In an hour and a half that took us to get to the boarder we filled in the visa on arrival applications and paid the guy who was responsible for the boat to get our Cambodian visas for us. Normally the visa fee is 20$ but for 4 more dollars, you can let the guy arrange it for you, which is the best way to avoid standing in long lines and answering ridiculous questions.
Hence, as mentioned, after 1.5 hours we stopped at some building on the river bank that looked a lot like cafeteria.
After hanging in it for 20 minutes and drinking some coffee we could move further.
At the cafeteria we were informed that we successfully crossed the Vietnamese boarder and will now be stoping 1 km further on to cross the Cambodian border.
From the boat window it looked very charming and welcoming. :-))
The boarder pier was something that made us smile as we certainly didn't expect to see: a narrow pass made of old wooden boards somewhere in the river bushes :-))
After hanging around the customs office for half an hour...
... we were handed our passports back and welcomed to Cambodia.
Ahead, we still had about 4 hours of traveling to Phnom Penh.
It was interesting to see that in the beginning the river banks on the Cambodian side were not that different from Vietnamese, but later on there were much less houses and people along the way. Vietnamese river banks, on the other hand, were densely populated all the way through.
And then, finally, we could see the Phnom Penh.
In Phnom Penh we were planning to stay for the night and to take a morning bus to Siem Reap the next day.
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