Day 46 of The Big Adventure. 
  

    
We slept until about 9am and awoke to messages from Parker saying that they were about to leave the UK. They had received VIP treatment because Freya had vommed whilst going through security (too hungover). Classic Freya. What a way to start the trip. 
After a few giggles, it had turned out that Lauren had had a terrible nights sleep so wasn’t feeling her best. She said she was really craving some yoghurt for breakfast so I nipped to the local shop to get her some and ordered some more toast and jam downstairs for me.

We had a relaxed morning packing up and getting ready for our bus to Ho Chi Minh. 

The travel agent had told us the bus would come and collect us from our hotel at 11am, so we went downstairs to wait. 

At 11.15 we started to worry a little and asked the man at reception to give them a call. 

They told us to wait a little longer and the transfer to the bus station would be there soon. 5 mins later a man on a motorbike showed up and asked if we were the ones going to Vietnam. Yes we are, but not on the back of that motorbike.

He showed us over to a tuktuk where he paid the driver and directed him to the bus station. The travel agents had clearly forgotten to book us a transfer so it was a good thing we called! 

We made it to the bus stop just in time and, after stowing our bags in the underneath compartment, we were on our way. 

The journey to the border took about 4 hours of driving through the Cambodian countryside. As we drove we thought about how different life must be like for those living in rural Cambodia. 

At the border we all had to disembark the bus and take our big backpacks to be scanned. We were stamped into the country and had our visas checked. Almost everyone else on the bus was Asian , except for us and an old Russian man. The old Russian man didn’t have a Vietnamese visa and they didn’t like the look of his passport but they let him through anyway. It’s amazing how different border controls are when they’re not at an airport. Sure the Russian guy could get in to Vietnam, but I couldn’t help but worry about the trouble he’d have trying to get out. He, however, had clearly not thighs of this and was blissfully unaware…
We all filed back onto the bus and continued to Ho Chi Minh, a manic city with motorbikes EVERYWHERE. 

The bus dropped us at the side of a busy road with no pavement. Thankfully there was a taxi literally right behind the bus so we stopped him and asked him if he accepted MasterCard (he had a card machine) because all we had was Cambodian currency. He nodded yes and asked where we were going. ‘Long Hostel’ we replied – his English clearly wasn’t very good so he asked us to type it into his iPhone and he called them. It turned out it was literally around the corner and almost as soon as he’d turned his meter on we were stopping. 

I got out my MasterCard and he put it in his machine, only to find that actually he only accepted Visa. 

The amount was so small – 12 dong (roughly 0.0003p) that he eventually let us go without paying. Thankfully! 
We walked up the narrow street to our hostel and walked up to an empty reception desk…  

     Or so it seemed. On closer inspection, there was a man sleeping behind it. 

    
After quite a few loud ‘Hello’s we managed to wake him up and check in. 

He showed us up to our quadruple room. 

Lauren was still pretty shattered from last night so we decided to have a nap before dinner. 

We turned the lights out and, at this point, realised just how loud our hostel was. You could hear lots of people talking in the lobby area downstairs and people walking up and down the stairs. 

Safe to say, neither of us actually got any sleep but it was nice to lie down. 

At 7pm when the alarm went off, we cracked out the leftovers from last night’s dinner. 

They tasted just as good cold but there wasn’t really enough for the two of us as a main meal. 

We pondered what to do until it was time to go and collect Parker and Freya from the airport, and decided to go and buy a local SIM so we’d have Internet. 

We walked out of our street and down a little side street that seemed to be pretty busy with people. 

We both ordered a fruit shake: I went for banana and Lauren went for watermelon. Yummm.

Then we continued on our search for a SIM card. 

We went into every mini mart that advertised that they sold sims, but when we went inside and asked they said they didn’t. False advertising at its best.
We finally found a shop that sold knock off watches and other tacky jewellery that sold us one – thank god.
We had wanted to buy some matching bracelets for when Parker and Freya arrived so we set off towards the Ben Thahn night market to try and find some nice ones. 

And it was on the walk that I began to feel a little funny… 

As we got nearer the market, I went into a nice looking hotel and asked if I could use their toilet. 

And it all went downhill from there. 

We managed a quick look around the market and then head back to the hostel (with a few toilet breaks on the way). 

Lauren ordered some sautéed corn with egg and onions on the way home from a street food stall (very brave) and said it was delicious. 

    
The kind lady who owned the stall pulled out two very small chairs for us to sit on next to the stall. We sat and watched the Saturday night antics go on around us and then headed back to the hostel. 

We had planned to go and surprise Freya and Parker at the airport but I needed the toilet every 10 minutes and never would have survived the half hour car journey there. 

So we eagerly awaited their arrival at the hostel. 

At around 2am they finally arrived and there was much squealing and hugs. We all got into bed and had a good old catch up. 

I was up for most of the night with toilet runs but I’m pretty sure everyone else slept pretty well.