I have been given information that you can now book the travel all the way through from PQ to Kampot , saving a few hassles of doing it bit by bit on your own.
We booked our travel at Green Tours in Duong Dong as l couldn’t find Ha Tien travel, of course l found it as soon as l had paid! We did pay a little on top but not too much. We have booked a mini bus that will pick us up at Beach Club at 7am and then take us to the Ferry that will leave at 8.30am, then on arrival at Ha Tien we are told there will be someone with a sign with our name on it and they will take us to the office to wait for the big bus that leaves at 12.30 onwards to Kampot through the border. How easy does this sound!!
Up early and the mini bus people phone the Beach Club to tell them that they can’t get down their driveway and we have to meet them up on the road, thats fair enough. The mini bus pulls up and it already has 9 people in it taking up all the seats and there is no room for our luggage, BUT, in true Asian style they fit us in and the luggage! Thankfully only a short trip to the ferry!
One we get to the ferry some Vietnamese man runs up and takes all our ferry tickets telling us that the ferry is not running today but we will be catching another boat! We instantly feel we have been scammed! Once we get out to the jetty the boat looks like the ferry anyway! And there are plenty of other people catching it, we have no idea what the hell is going on, just get on and hope to God we turn up in Ha Tien!! Which we did , 2 hours later, in a very hassle free ride.
As instructed a lady is holding up a sign with our name and into another mini van and into Ha Tien to have some breakfast and wait for the next bus. Lots of food options but we split up as l don’t want fried rice, find a nice little stall that make me an omelette and coffee.
Back to wait for the big bus, but no big bus! There are 9 of us going on to Kampot, the big bus has broken down and so we are taken by two mini vans!! Amazing how everything is breaking down today! Once again we have no idea what is going on just want to get going!
Finally! After an hour of the office lady yelling at the bus guy we leave! We have paid $25 for them to do all the visa work but this is coffee money as they don’t do a thing! A visa is $20, so if money is important, don’t pay the $25 to the office lady to do the visa! We are stamped out of Vietnam.
We then fill out the paper work for our Cambodian Visa’s, and also have to fill out paperwork for our health check???? What the! We even get our temperature taken by some weird little scanner! Thankfully we don’t have temps and are allowed to walk the next few metres to another booth where we fill out more paper work but have no idea what for!!! The health check is a lovely little earner for the guards, $1 a person thanks suckers!
Its a real no mans land with about 5 whopping big casino’s in it and we really have no idea of what is going on!!
BUT back on the mini van and finally on to Kampot!! We just get through Kep and the mini van pulls up for a drink stop, we were not impressed as we are only about 10 minutes to Kampot! But the mini van guy wants to impress a lady and we are all part of the ploy! He shouts us all a sugar cane juice and chats up the girl and l think he did ok! She is very pretty and he’s pretty smooth!
We do get to Kampot but the whole day has been full of not knowing what the hell is going on and if we asked they were not impressed! This is only a new service so hopefully in time it will get smoothed out and was still easier than doing all the legs by ourselves.
