To get there I was going to take a bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (or formerly known as Saigon) in the south of the country, very close to the border with Cambodia.
Here in Asia so far it was very easy to get around. You can book cheap buses at the reception of the hostel and in this case it even included a pickup service.
I expected a little tuktuk but it was a proper van with some tourists already in it and we did pick up a couple more along the way.
The bus itself was a little less fancy but did the job.
Driving trough the country side of Cambodia with rice paddies left and right was relaxing. We came to the Mekong River which we crossed on a ferry that was so tightly packed with cars, that it was hard to get through between the lorries with my small day bag on my back. However the ladies trying to sell fruits, drinks and snacks on the boat had not problem balancing large trays on their heads and pushing each other away from the bus door to get closer to the potential costumers.
The border crossing into Vietnam was relatively straight forward. We had to give our passports to the man who with the badge and hope that he was an actual official person. Then, at the border we were called by name and if we could recognize our name shouted in a Vietnamese accent over the heads of about 200 people we could go and pick it up and immigrate.
All good so far.
The landscape and houses on the Vietnamese sided of the border was not much different than on the Cambodian, just the cars got a bit fancier and most of the lorries turned into American Freightliners.
In the afternoon we reached Saigon. To my (and many other passengers) surprise and the bus company didn't just drop us of in the middle of nowhere but provided a little bus to drive us to our hostels. My "Hideout Hostel" was on the park strip right in the edge of the backpackers district.
Basti and I had booked the hostel only for the day after but since I arrived a day early now not had a guaranteed bed, but luckily there was one spare bed and that was only due to a cancellation.
I was surprised to see that Saigon seemed to be quite similar to Bangkok in terms of the type of tourists in the dorm. As I mentioned before it was already late afternoon and many of them had not left the room the entire day and were hanging in their beds with hangovers, but already planning the night out ahead.
This wasn't for me (well... maybe not any more) and I was happy to know that at tomorrow Basti would arrive, so I headed out for something to eat and a typical Vietnamese Coffee.
While walking around the directly connected streets of the hostel the impression of booze holidays on Vietnam intensified as it was hard to find a place where you could not get a bucket of vodka - red bull or a hamburger but it was nearly impossible to find a shop with Pho (Vietnames Noodles soup) where locals were present.
After a couple of turns I found a nice little place with great, strong, sweet coffee filled with Vietnamese having the same and reading the paper or playing cards.
Around the corner fro there I also found good food (although it was not Pho) and could watch the evening street life.
Here, a couple of meters away from the Backpacker District my impression of Saigon was very good, many scooters swivelling through traffic, honking continuously, happy people joking with each other, eating and drinking all along the road in the mild evening.
After soaking up a bit of this atmosphere I thought it's time for a bit of a relaxing evening at the hostel.
As you will see, this will prove difficult as I met a nice Canadian chap and the hostel offered two free beers between 7 and 8 pm. I couldn't refuse this offer.
We had a few more and even met some of his mates (who turned out to be German medical students on a semester abroad) later and ended up in some of these backpacker bars until 2 am.
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