February 25, 2017

The Tanjas Resort should more accurately be called a homestay. The owners live on-site and welcome you as if you are part of the family, chatting with them over a beer in the evening was very nice.

However, we were a little later leaving than I wanted to leave, because our hosts were not awake at 7:20 when we went down for breakfast. Their dogs woke them up and they quickly had coffee on the table, followed by eggs and bacon and a bun for breakfast. We left at 9:00 a.m. and the temperature was already up in the high 20’s.

We headed out on Road 7 and then connected to Road 22 which is once again the A1, heading for the border.

Road 7 was quite a nice rural road. It was fairly quiet although there were a few gravel trucks on the road, but they gave us lots of room when they could. The A1 was typical Vietnamese riding, busy road with transports and buses honking their horns.

We got to the border and followed the new road towards the border. Sorry, wrong way that area is not open yet.  No signs to tell you it isn\’t open yet.

Turn around and headed back to the old warehouse style building where people hassle you for money changing and trying to take your passport from you to “help” you. These guys imply that you have to use them to take your passport to the front of the line and then come back with the cancelled visa. They charge you for this service! We knew about this “scam” and lined up in the line- up that said foreigners! Wrong again, we had to line up in another line. The “foreigners” line up was for bus passengers who all lined-up together, while their guide took all their passports to the officer in the booth. It took us over an hour to get to the front of the line, where we realized that this was the Vietnamese exit border, not the Cambodian entry border. The officials were checking everyone’s visa to ensure that you had not overstayed, then you got the visa stamped to say you were leaving. There were no signs as to which way you were supposed to go, what line to stand in, or any helpful tips to make the process go smoothly. Typical Vietnamese chaos.

We left that building and returned to our bikes, where the money changers were waiting. Ralf changed the rest of the VND with a lady and got a good exchange rate.  Cambodia deals with U.S $ and Khmer Riel, however most transactions are done in US $.

We then had to get our visa and enter into Cambodia. What a difference, we entered the Passport control office, a young man with a bus tour company (Mekong Express) directed us to the Passport Control. He was getting the visas for his little tour group and shepherding them through Passport Control. We told him we needed the visa, he sat us down, filled out the forms for us, ran to the Visa window with our passports and cash, which was outside in another building. At this point, Ralf said he could be anyone who has taken $70.00 and our passports. He went out side to see this fella running from one window to another window. The young fella came back to us, handed us our passports with the new visa stamp and wished us a nice stay in Cambodia. As we exited the passport control office he quickly told the officer where our bikes were and the officer smiled at us and let us go back to pick up the bikes. Total time 20 minutes! How nice was that.

We headed to our hotel. That is when the fun really began. We had booked on Bookings.com a hotel that had air-conditioning. The hotel we decided not to choose on Bookings .com the Thai Anh didn\’t have air conditioning was on the main road and we spotted it straight away.

Ralf got out the iPad to check on Maps.me to find the hotel we had booked, we went down back street after back street and could not find the guesthouse. Everyone we asked had either not heard about it or directed us back to the main road. We have discovered very quickly that Cambodians try to be helpful, even if they can’t help you.

I eventually went into a hair salon and asked if someone could call the hotel for me and get directions. They were very helpful, when I spoke to the hotel, it turns out that they were full and they had emailed Bookings.com to that effect. We didn’t get the email. We had wasted about an hour trying to find a hotel that we didn’t have a booking for. We went back to the hotel we didn’t book (the Thai Anh) because it didn’t have air con. The guy told us it was $10.00, the receptionist arrived and told us it was $13.00 U.S., she told us to bring our bikes into the hotel. She opened the first door on the ground floor and there was a large room with two double beds, air conditioning and a fan! She indicated for us to bring our bikes into the room!

We settled in and with growling tummies we headed across the road to a restaurant that had tour buses parked in the parking lot. Buffet style menu with lots to choose from – $2.50 per plate which included one choice of main, rice and veges. We went back again later for dinner!

We were not sure what we could find for breakfast on the street, but we do have our gruel and coffee, we just need hot water.  I had my handy phrasebook, I asked for hot water for the morning.  The receptionist came into the room and showed us the cold water in the fridge, no we need hot water.  As we came back into the lobby I spotted a water dispenser, it indicated that it dispensed hot water as well as cold.  In the meantime another person arrived who spoke English, I explained what I needed.  The receptionist found us a kettle, we can have gruel for breakfast!  Everyone was happy and big smiles all around.

Now we are trying to find a hotel for Phnom Penh, we will be there on Monday.