We are told to meet downstairs near the street at our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City at 11 am and the bus will be arriving shortly thereafter so that we can get on board at 11:30am.
Before I know it, I’m walking down the seven flights of stairs in my hotel with both of my backpacks on, about to leave a country that I have grown to love very much. I head downstairs and out to the road/outside/inside of the hotel restaurant where some of my squad is already waiting with all their luggage.
Just as I put my day pack down my squad leader Amanda walks over and tells me to come with her. I put my day pack back on my front and walk down the road with her.
We stand on the sidewalk waiting for the bus to arrive. There are 45 of us getting on this bus and the other 10 will ride on the next bus that will also have some locals on it. So this sidewalk we’re all standing on certainly isn’t large enough for all 45 of us- all of our day packs and big hiking backpacks, on top of the tourists and locals walking down the street.
Not to mention, there are also 15+ men that approached me with their big wall of sunglasses in hand/around their neck asking if I want a pair because they are “cheap cheap” and of course “good price for you.”
“No, thank you” I say for probably the thousandth time in a four-day timespan. This shouldn’t frustrate me as much as it does but I mean, come on. How many people can you have in one city/one street selling literally the exact same thing? Oh you’d be surprised!
I decide that before the bus arrives I should go to the bathroom one last time because I’m not totally sure when I’ll see another toilet today. When I get back, the bus has arrived and my backpack is….I pause and look around where I left it….well it’s not on the side walk next to my day pack. I assume someone has put it in the underneath compartment with all the other packs, pick up my day pack and get on the bus.
This bus has air conditioning and a surprising amount of leg room so I’m pretty happy.
It takes a little less than two hours to get to the Vietnam/Cambodia boarder where we’re told to give our passports to the bus driver and hop off the bus to walk into a building on our left. The inside reminds me of one of the buildings at the fair near my house where they keep some of the animals.
Inside we see that there are in fact bathrooms! Woohoo! Again, I don’t have to go super badly, but I’m really not sure of the next time today I’ll find one so I get in line. As we walk towards the bathroom there are ladies shouting “2,000 dong!” Dong is the Vietnamese currency. That means it’s costs 2,000 dong to get into the bathroom. Thinking in terms of USD, this seems like a lot! But trust me, it’s not. It’s actually less than 25 cents. I unfortunately didn’t have any more dong because I spent it all that morning thinking I wouldn’t be able to use it anymore. But a friend had some extra and paid for me. (thanks Klancy!)
We’re not totally sure what the toilet situation is, is it a western toilet or a squatty? Will we have TP? Probably not…
Just then one of the women hands me a napkin. Sweet! TP! Not only that, but as I get closer I see that they are western toilets, and there’s a sink to wash our hands!
Now, I know what you’re thinking, well obviously there’s a sink!
Oh no. Not obviously. It’s common to not find sinks or for them to just not work. Yeah, I get excited about toilets, TP and working sinks.
After our bathroom excursion, we walk through what I think was their version of security, get our passports, walk up to a desk where a man checks our passports and then head back into the bus.
None of us are really sure if that was the border or not but the bus drives off. Less than 5 minutes later we pull up to the Cambodian boarder, we get out of the bus and a man asks for our passports – he’s collecting them. We each hand him our passport and walk into the building ahead, we walk all the way through the building and out the other side, hop back in the bus and drive off. No, we did not get our passports back but the bus driver has assured us that we will. It’s a slightly terrifying thing to be in a foreign country and have no idea where your passport is for an hour because some random man just kind of took it, but only because you trusted he’d give it back.
A few minutes later we stop again, this is a lunch/snack/bathroom stop. About a half an hour later we all got back on the bus, we were finally given our passports back and then got back on the road.
My bus ride consisted of watching two movies with my teammate, Courtney, listening to music and writing in my journal (which by the way is not easy to write someone a note on a bus in general, let alone while going over bumps occasionally and the hearing the bus’ loud horn every few seconds.)
Before long we arrived in Phenom Penh, Cambodia(I did end up finding my backpack. It is safe!) and we’re picked up by our host. We drove for an hour and a half to a very remote location where we will be spending the month of April.
We have a cute little house with two bathrooms, two bedrooms with bunk beds, a living room and a decent sized kitchen.
Team Hesed is so excited for this month and we can’t wait to share it with you! 🙂
