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Sunday 25th
Today was a long travel day but thankfully we had our private bus back. We were both sad to leave Cambodia, and in particular sihanoukville as it was much nicer than we had thought and the people were alot more friendly than those in Bangkok.
We headed towards the Vietnamese border and stopped around 100 yards before as we had to cross no mans land by foot. After completing the necessary paperwork we walked into Vietnam and immediately noticed that the locals seemed much more intrigued by us westerners than they did in Cambodia. At one point, a group of around 5 locals just gathered around the table we were sat at to eye us up!
We boarded our bus the otherside of the border and were greeted with fantastic news - the air con was broken! However, it was only a 45 minute drive to our hotel in the border town of Chau Doc. It was immediately clear that Vietnam was much richer and more commercial than Cambodia and although it was still very flat, the stereotypical ricefields started to appear.
After arriving at our hotel, which was very nice, we went out to find a cashpoint to withdraw millions of dong! The locals were all keen to speak to us with some stopping their bikes and others just waving!
The evening activity was a group motorbike tour up the san mountain. We all paired up with a vietnamese driver and convoyed through the local fishing villages which gave an insight into the way of life and highlighted how reliant on the rivers and ricefields the locals were. The children were excited to see white people and all ran out their houses to wave. After 30 minutes we reached the top of the mountain where we got our first taste of the local Saigon beer in a hammock bar. The views were amazing and we could see both Cambodia and Vietnam before watching the sunset and heading back down.
After dinner at the hotel, we had an early night. We were heading to Saigon tomorrow and had only really stopped in Chau Doc to break up the journey.
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