Goodbye Cambodia, Good morning Vietnam!

BACK IN DA NANG
Arrived back in Da Nang today. My 3rd time flying into Da Nang, every time I feel more at home. The hotel I stayed at previously was booked, so I booked one close. Still a nice place. About 5 floors, 5 rooms per floor. A/C, Cable TV, hot water, elevator, 5-minute walk to the beach. $10. a night! 3 nights here, and will be checking on a monthly rate. I mean damn, I'm at the beach, in a clean town, I can rent a hotel room (serviced, towels, bedding every day if I want) for under $300 a month! Everything I need is within walking distance! I am thinking I'm going to spend at least a month chilling here (and saving money). I had planned on going to Thailand this trip but after Da Nang, I'm not so sure.

 Tight, but clean with hot water and good lighting, plus room has a mini-fridge for my beer ;).

Kampot was OK, way better than Phnom Penh. I had expected Cambodia to be cheaper than Vietnam, but that was not the case. And because my budget is small, I have to stay in budget places, The cheapest I could find in Phnom Penh was $12 a night and they weren't great, one place was particularly bad. Noisey, decrepit, and worst of all had bed bugs! Was only there 2 nights, the morning of the first night I noticed bites (5 or 6) on my left inner thigh, I was puzzled as to what caused it, thought that maybe I was uncovered at some point in the night and mosquitos took advantage of the fact I hadn't sprayed repellant that far up my legs. The morning of the second night I woke about 5am with bites (about 10) on the back of my right thigh and googled "bed bugs", sure enough, the bites were bed bugs. I looked at the mattress for signs of them, but couldn't find anything, but they also live in cracks and crevices, and that room had lots of those. They itch like crazy and form welts. I told the manager and showed him the bites, he assured me they would call in an exterminator. Hopefully, my review will warn others to beware.  

My last night in Cambodia I booked a hotel close to the bus terminal, it was the nicest place I had stayed at in Cambodia but was $23 a night. 

The next morning I took the big bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was $18  for the 7 hours trip including the sign out at the Cambodia border and the check in at immigration at the Vietnam border. The bus was pretty comfortable, A/C and intermittent internet. My seatmate was a nice Italian girl from England. Good conversation and she was just doing a border run so her seat would be empty after the border. She was a teacher there (Phnom Penh) for young kids, she loved the kids, but probably not so much the country.  I flew from HCMC the next morning.

You can only get a 1-month visa into Cambodia unless you have a work permit, I think you can extend it for another month then you have to leave and come back in with another 1-month visa. I had no interest in staying, 20 days were plenty for me. A much more 3rd world country than Vietnam, and much dirtier. Kampot was nicer and more fun than PP, but $10 per night only got you a very basic room without hot water, TV, or A/C. 

I will be updating my Cambodia photo Album and adding captions today or tomorrow and will notify you and provide a link to it. 

In the meantime, I'm walking to the beach 😀