"The Great Mistake" (Back in Back in Phnom Penh)

Well nine hours after leaving Phnom Penh, and a wonderful boat ride down the Mekong, we finally arrived in Phnom Penh.

Thats right, we got turned back at the Vietnam border. Not because of some serious beauracratic bungle, but because of our own halfwittedness. Yes this is rather embarassing. You see, we misread our Visas, and we found out at the border that we couldnt actually enter Vietnam for another 3 days. We were officially early.

DOH !! @@$%@$%# %$$######!!!

Much to the amusement of Cambodian Border Police. They were pretty good actually and helped us work out a way back to Phnom Penh. THis is contrary to what we have heard and read about these guys, who are apparently quite corrupt and you usually have to bribe (with cigarettes).

The reward for our stupidity was a splendid 2 hour journey on the slowlest, rustiest, dodgiest piece of so called water transport we have set foot on ever. Complete with smelly squat toilet, right next to the exposed engine, and a total lack of aircon compounded by the lack of breeze due to the slowness of the boat. All this during one of the hotter days we've experience on our trip. We're talking averages of 35 here, so hotter than that. WE were surrounded by slimey sweaty British backpackers, who were of course enjoying themselves.

Anyway, we were glad to get of that thing 2 hours later. And extra glad to get on a bus for the rest of the trip that had aircon.

Was a shame the road was nonexistant. Now we can say we've experienced Cambodias infamous roading. THe road from Siem Reap was fine. THis wasn't. There weren't too many pot holes, the problem was that the potholes were within the craters, which were what constituted the road.

So we bounced around a cramped minibus for 2 hours. Oh, and the minibus had some sort of smoke coming from the general direction of the engine into the cab. The floor was hot. Our feet were toasty.

Arrived back in Phnom Penh 6pm, after leaving Phnom Penh at about 9am. All we could do by this stage was laugh. Once again, it was no trouble finding accomodation. Within 30minutes we had a acceptable room in a nice guesthouse called "Nice Guesthouse".

This time we're headed to Vietnam on luxury bus (relatively speaking), early Monday.
We have quadruple checked our Visas this time.