I think it is time to up date some information. Recently we traveled from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh by bus. This was the first time we took bus to cross the borders after the covid.
Although we enjoyed our trip, it costed more than before. We took Giant Ibis as usual. If you read this blog from early 20220, it used to be 19USD per trip, excluding Cambodian visa cost. In 2022, it was 39USD per trip now. They quoted extra for Cambodian tourist visa. Something like 40 or 42USD. So I applied online. Visa costed 36USD online from government website, Kingdom of Cambodia, which was quite easy and straight forward. Anyhow I just checked Gian Ibis website now. It seems that price went down a bit. 35USD with 1$ booking fee. Hopefully it goes down more in coming weeks and months.
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On the day, we showed up at the Gian Ibis bus stop in Ho Chi Minh. If I remember correctly, I think they changed the location. 2 or 3 doors down from previous location.
Giant Ibis HCMC Address: #301, Pham Ngu Lao St. Dist. 1, HCM City, Vietnam
8.00 am leave HCMC – Yip, the bus left on time, and trip was as nice as usual. We filled the form for immigration and they collected our passports.
10.20 am Moc Bai border – They took care most of crossing border parts. We just followed everyone and waited everyone to finish. By the way, we noticed that there was a coffee shop in the Moc Bai border. And we were out the Moc Bai border by 10.40 am.
11.00 am lunch – We had lunch at usual place, but the food was more expensive.
11.45 am Bavet border – After our lunch, we went back on the bus and went to Bavet border. Cambodian side of the border has been simplified. They just collect our passports as soon as we got off the bus, and made us walk a bit. We did not go inside the building like used to do. We just hopped back on the bus. We got our passport back, when we all got in the bus.
12.00 pm finish all border crossing process – By noon, we all went back in the bus and ready to go back on the road.The road looked well paved now. We stopped once for toilet on the way to Phnom Penh.
4.00 pm arrive Phnom Penh – We were dropped off at one of Giant Ibis offices, near the night market. After 8 hours of road trip, we safely made it Phnom Penh. There were enough Tuk Tuk and taxies around. We went to smart to get a SIM straight away. Paid 2USD for 5G sim (1 week). It was more than enough to use Grab to get Tuk Tuk while we were out.
Do you know where to stay in Phnom Penh?
To Ho Chi Minh City
Way back was bit different this time. We were told to catch the bus from the Sakura Avenue office, where is quite far (and opposite direction to HCMC). So getting out Phnom Penh was slow in the morning.
When we got to the Bavet border, we walked a bit. Without knowing we got stamped out the Cambodia. Then we had lunch at the same place, after that we headed to Vietnamese border. At the Vietnamese side, it was absolutely chaotic. I would not know what to do if I had to do by myself. Thank goodness for the staff from Gian Ibis for helping us to get through.
There was unexpected incident that one of us could not come through the border. He filled wrong location of entrance in his Vietnamese visa. We waited for an hour. They decided to leave him. To be fair, he was warned from the bus conductor that they may not be able to help. They tried for an hour patiently.
Left late means we stuck in traffic jam. It took quite long time to back to Ho Chi Minh. I think it was almost 10 hours trip.
In conclusion, it was a nice trip as always, but just more expensive over all. Everything went up by 20 – 30%. Anyhow I love how they do not play music in the bus. Quite often other buses play music or Karaoke loudly. I just cannot stand that.
Ska Overlander 