Entering Cambodia

I tried to again take the train on to Saigon, but it became clear this was impossible if I wasn’t planning to stay in Nha Trang another week: it seems that after Tet (the Vietnam New Year) celebrations are over, there is another week or so of travel mayhem. As the only thing locals can afford is the train, none were available. So I was forced on the gringo buses: airconditioned, nonstop “Open Bus” (that is what they are called throughout Vietnam and Cambodia) and more expensive than what locals pay for train, though cheaper than what a foreigner would, and much more efficient and clean. Certainly not comparable to the train for exposure to local people and customs, but by then I had had my fill; off I was on the air conditioned bus to Saigon. It stopped for lunch (as seems custom on all buses I travelled on in China, Vietnam and Cambodia, but not Thailand) in a resort much further down the national highway, just before it turns inland towards Saigon. The resort town seemed very pleasant, definitely catering to foreign tourists (lots of signs written in Cyrillic), but much more of a tropical beach unconcerned with urban trappings: everything is strewn for miles along the national highway (undivided, one lane in each direction), which runs parallel to the beach beyond the rows of coconut palms and not too far from it, but far enough for quiet, I would have probably been happy staying here, though I would have never thought of coming in the first place. Unprepared for the possibility of a sea bath, I lunched; the rest of the trip was uneventful. I stopped in Saigon just for a night and a change of busses, as it lies on the most direct route to Cambodia; I arrived at my hotel after dark and was gone first thing in the morning, though I managed to get a little taste of the chaotic but festive hecticness of the streets and the people, most I met were very pleasant, relaxed and sociable (touts excluded, but I did not even acknowledge them and they immediately left me alone: smart, not time wasters).