Ho Chi Minh Hustle

Leaving my Cambodian hotel, I boarded the mini bus that would take me to the mother ship for my journey to Vietnam.  I was the first to be picked up and thus had to endure the waiting at various other hotels for the many disorganised and oblivious travellers, being picked up too.
After arriving at the bus station, we all boarded the big bus for the four hour leg to Phnom Penh.  It was a very uneventful trip with a generic stop for toilets and food.
Arriving at the Sorya central bus station in Phnom Penh, I was hovering around the bus waiting for my suitcase to get unloaded.  It didn't.  I look around in a panic for someone to ask and as I do this the bus starts up and begins to reverse out of the station.  I grab a nearby man by the arm and point at the bus saying "my bag my bag!".  He chuckles and puts his hands up with "don't worry" vibes and takes me with him as we follow the bus to another parking spot... where it was only moving to.
Once in possession of my suitcase, I am told to go and wait under cover near the ticket booth.  I go to the toilets and find that urinal cakes have been replaced with chunks of pineapple... and it seems to work pretty well!  No smell at all.
I spend what seems like an excessive amount of time waiting before deciding to go to the ticket booth and ask about my bus.  The lady points to the bus that I got my case out of.  Hmmm.  I shuffle back over to it and the same guy that took my case out for me says "Ho Chi Minh?" .... "yes" I reply sheepishly and he puts my bag back in for me.
I climb on board and take my seat.  It could have been really good timing or the bus could have been waiting for me the entire time, but about one minute after I sat down, it starts up and promptly drives off.  Was I being one of those disorganised and oblivious travellers?

This leg of the bus trip was about 8 hours long.  It seemed to just drag on and on and on.  At one point we had to cross a river on a barge.

Barge / Ferry

I thought this was the border for some reason but alas, that was hours away.  After arriving at the border crossing, finally, everyone has their passports rounded up by the bus conductor.  He then takes the wad of passports to the Vietnamese immigration man in the tiny booth inside.  Only now do we all go inside and wait.  It is the strangest immigration checkpoint I have ever seen.  There were no orderly lines with people waiting to get through screening.  No, none of that.  There was instead a mosh pit of people all around the front of immigration booth.  The worker was there stamping and processing what looked like about a pile of 100 passports from several buses.  When he was done with a passport, he would just throw it up onto the counter and go onto the next one.  The bus conductors would then grab that passport and call out the persons name, they would collect it and then go through to the x-ray machine.  It was like there was almost no regard for actually screening people.  It they have a visa, fine! STAMP.

So, after all the worry about my passport, turns out that it would have been the last thing on the guys list to even slightly care about.

We eventually arrive in the backpacker district of Saigon.  District 1 : Pham Ngu Lao.  I get off the bus and collect my suitcase.  We are all accosted by moto and taxi drivers.  Luckily I had researched the Saigon taxi scam before getting here.  There are countless fake taxis here that either have no metre or a hacked one that charges immensely.  Easy to tell though because they try to rip off the name of the big taxi companies but usually spell it with one letter different.  In any case, I found a real taxi and found my way to my hotel.
I bought a Vietnamese SIM card for my phone and got in contact with another expat Ryan, who is moving to another part of the city.  I am taking Ryan's room in his old expat house and I move in on Thursday.  

I was walking around the street outside my hotel earlier because I was really hungry and wanted dinner.  Not an English word anywhere.  Oh dear.  All the local little shops and street carts had strange looking things in bowls and on plates in the display cabinet... but behind them I could see people sitting down and eating  plates of rice with yummy things on it, soup, noodles.  
I kept walking and looking, growing increasingly despondent.  I decide to give up and return to my hotel and order something from their menu when I suddenly have a second wind, see a shop with some people inside and what looks like a cartoon chicken on the sign outside.  I walk in, the cook says "HERROOOO" and waits expectantly for an order from me.  I throw my hands in the air with the "I have no idea" sign which seems to be universal.  She says "CHIKKI.... RIE".  I assumed she meant chicken and rice so I say "OK!".
She bring me out a plate of yellow rice, a huge deep fried and spiced chicken leg on it, with tomato and cucumber and a bowl of dipping sauce.  It was delicious and only cost $1.15 AUD.  I guess I learnt that sometimes you just have to try.

Tomorrow night I'm going out with Ryan, his friend Sean and he is going to introduce me to some other people he knows... one of whom is an Irish midget who loves prostitutes and drinking.

Should be interesting.