Apologies for the lack of photos. We kept forgetting the camera battery was still in the battery charger and not in the camera!

From Phnom Penh we headed south to Kampot. This is a sleepy little Cambodian town with a river running through it. We spent a night at the excellent Mad Monkey hostel which has clean, spacious dorm rooms, a lovely pool, a great bar with good food and costs about £3 per night.

From here we got the bus to the Vietnamese border and passed through border control. The Vietnamese side made us fill in health questionnaires, which were then handed in at a window and we were coerced into paying $1. We knew that this was entirely unnecessary and tried to resist making the payment. However, the man was insitent that he needed to ‘control our health’, and with only 30 minutes until the ferry we needed to catch was due to sail, we had very little choice. Now it may only be $1, but Vietnam recently increased their visa charge to $60 (keep in mind that most neighbouring countries are either free or around $30) and we saw other people successfully avoid making the health screening payment. At the moment, especially with the Ebola outbreak, I can understand that countries want to screen their visitors. However, it seems to be in their interest to do so and not so much in mine! Anyway, we both passed the test with a healthy 36.6 deg C and we were good to go.

Our first stop in Vietnam was Phu Quoc, a short ferry ride from the mainland. From the photographs we had seen, it is a beautiful island with white sand beaches, turquoise sea and almost no tourists. Things were looking good on the ferry, which was almost entirely filled with locals and less than 10 tourists. It started to go downhill however when our minibus taxi pulled up outside accommodation on the outskirts of the main town, and I felt sorry for whoever had booked into there. Of course it turned out to be us!

When we went in, the lady apologised and said that we wouldn’t be able to get into our dorm yet as the previous people hadn’t left. As this was mid afternoon, and well past check out time, this seemed odd but she said there was nothing she could do and she was sure they would leave soon. So we headed to the beach to wait. This beach happened to be truly the worst on the island. It was dirty and covered in rubbish. So far, not so good. When we went back to the hostel, the guy was still there. It transpired that he was just sat on one of the dorm beds, and wouldn’t pack up and check out until it suited him. And they did nothing about it!

Eventually he left, we got our room, and then we decided to head for dinner. We just wanted to go somewhere close and good, and as it was the first day of the Premiership, Graham also wanted to go to somewhere that was showing the football. The owners recommended the place just next door, which proudly stated its English ownership. Dinner was fairly good, or at least I thought so until 01:30 when I started being sick, which continued all night long. At this point we had been travelling for almost four months, eaten at many local places and tried lots of random things. And I got food poisoning from an English Bar. Street Food all the way from now on.

The next day Graham went out to explore the island, which by all accounts is as beautiful and as unspoiled as the reviews suggest. However, I will have to leave him to write the review of that because all I saw was a dirty beach, a dodgy English bar, the inside of a rather nasty Vietnamese toilet bowl and the hideously decorated bright orange dorm room.

I still have high hopes for Vietnam, even if it got off to a rubbish start.