Visas and border crossings forum

Posted from within Vietnam.

FYI - I just did the crossing from Kep to Ha Tien and onto Chau Doc in a single day. It was fairly straight-forward, but time-consuming. The section from Kep to Ha Tien was very slow but quite scenic. We arranged a tuk-tuk from Kep to the Vietnamese border, which was $15 USD. (Motorcycle taxis still about $7 USD each at the moment. Tuk-tuks from Kampot are charging in the range of $25-30 USD.) The last few kilometres of the road were very, very rough and our tuk-tuk could not or would not go any farther, although we were still a few kilometres from the border. Our driver called two xe om (motorbike taxis) to come pick us up and take us (and our obscene quantity of luggage) to Ha Tien. We paid $5 USD each ($10 in total) for two motorbike taxis from there, through the Vietnamese border, and onto Ha Tien. I think the going rate is about $4 (or maybe even less, as it's only 8km) but our drivers waited while we went through customs and immigration at both checkpoints, took us to the ATM in Ha Tien, then onto the bus station. It's a long walk, hot walk in between the Cambodian and Vietnamese checkpoints, so if your tuk-tuk or xe-om driver offers to call someone in Vietnam to come and pick you up, it's worth it, even if you pay a dollar or two extra.

Mini-buses appear to run fairly regularly from Ha Tien to Chau Doc (and vice versa) and cost 45,000 dong, but this is not a tourist-class service. Be prepared for a jam packed bus and a slow, bumpy, noisy ride. In all, it took us 3 hours to get from Kep, across the border, and into Ha Tien -- even though that's only about 35-40km. The trip from Ha Tien to Chau Doc was just over 3 hours, not counting waiting time at the bus station.