How To Travel From Ho Chi Minh City To Phnom Penh By Bus

Travelling from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh by bus is quite straight-forward. But be aware that you will probably be scammed along the way.

We had a fantastic time in Vietnam but our visa was expiring and we had to make our way to Cambodia. As we had flown into Ho Chi Minh, we decided to take the bus to Phnom Penh. We knew in advance the journey might be longer than we hoped and that we might face a scam at the border.

As is usually the case with travel companies in South East Asia, reviews were mixed. All the companies we researched had favourable reviews alongside horror stories. We would have to just hope for the best.

Mekong Express

We decided to travel with Mekong Express. We paid less than 15 US dollars which seemed reasonable. The journey was supposed to take approximately six hours, though we had read stories online of it taking much longer.

Mekong Express: corruption at the border.

Vietnam Cambodia Border Scam

What we were concerned about was the so-called scam that takes place at the border. Basically, as soon as you get on the bus and it sets off, you are asked to hand over your passport and documents to the conductor who will process your visa for you. No problem, until he then asks for a $5 fee from everyone. It does not state this anywhere when you purchase tickets. I’m not sure what you are supposed to do if you don’t have any dollars (we had some left over from when we bought our Laos visa at the Thai-Laos border). We did not need a visa processing as we had e-visas so the conductor only charged us one dollar. I asked him what this was for and he couldn’t answer. Another traveller, knowing it to be a scam, told me to just pay it. This really annoyed me. It’s people like that guy that make it very easy for these scams to continue. A lot of people were very unhappy at this added charge but had no choice but to pay. There are stories of people being left at the border without their luggage for not paying.

Corruption At The Cambodian Border

As it happened, the ‘processing fee’ made no difference to how quick we got through the border. We had to wait in the same queue as we would have if we processed it individually. I’m guessing the conductor and the border control have a little deal going on. Many people were jumping the queue by handing some dollars over with their passport. It really was a corrupt state of affairs.

There really is no way around this. The best mindset is to just accept that you are going to be ripped off before you take the bus, then it won’t annoy you when it happens. I don’t think this is unique to Mekong Express but is common with all bus companies crossing the Vietnam-Cambodia border.