This is part 1 of a report on the 3 day / 2 night Sinh Café tour from HCMC to Phnom Penh (PP). I have been home now for almost 2 weeks and have finally made some time to start piecing together my diary account to copy and paste into staggered reports – perhaps 4 or 5 parts so that they are not to long.
Part 1 – General Overview
I chose the Sinh Café for the HCMC to Phnom Penh tour as I was a bit short for time and my experience of using them for a 2 day / 1 night Mekong Delta tour in October 2008 was a positive one.
I emailed the HCMC Office (De Tham St, District 1) a couple of times before my arrival, to try to pre book (as I had done last time) but was told to just come to their office the day before to book and pay and this worked out fine. I did ask about the option of ‘the fast boat’ from Chau Doc to PP and this costs an extra US$ 15 but arrives at 1300 hrs rather than 1700 hrs on the included ‘slow boat’.
To catch the faster boat however you miss out on the tour activities for the morning of the 3rd day and get no help with your Cambodian Visa at the border. There was no discount offered for not taking the slow boat or morning tour, the fast boat charge being added on to the full package price. I opted for the standard package as the rowing boat trip along the river and Mosque etc sounded interesting.
I was also told that there was a US$5 charge for the bus trip from where the boat landed to PP but this was never requested. There was also the offer of a free night’s accommodation in PP at the Sinh Café run hotel.
Above all else, the tour is fantastic value for money. It costs 815,000 VND for the whole 3 day trip, including one lunch, 2 nights accommodation, 2 breakfasts, ferry rides and the boat trip to Phnom Penh. The buses were all reasonably new (ish) and comfortable with good AC. They have toilet stops every couple of hours and the places that they stop at for (not included) meals are well chosen and also reasonably priced.
It is not so much a tour as organized transport with some one accompanying you to show you the way. At times you will be pushed and herded and the guides are likely to vary significantly in helpfulness. I think it would be near impossible to arrange to see and do the same things yourself, let alone in the time frame of 3 days.
The trip operates as several tours combined, eg. 1 day Mekong Delta plus 2 days / 1 night, plus 5 day tours etc. Expect to change guides at least 3 or 4 times and for the other tourists around you to come and go over the course of the trip. At their best, the guides are very helpful, polite and informative. The one on the first day of my trip however was totally disinterested and indifferent. I was glad to see him go and fortunately the other 3 were really quite good.
A word of caution, take small bags or a backpack as you are required to carry your luggage along some narrow wooden planks and up some very steep stairs. Pack carefully and choose sturdy bags as when your luggage is handled (by boat and bus staff) it is treated very very roughly (makes airlines look good).
Passports are treated very casually. You will be required to leave your passport with the hotel staff in both Can Tho and Chau Doc. On the last morning when you leave Chau Doc your passport will be inspected by the boat captain, who will take you as far as the Vietnam border with Cambodia. Passports were then bunched together and left on the hotel reception counter for people to look through and get their own.
At 54 years old (still in good health and fitter than most for my age) it was a testing trip and probably the last time I will consider taking such a journey. The bus and ferry trips (not to mention about 7 hours on a boat) make for a lot of sitting around. The days are very long and the mornings start at 0645 hrs with wake up calls around 0530 hrs. Don’t expect it to be leisurely trip. At times it is hard work and several safety considerations overlooked completely. The slow boat was comfortable enough from Chau Doc to the border but you change boats there and the Cambodian boat to PP was cramped with hard wooden seats and little air flow. It was very hot in March and my ankles got very puffy.
Day by day account to follow in Part 2.




