Today will probably go down as one of the worst, if the not the worst day of my trip. I woke up feeling sore, hot, and ill. I knew immediately I needed to take 2 doses of Z-Pak and Imodium to have a chance of not pooping my pants on the 7 hour bus ride to Ho Chi Minh. Luckily, I managed to hold out for the rest stops to do my thing, but the whole bus ride my intestines bubbled.
I don't think the Japanese dinner last night helped my condition. Looking back on those photos, I have a visceral distaste, especially the okonomiyaki one. About 30 minutes out from Saigon, I had the worst chest pain in my life. I thought I might be having a heart attack. Prior to the pain, I drank a complementary canned coffee on the bus. Not sure if this caused it, but I don't want to ever experience that again.
The Cambodia-Vietnam border crossing at Moc Bai was simple enough with a passport and evisa (which ironically needed to be printed out). The baggage scan was a bit of a joke. I carried my money belt and phone through the seemingly defective metal detector as my bags passed through a scanner that seemed to be manned by no one.
So, I had officially entered the first of two communist countries on my trip. My bad luck wasn't done though. Arriving at my hotel for the night, the landlord informed me she had given my room away since I didn't show up a couple days ago. I guess I should have gone ahead and cancelled the booking, but from messaging her yesterday, she seemed to be able to accommodate me. So I had to quickly find a place to stay for the night as it was already around 6 PM. I settled on a nearby 4-star hotel because I didn't want to think to too much about it and needed a toilet to be near.
This one night stay will be more expensive than my 3 night stay at another hotel, but it allowed me to regroup, have a hot bath, do some laundry, and poop my guts out. The dryer part of these washer / dryer 2-in-1 units just makes loud noise but doesn't actually dry the clothes much. I guess I'll have to pack them slightly wet tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow can't get much worse than this. I'm optimistic.
Other notes:
Some of these ATMs don't work with my debit card. I don't know if I was using it wrong or what, but I finally got some Vietnamese Dong out using a more modern ATM.