From Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) to Phnom Penh by Bus (Personal Experience)

Traveling around the Banana Pancake trail by ground transport is super easy, cheap, and (mostly) fun! While flying is faster, taking buses, trains, and tuk tuks everywhere definitely gives you more time to admire the landscape, interact with locals, and have something interesting to talk about once your trip is over. That’s why I almost always take overland travel when it’s safe and cost-effective to do so!

Last year I went from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Phnom Penh, Cambodia by bus. This post is a write-up of my personal experience taking the bus in November 2023, with some tips for making the journey yourself.

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Booking a Ticket

As I’d done mostly everywhere else in Southeast Asia, I booked my bus ticket directly through my hostel in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This is basically the same options that you can get online, but the hostel staff will call the bus company for you and tell them where to pick you up. Handy!

The bus company I used was Phuong Heng Cambodia Co. Ltd, as you can see in the ticket.

My ticket cost $33 USD and included pickup from my hostel in HCMC but NOT drop-off at my hostel in Phnom Penh. I booked a “VIP bus which just meant fewer seats, I think. The one I was on had a 2 – 1 row split, and it wasn’t full.

There are lots of buses doing this route every day, and some are aimed at Western tourists while others are for locals. If you book through a hostel or online, you’ll probably get the one for tourists and will pay a bit more. On the plus side, because they’re used to tourists they’re able to handle things a bit better than if not.

🚍 Prefer booking ahead of time? Get a ticket to Phnom Penh on 12Go!

Travel Day

The hostel sent me to the bus company’s office location in HCMC by Grab (the hostel paid for it). Once there, we waited for other passengers to come and then we piled onto the bus before leaving on time.

Our itinerary was roughly this:

• 1 hour on the road, then a break at gas station
• 1 more hour driving, then reach the border at Bavet
• Cross through border
• 3.5 hours to Phenom Penh with one more break at a small food market

So a total of 5.5 hours transit, plus time to get through the border. We left at 8:30 am and arrived in PP at about 3:30 pm.

The bus has a driver and an assistant. The assistant came through and got our passports and $40 USD for the visa– be sure to have bills in EXCELLENT condition for this part, or else swap some Vietnamese dong for USD at the bus company’s office before you get on the bus.

Crossing the Border

This was maybe one of the easiest and smoothest border crossings I’ve ever been on.

The first part was going through Vietnamese immigration, where they checked our passports and gave us exit stamps. The whole bus got off and we went through a small office before getting right back on the bus in under 10 minutes.

Then we went over the border and into Cambodian immigration, which was a bit more frenetic. Our bus got into our own line and we were filtered through individual booths with officers checking our passports and matching them up to the visa payments. Somehow we arrived during a non-busy part of the day and we all got through in under half an hour.

After a bathroom break, we then headed back on the road to get to Phenom Penh.

Processing Fee?

A note about the visa price: a Cambodia visa is normally $35 USD. There were some arguments between the Vietnamese staff and the Cambodian staff about who was pocketing the extra $5 USD, but both agreed it was a “processing fee.” There were two people on the bus who had eVisas, and they still had to pay the processing fee to get through the border.

In Cambodia

The bus dropped us off at a parking lot sort of near town, maybe 10-15 minutes away by tuk tuk. There were tuk tuk drivers waiting to take us to our hotels, or you could order a Grab. I ended up splitting a ride with two other backpackers and we headed into town together. The ride in the tuk tuk was about $3 USD equivalent.

The only thing I’d suggest would be to get some Cambodia cash if you wanted to buy lunch on the other side of the border, or prepare ahead of time and bring something with you. Especially bring things if there’s something particular you want! The two places we stopped at had soup and noodles and some fruit, but not a lot of other things.

Also, your Vietnam SIM card will stop working once you get over the border, but you won’t have enough time to grab a new one from a stall near the immigration office. I recommend getting an eSIM to tide you over until you can get a proper one.

Overall this ride was super easy, maybe one of the easiest bus rides I’ve ever been on in Vietnam.