Visa run review: Prek Chak via Kep (Cambodia) to Ha Tien (Vietnam)

The Ha Tien border crossing opened to international visitors a few years ago. It is slowly becoming a popular route to get in and out of Vietnam at its south western border with Cambodia. Ha Tien is also the easiest way to get to and from Phu Quoc island and perhaps even to explore the Mekong delta in the south.

 We decided to use this border crossing to carry out a "visa run" to extend our stay in Cambodia (we came in on a tourist visa and could've simply extended our tourist visa in PP, but as we were exploring kep and kampot during the pchum Ben week celebrations, we decided to hop across to ha tien). For an excellent guide to Cambodian visas check out Movetocambodia.com.

The experience itself was pretty straightforward. We didn't have any significant problems on our visa run other than a marathon, one day multi leg bus journey from ha tien to Siem reap (but that was mostly our own doing!).

 We started our visa run from Kep (if you're anywhere in southern cambodia or even PP, it's fairly easy to arrange transport to here).

 Transport from KEP to HA TIEN

 We booked a bus for 6.50$ Each from a tour operator in town. We had a bit of a frustrating 2 hour wait for the bus due to a multitude of reasons beginning with "traffic " then "Pchum Ben" festivities and then finally "tyre problems". We eventually hit the road and spent all of 15 minutes in the car before we reached the crossing.

 The border crossing at at Ha Tien.

 The Cambodian side of things is generally straightforward, but we had heard about various shenanigans on the VN side so we were fairly happy (sort of) to hand over our passports to a local fixer for $1. He was very efficient and brough back our passports after a few mins with the relevant stamps. He also guided us through the Vietnamese side which entailed a stamp (we had sorted out VN visa in advance: more about that here) and also a rudimentary Heath check (I,e. A health questionnaire plus a temperature check using some whacky Infra-red device which recorded my temp as 35.2 😳). The health check of course carried a unofficial $1 fee... We changed cars at border and then made our way in to town.

A night in Ha tien. 

 We stayed at the Hai Phuong hotel which has very spacious and comfortable rooms with air con at very reasonable rates (ours cost $13.50 for the night). For dinner, we headed to Oasis Bar in town which is the only joint doing western food (the owner is a lovely British expat called Andy). We figured we earned ourselves some "Barang" food after an experiment with local food at Ha Tien market ended with us Being served fried noodles with black pudding and chicken after trying to order noodles with shrimps!

 Getting our new Cambodian visas.

 The following morning we were picked up at 0600 by two local guides who we had met in town earlier (one, Mr The, works out of Oasis Bar). For $19 we arranged transport back to SR with most of the trip on tourist buses. We were reasonably pleased with the amount we paid as was much less than $24-25 being charged in town, although with retrospect even this was perhaps a tad too much considering we only used local buses all the way back home to SR.

We arrived at Ha Tien border at 0615 to be met by a closed visa office! Initial anxieties about a closed office due to Pchum Ben were quickly allayed after an inebriated Cambodian official arrived looking completed hammered on a motorcycle with a bottle of rice wine still in hand. He stumbled to the front door and told us to wait for someone to arrive with keys...this person eventually arrived but appeared to have rouble remembering which key it was that opened the door (the Vietnamese guides who were with us took great pleasure in telling us that Cambodians are like this..after a drink). We had a stern official who dished out new visas for us for which he charged 35$. The "actual" fee for this is of course $ 30 , but conventional wisdom dictates that visa fees are not really negotiable at border crossings (especially at ha tien) so we dutifuly complied as we were keen to avoid any delays or further "fees". We then had another Health check which included a superficial browse of our yellow fever certificates (the absence of which incurs a $1 fee...) following which we were stamped in our new 30 day Cambodian visas. 😀

In all, our visa run with a 1 night stay in Ha thien was a success nd fairly trouble free and certainly we didn't face any hassle at either of the border crossings.


Top tips:

 Citizens of certain countries do not require a visa is not required if staying in VN less than 14 days

If you have a yellow fever Certiticate, or immunisation record, it's worth carrying with you when you trave

l A Cambodian visa requires a passport photo...although when we first crossed in Cambodia via Thailand, the officials were happy to waivers people along without passport photos if they paid a "fine" of 1 dollar..

Avoid travelling anywhere on pchum been day...things take even longer than usual

 Be sure to have exact change for visas and other such things (paying in dollars is recommended as the border offices have been known to inflate prices of paying in VND)