Ferry to Phu Quoc Island

With the news that all ferries are booked solid—well, there are only 3 daily—, we hit the streets around the hotel to see if we can find any other information.  It’s probably the smallest town we’ve been in, smack on the ocean—the Gulf of Thailand—and there are remnants of some major party/festival/event having taken place the evening before.  Our mototaxi guys told us there would be lots of karaoke on the street tonight, at what looks to be a sort of park/public area on the estuary that leads to open sea.  Ha Tien lies on the border with Cambodia, and has recently opened an actual border crossing, so it is slowly gearing up for major waves of tourists who they hope will choose to use this as their crossing.  A swanky all glass hotel has just opened, and construction of hotels is dizzying.  For the rest it is the usual compendium of small shops, market stalls, motorcycles and noise.  All on a smaller scale.  The region is known for the strange limestone hills that crop up as single structures.  Most are covered with lush tropical vegetation, some are home to caves and pagodas. 

Back to the search.  Most things are closing, but eating places remain open.  Our Lonely Planet guide mentions that there is a local bar run by an expat and that he is a goldmine of local info.  We can’t seem to locate the place, but Andres happens to see a foreigner in a local coffeeshop and goes in to ask him whether he knows of the place.  Sure enough, it’s just around the corner: the Oasis Bar.  At its helm is Andy, a middle-aged Brit, married to a local girl, and he is indeed a trove of information.  His wife quickly calls the ferry, but also comes up empty.  So we sit down and have something to drink with Andy, as he fills us in on some of his life, and a bit about the island.  Not more than 2m away, a couple of Canadians are finishing up some motorbike rental deal with a local man, who suddenly pipes up and says to Andy that he’d just overheard about the ferry, that he’d just called his contact and she still had—count them—FOUR tickets on the “slow” ferry tomorrow.  Were we interested?  Absolutely!  Deal made, and we agreed to meet him for breakfast at 9, right at the Oasis bar—only truly English breakfast for hundreds of miles—and sure enough, the next morning, while we finished our delicious fruit salads, Mr. Tay was there with a friend(the 2nd motorbike taxi) and off we zoomed through the now normal-seeming chaos of daily markets, over the large bridge over the estuary and through back streets to the ferry station. 

The fast ferry left at 10ish, and our “slow” ferry, about 10 minutes slower, left about 30 minutes later.  All the luggage was stowed on top of the cabin and then the pushing began in earnest.  I don’t think I’ve ever been pressed and squeezed quite as hard as I was by these innocuous looking little old ladies.  Time to get the elbows out, and fight back a bit, preferably while loudly intoning in a language they don’t understand!  People are jumping in front of others, crawling through the bars of the gangway, despite protests, but all to no avail.  On the boat we are once again put in the furthest back seats, but we’re not complaining, as there is a fan blowing directly on our seats.  We’re packed in like sardines, and there end up being a handful of passengers without a seat, but any time someone gets up, someone quickly grabs the seat, so there is a bit of musical chairs going on throughout the hour and a half trip.  The windows are too high to see out of without standing up, so we settle into spurts of napping or reading, watching the woman who is nursing her newborn(well, TINY baby) as she sits on cases of water, until she finally slumps forward with the baby, fast asleep.

We are pleasantly surprised when a ferry employee offers us the possibility of buying tickets for a bus to town when we reach the dock.   When we arrive, all hell breaks loose as people try to deboard.  We arrive on a pier that is at least 500m from shore, and about the width of a small car.  Everyone is piled up at the end of the pier waiting for the luggage to be thrown(literally) off the boat.  There are the throwers, the catchers, and the pilers.  Meanwhile, the hordes of passengers—easily 200, are all vying for the best spot the grab their luggage and hightail it off the pier and out of the scalding heat.  As foreigners, we stand back, not wanting to be thrown into the water by the locals, who are grabbing bags, walking over the piles of other bags, screaming and gesticulating, as a handful of motorbikes and motorbike pickups rev their engines, waiting to pile luggage on and head to shore.  It’s such utter chaos, that all we can do is smile.

At the end of the pier, there really is a van/bus and after it’s packed we’re off.  Dropped off at the side of the road, we walk down a sideroad, thankfully loaded with trees and shade, til we reach our new hotel.  It’s simple, but has nice grounds, a decent room, and the beach is lovely.  We’re set for a week of downtime in the sun.

Ferry to Phu Quoc VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Bussing to Ha Tien

We leave behind the bustling city of Can Tho from its central bus station—a term loosely describing a sort of bus depot with dozens of mostly smallish busses and vans that move throughout the area.  There are dozens of hawkers all screeching incomprehensibly, and passengers strewn about the few “sitting” areas, surrounded by boxes and bales and lots of small children.  We’d been to the station the day before in a futile attempt to buy our bus ticket ahead of time.  The message we understood was that yes, there was a bus to Ha Tien, but only tomorrow at noon, and we couldn’t buy the ticket til 11:30. No special reason.  Resigned, we are now back to actually purchase the ticket and go.  Not entirely surprisingly, the clerk now signs that there is no bus at noon, only at 1, and we have to “go sit” and come to buy the ticket at 12:30.  Hmmm.  We actually find a spot to sit, and have been sitting for maybe 10 minutes, when a hawker we ran into upon our arrival rushes over when he sees us—we’re easy to spot as the only foreigners—.  He recalls we’re looking to reach Ha Tien, and tears across the lot and points to the bus.  It leaves at noon.  Mystified we board the hellishly hot bus, where we’re told to sit at the very back.  Slowly the bus begins filling up and at about 12:20, we do actually leave! 



We share the bus with gossiping little old ladies carting bundles and boxes, a wiry old man who steps on the bus in his pajamas, but is so hot that he soon sheds his top, and alienates a good cross-section of the passengers.  And then there is the lady who was dropped off at the station on her motorbike, dressed in full regalia: gloves, hat, face-mask, long sleeves and long pants, and socks(!)—none of which she removes for even a moment during the trip. There is the inevitable presence of cigarette smoke, which only adds to the general heaviness of the air.  Eventually a hefty local sits beside us, and we take out the map to ask him where we are.  He traces the general route and also indicates more or less when we might arrive in Ha Tien.

We sit back and rattle on through the never-ending sprawl of shops and markets and residences, while the driver races madly down the road, honking incessantly at everything in his way.  Slowly passengers begin being dropped off.  We find a couple of more comfortable seats further forward, but have barely settled in, when the bus stops in the middle of the road, and we’re told to get off, with repeated insistent cries of “HA TIEN! HA TIEN!”  Again confused, we get our packs and get off the bus, when another swoops in front of it, and we’re told to get in there.  The new driver is like the old one, but on some kind of serious amphetamines, and it’s an absolute miracle he doesn’t kill something along the way.  We tear through what is actually the first thing that looks anything like “countryside”, and about an hour later we’re told to get off the bus.  It’s a dusty lot at an out-of -town intersection, and before we can even get our bearings, we’re approached by a couple of motorbike taxis, and we’re off to a hotel where we hope there is room, since we’re rather tired by now.  Luck is with us.  A brief rest and shower later, we're ready to figure out how to get out of this small border town and to the island of Phu Quoc, since the desk clerk has already profusely apologized, but there are no available ferry tickets for Monday.

On to Can Tho

Arrived shortly after noon in bustling Can Tho, the bus station a muddy mess in the steady light rain.  We attempt to find out about connections to our next spot before heading off to the hotel we’ve selected on the river-front.  Somewhat confusing, but we at least surmise that there is a bus!  We are lucky to get a room with a riverview on the 7th floor, and it’s quite view.  Boats of all sizes and shapes move dizzyingly in all directions up what appear to be four major waterways that all connect on our left horizon, with a tremendous high-spired bridge in the background.

We’re here to make it to the early morning floating market, of which there are two—one classified as more “touristy”, presumably because it’s closer, and therefore more foreigners make it to that one, and the further away Phong Dien market.  The receptionist downstairs gives us the basic details and price, but suggests we check around.  Lazily we say we’ll take her deal, and then head out to find our what other information may be available.  The river front is edged with a nice park area, the standard—albeit gargantuan—statue of Ho, and we quickly gather that this is a place tourists must definitely come in numbers.  In the immediate surrounding area, chaos has taken a backseat to Vietnam civilized and tamed.  We come upon the covered market—which is now a nice open veranda restaurant, and the remainder of the structure hosts a set of very nicely appointed souvenir shops/stalls.  This used to be the city’s main market, but that has been banished further inland.  Interestingly, this small portion of downtown appears even more tourist oriented than the ritziest areas we saw of HCMC.

We settle into an extensive lunch which consists of small portions of at least six different dishes.  Highlights are the lemongrass and chili chicken and the vegetable curry, as well as the delicate pumpkin flower soup.  Rain continues, so we wander briefly under our umbrellas, and then head back to enjoy our view from the hotel and rest up for a 6am start the next morning.

After another stunning breakfast buffet, which we’re almost too tired to truly appreciate, we are spirited away by a woman in the reception who races down to the riverfront and deposits us in a small boat with an elderly woman driver.  We’re pushed off and head down the river.  It’s very early morning, but there is plenty of activity, both on shore and on the water.  We literally have a window into the private lives of any and everyone who lives on the river….honestly sometimes a bit more of a look than we’d like.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, but beyond the market itself, which we reach after about an hour, the glaring third-worldness of the riverbank, the picturesque but dire filth and poverty is almost overwhelming.  Despite this people smile, wave, or blithely mind their own business as we float through their lives.  Five hours on the river is a lifetime of reminders on how lucky we are to have the lives we do.

		On the Can Tho River VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Tra Vinh

Up for our phenomenal buffet breakfast, and then we ready ourselves to meet up with Phan, who has kindly offered to get us to the bus station with appropriate directions for heading about 80 km further south into the delta, to the town of Tra Vinh.  As we come out of the breakfast room, Phan is waiting for us at the reception desk!  He offers to take us to the bus station, but we tell him that if he explains it, we can surely find it.  Way ahead of us, he has actually drawn us a map, and also made a sign for us with our two principal needs:  bus to the ferry(where we will cross free as pedestrians), and then a sign asking to be taken to the hotel we’ve picked out in Tra Vinh.  He’s not sure how we’ll get there but says we will probably have to take a motorbike taxi.  Oh dear….

After our chorus of gratitude and repeated handshakes, Phan is back to his office—just outside the hotel—, and we pick up our packs and are off.  We follow the map, but are still confused, only to have Phan show up again(!) on his motorbike, and point us a little further down the road.  We thought we’d missed the spot.  It’s not a bus station, but a bus stop!  He rapid-fires some instructions at one of the old ladies at the stop, and then tells us to follow her!  We’re off about 20 minutes later, and about 75 minutes later arrive at the ferry.  There is a small crowd waiting in the “holding pen”, and when the gates open, people flow onto the ferry, along with a few busses, trucks, and the pervasive motorbikes.  There is an Austrian tour bus group on board, and their guide seems to think we’re a bit off with our idea of spending much time in Tra Vinh, although it’s supposed to be one of the greenest, prettiest towns in the Delta.  Fifteen minutes later we’re across the water, and are instantly accosted by the mototaxi boys.  Lots of gestures and showing our newly acquired list of important phrases—thanks to Phan, once again—, we’ve closed the deal, and each get behind a motorbike driver, who hauls our pack between his legs on the front of the bike.  Helmets on and we’re off for about 30 km of countryside til we enter Tra Vinh town/city proper.  Luckily the drivers are conservative drivers by Vietnamese standards!!

We certainly can’t complain about our 3rd floor, basic room with a pleasant view and plenty of space.  It even has a TV with CNN and a small fridge—, all for US$12 a night.  We set off to find the local—and apparently only—tourist office, but it’s closed til afternoon.  We find a relatively innocuous café to have some iced coffee and tea(couldn’t make myself understood as to HOT tea!), and wile away a couple of hours, reading up on what we’d like to see.  We return to the office, and there get some basic idea of what’s possible.  It’s some sort of Vietnam Airlines office(amongst other things), and the attendant quickly phones a guide, who arrives on her motorbike about 20 minutes later.  It’s decided that we can see everything we want that very afternoon, and the new guide—Linh, a tourism student, and Helen,(she tells us to call her that) the attendant each hop on their respective motorbikes, hand us each a helmet, and we’re off again.  We visit a number of pagodas, some Khmer, others Chinese.  Tra Vinh has a significant Khmer population, as years ago, this area was all part of Cambodia. 

The Khmer practice a different sort of Buddhism, more like what is seen in Thailand, Myanmar and India.  The Chinese practice a Buddhism that is based on Taoism.  This is about the extent of our conversation.  Linh and Helen's spoken English is rather limited, but they are able to bridge the Vietnamese language barrier, and are pretty easy-going as far as waiting for us to take a wander around the sites and take what they clearly think are absurd photographs.   “I take photo you with….fill in the blank” is standard for Helen, while Linh is more shy and instead buys us wonderful sugar cane juice with lemon—poured into small plastic bags and festooned with a straw.  She also has us try small packets wrapped in steamed banana leaves, which, when unpacked have a pasty mix based on rice and some sugar, and fillings of beans or coconut.  Quite  delicious.  We are once again elevated to instant celebrity as foreigners.  Everyone waves and calls hello, goodbye, what’s your name—thereby exhausting their extensive English(compared to our Vietnamese, which has yet to progress beyond thank you).

About 4 hours later, we’ve woven through the thick streams of motorbikes and are safely back.  We’ve seen a great deal, and our guides are clearly worn a bit thin from having to “converse” in English for the duration.  We invite them out for something to drink, but Helen tells us in no uncertain terms, “you go hotel, me go my house".  Message received!

Below an array of photos, the most incongruous of all being the young monk busily playing some video game on his IPad at one of the pagoda's monastery grounds.  Buddha must be wondering about this new world!

		Around Tra Vinh VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL