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.
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