Vietnam - Ha Tien and Phu Quoc

Ha Tien is a boarder town In Vietnam and an entry/exit port with Cambodia.

Phú Quốc is the largest island in Vietnam and used to belong to Cambodia. Phú Quốc and nearby islands, along with the distant Thổ Chu Islands, are part of Kiên Giang Province. The island has a total area of 574 km2 (222 sq mi) and a permanent population of approximately 179,480 people. It is located in the Gulf of Thailand. The island city of Phú Quốc includes the island proper and 21 smaller islets.

How did we get here? One day when we were walking the streets of Kampot and noticed Kampot Transports offering "Kampot to Phu Quoc" for $27 each. That seemed like a reasonable price for bus and ferry tickets to Phu Quoc. We paid and told the gentlemen where we were staying. They said we would be picked up at our hotel at 1000 and the bus left at 1030. We were a little skeptical since they didn't write down the name of our hotel but we've discovered 'things just seem to work' with companies getting us from point A to point B.

Here was our ordeal although no fault of Kampot Transport:

1000: We're standing out front of the hotel and were expecting a mini bus. No mini bus. Every tuk tuk driver that passed us saw we had luggage and naturally figured we needed a ride, "No tuk tuk." About 1005 I start attempting to call the company via WhatsApp. I can't get through. A tuk tuk stops in front of us and motions for us to get in. At this point I'm thoroughly annoyed and a bit rude to the guy. He was very insistent that we get in. Thinking maybe he was our ride, we showed him our slip of paper (aka receipt from Kampot Transport) but I still wasn't buying that he was our ride. He makes a call and hands the phone to Sharon. He was our ride. Feeling stupid, we get in and he takes us to Kampot Transport.

1030: We load up the mini bus. A couple from Canada with three kids, us and three single guys. We stop in Kep and pick up a couple from Germany with their daughter.

1130: The bus stops at the Cambodian/Vietnam boarder and the driver tells us to "go that way and a bus will be waiting for you on the other side." Everyone was a bit confused on exactly what to do but we all just started walking toward Vietnam. First we went through Cambodian Immigration to receive an exit stamp on our passport. Then we kept walking in the direction of Vietnam and eventually find and go through Immigration. Vietnam was a little tricky with a visa. We had to apply for an eVisa online and print out two copies. We did this when we were in Thailand primarily in case Cambodia wanted to see some kind of proof of exit plan. Next the "Epidemic" window to show proof of vaxes. The woman barely glanced at the 'proof'. 

1245: Guess we aren't making the 1230 ferry. We hung out with the Candians since they spoke English. We just started walking hoping to find 'the bus on the other side'. Some guy stops us at a waiting area(?) and we all determine this is our driver. We wait for everyone to clear into Vietnam. We load up and drive to the ferry terminal(?). We unload, get our luggage and the driver rudely announces, "No ferry today", hops in the mini bus and drives off. Um what!?! 

Three women usher us into the coffee shop-by-the-river. Now we're really confused since the ferries were on the OPPOSITE side of the river. The Canadian sat down with the women and, thanks to the miracle of Google Translate, we discovered the ferries were not running because of high wind and waves. We were dropped off here because there are no hotels on the other side of the river. OK... things are starting to make a little sense. Sharon and the woman from Canada started looking for a hotel on Agoda and Google Maps. They found a cheap 4.5 rated hotel. $10 for the night. Super cheap. What could be wrong?

Luckily I exchanged Facebook Messenger contact info with one of the women (she didn't do WhatsApp). She later messaged me that she would contact me at 0600 the following morning to see if the ferry was running. 

The hotel. So gross. So dated. Why we didn't just eat the $10 and move to a different hotel is still a mystery to the two of us. Sharon slept on top of the covers and we both had a horrible night sleep totally convinced we would be eaten alive by bed bugs or SOMETHING. And the shower. I have never felt that taking a shower would be a disgusting event. Nor worry a whole lot about electorcian since the water heater is on the wall. Grounding wire? Who needs that? It isn't doing anything. Did I mention the town is a giant bird nest? Gazzilions of birds that you usually can't see screeching, chirping, squawking or are they bats!?! We don't know. 

The water scooper in the sink. Why?

Not sure if the circa 1970 TV worked
but the ceiling fan did not.

Ha Tien is not a tourist town. No one spoke English and, although there were a lot of street food vendors and small 'restaurants' with tiny plastic tables and even tinier plastic chairs, we didn't know what to order and what they were serving. Were we getting cow offel? (Basically every part of the cow except what we normally eat.) Pig parts? Chicken feet? Shrimp that had been sitting in the sun all day? Is this where we are going to starve to death?

Who doesn't dry their laundry on a sidewalk?
And where was the place it was washed?

Finally we found a restaurant. A real restaurant with a menu in Vietnamese and English. And beeer! OK... warm beer with a mug and a block of ice but it tasted so good and refreshing! I ordered fish and Sharon seafood fried rice. The food was good and we motioned several times for more beer refills. There was a large table behind us and Sharon took a picture of the floor under their table. There was trash everywhere! Then we noticed other tables throwing their trash on the floor. Beer cans, cigarette butts, chicken bones, napkins, whatever. Evidentally it's customary in Vietnam. Tables have a trash can but it's like going to the movie theater when we were kids and just throwing popcorn containers and soda cups and everything else on the floor. lol

Just throw your trash under the table.
Out of sight. Out of mind. Someone will clean it up.

Time to pay the bill. 424,000 VND!!
That's less than $20 USD. Throw in an unexpected tip
and boy did we get good service the next night!

0637 the following morning FB Messenger dings: "Due to bad weather, the boat stopped operating". I kind of figured that since I had looked at the Windy app the day before and figured Sunday was going to be the best possibility. We started looking into other options: airplane, helicopter, drone, submarine, anything! We were stuck and couldn't get to Phu Quoc.

First thing: reserve a room at another hotel. ANY hotel! Second: coffee and breakfast. Right across the street was a restaurant pretty packed with locals. OK. That was a good sign. We walked in and sat down. Our waitress didn't speak English and we spoke even less Vietnamese so I typed, "2 black coffees hot" into Google Translate. First two cups of ice tea(?) arrived then two tall glasses of ice (what was that for?) and a clear cup with a silver thingy dripping coffee(?) into the glass below. Turns out that's Vietnamese coffee. It drips through a filter and you pour it over ice. A little thick and sweet but actually pretty good. And strong! We didn't get breakfast. Even with Google Translate noodles and mystery meat just weren't appealing at the moment.

That silver thingy was dripping
thick sweet Vietnamese coffee.

According to Agoda, our checkout time at our grosser-than-gross hotel was 1200. We verified that at the non-English speaking front desk and she banged on the counter indicating it was now! (1030) Um-kay. We quickly packed, paid and got the eff out of there!

Our new hotel let us store our luggage until check-in at noon. OMG! Night and day! King bed. Nice shower. Breakfast. Pool. Wait. Pool? Well.... not really. There was about three inches of water in the rooftop pool and no lounge chairs. Remember the birds? It's all we would have heard if we lounged at the pool.

A bed. A real bed! In a quiet clean room.

0610 Sunday morning: Ding! "Hi sir" "The boat is back in run" "I book you tickets for 7:10 or 1:00" "What time you want?"

Me: 7:10

"How many people in your group" "Please prepare your luggage, I will pick you up by car" "Please take a photo of your passport and send it to me so I can issue a ticket".

Me: <thought bubble> "Seriously? You've had almost two days to get a picture of our passports."

We pack, start checking-out and there's some guy that we don't know in the lobby insisting he's our driver. We just never know who is really our driver and who may be scamming us to take us somewhere then charge us. So we trust he's our driver and were reassured when we stopped at the German couple's hotel on our way to the ferry. Next. Van stops at a transport company and someone runs out with tickets(?). We get to the ferry terminal at 7. Get our luggage and tickets and run to the ferry. 0710 we pull away from the pier. Exactly one hour from the time we got up. It's just amazing how things work here! Who the mysterious women at the coffee shop were, we don't know but they were great at communicating with me and made things happen.

Our ferry. Love the name!

We arrive in Phu Quoc. The ferry hadn't been running for at least two days. There were just as many people waiting to leave the island as were waiting to arrive. We literally had to [almost] fight through a crowd of people waiting to board as we were trying to leave. Crazy.

Where did we stay? Seashells Hotel and Spa. A splurge. Ocean front Presidential Suite with king bed! We booked four nights and lost two. The hotel wouldn't refund our money but they did change our dates. But for the first time in two plus months, we booked a flight (off the island) and several hotels in advance never considering that the ferry wouldn't be running. You would have thought a couple of cruisers would have taken that into consideration. 

What did we do? One of the things we did in Ha Tien was get VND (Vietnamese Dong). In Thailand, $1 USD was about 33 baht. In Cambodia $1 USD was about 4000 Riehl. Getting my head around handing someone a 20,000 note = $5 took a long time. Now Vietnam. $1 USD = over 23,000 VND! Yes. We took out 3,000,000 VND which is about $128 USD. Three million VND is the max the ATM's dispense so you have to do that a few times to get 9,000,000 VND. Just wow. 

We arrived at the hotel at 0930 and couldn't check-in until 2-3. We went in search of coffee and breakfast. There were coffee shops everywhere but no breakfast (that we could find). We stopped and had some Vietnamese coffee and later settled on somewhere to eat. I had "Three Fire Benefits". Doesn't that sound good? It was either grilled, spicy or lord knows what. It was 'lord knows what'. It tasted good but was basically pan-fried fat/gristle with a little chewy tough meat. Sharon got fried spring rolls. 

English and pictures!

We checked into our room, took a nap (ok... I took a nap), showered and went to hit the town! It's pouring down rain. So we hit the hotel lobby bar and got some really good drinks. Still raining so we eat at the hotel restaurant. We knew we were paying resort prices but still dirt cheap compared to the US.

It finally stopped raining so we walked to the night market. That was total sensory overload! We couldn't wait to get back to our room.

Next morning. We slept in. Had a nice breakfast at the resort. Went for a walk and lounged at the infinity pool. We even went to the swim up bar for drinks and lunch. That evening we went back to the 'sensory-overload' night market, "Sir-madame...." I got some fried something with quail egg, brocolli, piece of squid and who knows what. It was ok and a super cheap dinner.

Fresh seafood

Fried 'stuff' with quail egg

Basically our 'splurge' to Phu Quoc turned out be a really big splurge since we paid for four nights, stayed two and paid for two additional nights in Ha Tien. Time to go back to being type B and C travelers...

I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list.