Destination – Vietnam
–
Phu Quoc Island – monsoon? What monsoon?
We go to the
travel agent at 9.30pm and they take by taxi to the bus company. From the
bus company, a bus takes us and a whole lot of other people to the “big bus
station”. At the station we make friends with 3 other people also going to the
island. We jump on a bus to Rach Gia at 11pm. The bus trip is insane and it
seems like they have it all really well planed so people cannot sleep. The
lights are bright and there is a TV on playing loud Vietnamese movies,
obviously kept on all night. The icing
on the cake is the ”steward” using a microphone to loudly announce what is
going on at each stop (all through the night) and making the poor foreigners
jump in their seats every time. Amazingly enough, for the Vietnamese people, it
seems to be business as usual. It is not the first time we ask, do they ever
sleep? (we also ask if they ever stop
eating, but that’s another story).
We arrive in Rach Gia (port), totally sleep deprived, at 5am
and our ferry leaves at 1pm. So, we decide to take a room in a (very) basic
guest house and try to count some sheep. The 2 ½ hour ferry ride is another
loud journey. On top of zillions of very excited Vietnamese families on
holidays, there are two huge TVs playing a non-stop Vietnamese music concert
so loud, it gets through my ear plugs and make it impossible even to think. Had
to retire my book.
OK, now on Phu
Quoc, we had to quickly review our “Vietnam really knows what the tourists want”
statement. The prices are higher and the service in general, pretty bad. We
changed hotels twice in three days, until we finally find the “Sea Star”. It’s
a nice and quiet hotel, on the beach, great gardens and they actually sent someone
to fix our TV reception when I complained about it, impressive! Phu Quoc is a
nice island, not a lot of character though the beaches are pretty OK. We get a
lot of monsoon rain in the first few days but it gets a little better and we
can go back to our eat/explore/walk routine.
Paul has another birthday on the road and we get to celebrate
with some nice, new “instant friends”, in this case, the same guys from the bus
station in Saigon. Off to Ganesh Indian Restaurant for a really nice evening.
In less than
one week on the island we get torrential monsoon rain as a result of two tropical
typhoons on the mainland. It’s a lot of water. Even
for someone from Rio de Janeiro. Believe me! Anyway, as a result, a lot of
movies and books are consumed. Yeah, it’s been ten
days and the rain continues, we finally get a chance to go to the night markets
for some great seafood only to make a quick run from another huge monsoon
shower. We’re just so glad we bought some cool fake Northface & Mamuth raincoats
in Nepal.
Anyway, after 10 seriously wet
& windy days, we decided it’s not time to leave Vietnam for Cambodia yet
and choose to make our way back to Saigon.
