We took the long way round to go back
to the harbour as it is all surfaced road but this meant a slightly
longer route. Despite this we arrived at the harbour really early as
Johanna gets a bit nervous about taking boats and suchlike in case we
miss them. Before we left the hotel she already said she had a bad
feeling about it as the route was longer and she thought we didn’t
have enough time. Anyway we got there over an hour early, and sat
around in the sun watching people coming and going. We got onto our
boat as soon as we could (Johanna also doesn't like to wait until the
end of queues) - and boy are we glad we did. Once on the boat with
the bikes and luggage safely stowed away, the crew passed round
checking seat numbers and taking passport numbers. Not sure why they
did it on this boat, they don’t usually. So we pulled out the
passports, but - they weren’t there! We had forgotten to get them
back from behind the reception at the hotel this morning.
Now we had 25 minutes before the only
boat of the day left. I got off and asked Johanna to wait with the
bikes and our stuff on the boat and then just ran around trying to
borrow a motorbike or get a lift from anyone on the dock as there
were no taxi's there at the time. One guy said he would take me so I
hopped on the back of his Honda Dream moped and off we went, hoping
to make the 30km round trip in the 20 mins I had left. He didn’t
realise that it was so far, plus he would only go 35mph maximum which
was not enough. We passed a group of taxi's outside a
shack-restaurant near the airport. He said I should try to take a
taxi instead and I agreed. I tried to pay him for the moto-taxi but
he wouldn't take any money, turns out he was not a taxi just a bloke
trying to help!
I started chatting with the taxi
drivers who were laying about in hammocks and smoking and drinking
coffee. I said that I only have 15 mins to get to the hotel and back
but no-one was moving much. Damn. I considered getting back on the
motorbike, then started asking about borrowing a taxi just as one
younger guy came out of the back of the café ready to go. Great! So
we jumped in his Toyota Innova and sped off towards the town. He was
a really nice guy and understood the urgency and drove as fast as he
could. We were doing up to 80mph now, on these small roads and
through the small hamlets. I have to say it was not the most
comfortable journey. The driver's bravery far outweighed his driving
abilities. He was braking through corners after going in too fast,
clutching and braking simultaneously when faced with an oncoming
vehicle (usually as we overtook around a blind bend) and randomly
changing gears when there was no need to. I stared ahead and said
nothing.
We got the the hotel, I ran in and said
one word - 'Passports!!' at the reception and they understood and
had obviously been waiting for me to come back, then ran out again
with them in hand. We had 8 mins to get back to the dock. The journey
back was even worse and I couldn’t watch most of the time as we
barrelled along only vaguely in control whilst forcing other traffic
to stop or pull onto the verge to avoid a collision. When we got back
to the dock another big boat had just arrived and dropped its cargo
of Asian tourists off which meant that the narrow 250m jetty road
down to the end where our boat was moored was totally blocked with
taxi's and buses and people. We could not get the taxi down any
further so I gave the driver a nice tip and a handshake and sprinted
the rest back to the boat. I puffed and panted back onto the boat
with the passports clutched in hand 7 minutes after it should have
left which I think was pretty bloody good!
Ha Tien was very hot. The dock was full
of tourists and hectic as usual. We only had a few km to the already
booked hotel but it was a bit of a pain as the road on the map didn't
exist. We found it eventually, checked in and had a quick shower
before going out for some lunch and a look around to find the post
office as we had some things we needed to send back as they were just
taking up room in our bags.
Later on in the evening, we went out
for dinner to a place mentioned in the book that supposedly did a
good western menu. It was run by a 60ish-year old English guy who had
been a taxi driver in Wales near Aberystwyth before moving over here
8 years ago. His wife was Vietnamse, they had a 3 year old son and
met in Cambodia 5 years ago. She could have only been 21 at the
oldest, looked a lot younger. I think they met when she was 16 or 17.
We had a few beers there, deciding not to have dinner between
ourselves as there was no other customers. Anyway, we had a good chat
about our trip and life in Vietnam - he told us that an Australian
guy had a three storey house built from a green site in the town for
£5000, including water, power and sewage lines, materials and labour
and painting inside and out!!! We were about to leave to find some
food when two massive fat Canadians and an older English guy came and
sat down with us outside on the the two small tables. I recognised
them from the beach in Phu Quoc where we sat beside them in a
restaurant a couple of days ago and we got their bill by accident. So
we chatted and had a couple more beers. We had some chips that the
owner had been teaching his less-than-interested wife to make and a
sausage baguette each.
Then another couple turned up who were
from the Czech Republic and shared our table with us. They were from
a small town called Domazlice which we cycled through and stayed in
for one night on our Euro-tour. They were proper travellers and not
the half-body tattoo and silly glasses and beard types. They had been
almost everywhere in the world including cycling in the roughest
parts of India and Pakistan on rubbish bikes, living in communes in
various parts of Spain and had been to almost of of Asia at least
once before. He was 34 and she was 28. So we had a couple more beers
with those guys too. Then Jim, the fattest of the two Canadians
started sending rounds of beers over to our table I assume in order
to redirect the conversation in their direction. So we had a couple
more. I think Jim bought 4 rounds in total before his friend just got
up and left without a word. Must be how they do it in Canada when
they have had a little too much to drink! Then shortly afterwards Jim
himself pulled the same trick, got up and just waddled off down the
road without so much as a whisper. We left soon afterwards as well as
the English guy that ran the place went to bed leaving us chatting
outside with his young wife doing the clearing up and looking after
us. The Czech's wanted to find another beer so we found one place
that was mainly an open-late food joint with the help of one
seriously inebriated Vietnamese guy who was absolutely hilarious
without knowing it, the best way. He even went back to his house to
pull his poor wife out of bed to come and meet us all. She spoke no
English at all but Johanna was very nice to her and kept her in the
conversation somehow.
All evening we had been saying to
people that it was OK for us to have a bit of a night, as we only had
90km to do tomorrow on pan flat roads, even though we did need to
cross the border. Lets see if this false confidence would pay off the
next day or not!
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