Saigon (HCMC) to Phu Quoc Island to Saigon to Mekong Delta

SAIGON:
At around 4-5 pm we reached Saigon, somewhere near our hotel, so we decided to walk the few blocks with our overheavy luggage.. Totally bad idea, as Saigon is famous for its chaotic scooter traffic and this was the time that everybody drove home. And I mean everybody! So try to cross big streets at a normal time, without heavy luggage.. In Vietnam you must know how to do it, otherwise you will never get over any street : just walk and keep walking.
But imgine to try it at rush hour with big backpacks, where you can’t react to every scooter coming at you! Luckily we reached our hotel Bali B, dropped our stuff and then went back to the area where the bus had dropped us off earlier to get some food (we were the only people using chopsticks there) and THEEEEN we went to my favourite bakery in Saigon: the ABC bakery! I just love them and Tina immediately did too. I was so happy to be there again that I told every ABC employee…
We had a chocolate cream cake and a tea and enjoyed the traffic chaos from the cafe above the street. And naturally we took the best product of the house home: chocolate banana cake! Then we went to search for a small bag to put our luggage (next to our rucksacks) for the flight to Phu Quoc. We decided to leave the heavy backpacks in the hotel, check in with them later on our return and for our island trip to travel light and happy.
After some search we found an (of course FAKE) Tommy Hilfiger sports bag for about 8 EUR, bought some fruit at the night market and then headed home to start unpacking and packing again. I received an email that our flight would be delayed for 2-3 hours, so we could sleep a little longer. At breakfast the owner of the hotel sat next to us and talked to us a little while feeding his aquarium fish. He said Bali meant Ba-Ling, his and his wife’s names, which would also mean Berlin in Vietnamese. Nice fun fact. I was rather thinking of the island Bali as I will be going there soon.

Immer gut zu wissen:

PHU QUOC ISLAND:
We got ourselves a driver to the airport (8km from the center) and flew to the beautiful Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc. It’s all sea, jungle and beaches here…and of course tourists. And, what we soon discovered: MOSQUITOS! We were practically eaten up from the first minute on our Tropicana resort. Even with mosquito repellent all over our bodies.
When walking around on of of the paths of the dark resort I suddenly screamed out loud as something wet hit my left foot. A frog had jumped on it accidentily and another fat one was sitting on the way to our bungalow. We had a lot of trouble with our room at first, because the airco didn’t work and approx. 4 times somebody came to fix it, but it broke down again after 5 minutes. As it is very humid and hot here, we really needed that airco. Finally the reception promised us a specialist to repair the darn thing and we went down to the sea. The sun had already set and it was very quiet. After twohours we came back to the bungalow: no airco.
When we just wanted to complain ago at the reception, the guy came down to us and asked about if everything was fine. We said it was not and so he gave us another hut next door. That airco worked, thank God! All in all the Tropicana resort is very run down. It is probably 25 years old and nobody ever fixed anything to make it look better. But it is okay, we are used to run down hotel rooms, I actually quite like it to see how the decoration was some 20-30 years ago and that people really believe they can rent out rooms in that condition in other countries. I expect most guests at home would go on hunger strike seeing these desolate conditions and being asked money for it. ;-)
On the way back from the reception something wet hit me on the foot. I screamed and then saw that it had been a little fat frog who was happily jumping away..
The next morning we awoke quite relaxed. The airco had worked all night and all the bad conditions didn’t matter any more. We got ourselves some breakfast at the resort’s beach cafe, where the service could also be improved, as the waiters hardly spoke any English and so ordering something wasn’t very easy and could become quite frustrating after some time. But the breakfast was delicious: some Asian stuff, bread rolls, toast, omelette, small pancakes..and of course Vietnamese coffee – the best in the world! Before breakfast I had rented a scooter at the reception (for 200.00 Dong = 8 EUR, per day), so we got our stuff for the far away dream beach Sao approx. 20 km away and hit the road.
At first we looked a bit around and tried a dirt track along the sea but soon decided that I had too little experience and 20 km on a dirt track was a little too much to enjoy the adventurous ride. So we took the inland asphalt road. It was too good to be true: very broad, quite new asphalt, not too many cars and scooters..but every now and then the street was being renewed and we had to ride on sand tracks, pebbles and on the other side of the road. The ride took us over an hour and when we stopped at a small family run street cafe to have an ice coffee, we asked the owner where Sao beach was. She pointed back down the street. We had missed the dirt track leading there as there were hardly any signs, but fortunately we got the right info in time. Sao Beach was a little full, but really a dream destination. Palmtrees, jungle in the far back, transparent water, white sand… But you had to ignore the fact that the flood brought in lots of debris from ships. We counted – next to many fisher nets parts – 10 single shoes, which were swimming or lying on the beach.
We enjoyed a dish at a beach cafe and then stretched ourselves in a quiet corner of the beach and watched the waves. When it was starting to get dark we rode home again, dropped our stuff and then hit the main town here, Duong Dong.
Tina headed for a cafe she liked (just from the outside), but when we sat down they informed us they only got all-goat specialties. Tina is a vegetarian, so that was not what she was looking for. But around the next corner we found a real vegetarian restaurant, which is quite hard to find in Vietnam! We got soup with tofu and even I enjoyed it a lot.
After this we drove to the daily night market and strolled along a series of unhappy creatures, who were waiting alive to be chosen by the customer and to be grilled: fat frogs, snakes, turtles, small sharks, small mantas, a variety of other fish and shellfish. I was feeling a little bit sick, but the customers seemed to enjoyed it a lot. After a drink (of Sabadilla) at the harbour we headed back for our resort.
The next morning after breakfast we spent hours on the beach, doing nothing, enjoying the sun and a light breeze. The sea was very still and felt like a gigantic bathtub. Wonderful. Somewhere around noon we got a freshly cut pineapple from one of the ladies selling on the beach and shortly after took the scooter again to Tranh waterfall.
We climbed a very long stone path which made me feel like Dorothy from Kansas on the Golden Brick Road, just that the road was not golden but could make you stumble everywhere and break a leg. Finally we found the small waterfall, which was occupied by a couple off Vietnamese teens and some very stupid Americans. Why do I say that? Alright, here it is: they had laptops with them and their own wifi system, and the name of that – I know because my phone tried to connect with it – was: „FuckingNAM“ Why the hell go to another country on holiday if you have not the slightest respect and make everyone see who has a mobile phone??!
Anyway, we left shortly after and rode back to town to get an awesome tapas dinner at MONDO, a small restaurant owned by a European couple. The chorizo was real, so they must have it imported from Spain. With it came some potatoe with aioli…mmmmh.
We keep eating Vietnamese food everywhere so it was very special to have something so exotic. It was alredy getting dark but still we headed out to an uncompleted road we had passed the day before and Tina had a tiny scooter lesson. I actually had to get used to the scooter feeling again when starting ro ride so I know that it is weird if you sit on it for the first time and try to ride it, but it went very well. Anyway the traffic on the island is not slightly as disturbing as in the big cities but it can still be hair-raising when a big bus/taxi/private car hits the horn loudly before passing close by. And the scooters don’t mind where they go so you need to keep a lookout for every moving thing on the street. It sounds horrible but when you have gotten used to it, I think it is even safer than at home, where everybody (especially the cars) have the idea of „I’m here, get out of the way“. In Vietnam everybody is connecting and it is a more diplomatic way of driving. Still of course the rule is: when a big bus is coming straight towards you: get out of the way quickly! We didn’t feel like going home yet after MONDO so we had a drink at a sportsbar, Vietnamese style (means nice café with 3 TVs showing sports). Finally when we were home we got ourselves some beer and hit the beach to listen to the waves.
Next morning we got up early to enjoy a little last sunshine and sea feeling and then at 11am (much to early – I could have stayed a week longer) to the airport to get back to Saigon, where we reached our old hotel, Bali B, at around 4pm.

Back at SAIGON:
After relaxing and having a dinner next door (finally, after 2 weeks I had a Bun Cha Hanoi style – very delishious pork noodle soup with greens) we produced the usual chaos in the room, looking for stuff to maybe put in a package home. Finally at 9 pm we left and tried to get a taxi…and another one..they all said NO. We should walk on foot to the city center and as we had to we did. Theeeeen we discovered why no taxi wanted to ride: millions of scooters and people on foot were covering the streets and the big place before Ben Thanh market. No coming through. We took a turn, but same thing, everything was blocked, 2 hours before midnight. So we settled in a small café, had a Tiger beer and went out into the massa at 11.30 pm.
Everybody was looking in a certain direction, so we did too and at midnight there was a countdown on one of the big business towers and a firework. So we raised our (new) Saigon beers to 2015. When the firework was over, we gave the massa some time to clear the streets and then walked home, but ho – on our street there was still a blockade, so we couldn’t cross. So we just walked into a bubble tea joint and passed some time. The menu was absolutely difficult with lots of extra flavours you could choose, but we both got something nice to drink. At 2 am minutes the traffic had cleared up, we had drunk up and headed home.
New year’s morning we started quite early, got a delicious breakfast and packed stuff to send home with a parcel to make the baggage lighter. Hopefully the Vietnamese post is reliable… We got a taxi to the main post office, a historical French building by Gustave Eiffel with a giant, friendly smiling Ho Chi Minh portrait hanging very prominently in the back of the post office hall. It took us hours (and least it felt like 2 hours minimum) to pack, repack, choose new souvenirs, throw old things out, reweight like 10 times until we were sure, we packed exactly e.g. 0.5 or 1.5 kg, not more, as this would increase the price way too much. I think that the ladies at the two counters were a little bit unnerved by us, but we’re travelling on budget here and there is a difference between 10 or 15 EUR, if the content differs in only a tiny 30 grams.
The only fatal thing was that after finally sending our packages, we discovered the Artbook Store I had already got to know so well and HAD to buy more stuff, which we now have to carry around again. Sigh… But I am sure there will be a next parcel home in some time as there will be other countries to discover and more souverniers to buy. We walked down Dong Khoi, the main street here in the center, came buy the opera and the Caravelle hotel, but discovered that close-by Uncle Ho (Chi Minh)‘s statue had gone. An underground railway is currently being built (that had started 2 years ago, God, they’re slow here) and they removed a whole main street from being used. You had to walk around in a big circle, and so we did. After what felt like an eternity for my feet we reached our block, collected our laundry, relaxed at ABC Bakery again…..I just love it and I made a deal with a used-book-shop lady to trade my Vietnamese guide book for an East Australian one and pay like 3 EUR extra. At the hotel I discovered that it was a neat copy of Lonely Planet..not the original. But I don’t mind, it’s still a good deal and I need a guide book about Australia.
The evening we spent by packing again and arguing a lot with the reception people about booking a 2-day-trip to the Mekong Delta, spending another night at Bali B, for which we had no booking yet and the guy tried to insist that we had to pay more. I insisted that we did not and finally we got our old price. I thought it was ridiculous to ask more, if we wanted to stay for the third time…no matter what the usual rules of increased prices are. We have gotten used to it that arguing and bargaining are the right things to do here, but you have to stay friendly all the time, which sometimes is very hard.
The next morning the fight started all over again because Tina had requested her dirty shoes back, that she had given to the reception 2 days ago for cleaning. On the phone the lady said: What shoes? Tina almost got a nervous breakdown and I did too. So I got down first to talk to them calmly and discovered that it was the same lady that had taken the shoes in the first place, so she ha to know about them. Then she got them from behind the counter. Aaargh! Stupid woman? Just misunderstanding all the time because of it all being discussed in English? Not wanting to lose her face??? We couldn’t imagine what exactly went wrong here, but it was too much. So Tina got her shoes (uncleaned) and we left (again with light luggage) with our tour guide for the Mekong Delta. He could speak almostg perfect English and on the trip we discovered that he was explaining really EVERYTHING to his guests and we were just not used to that.

MEKONG DELTA (My Tho, Ben Tre, Can Tho):
We rode for about 1.5 hours on the bus to My Tho and Ben Tre and saw a lot of traditional and typical stuff there. First we walked through gardens and onto small paths to a family home who serve local fruit (dragon fruit, pine apple, water melon, sapodilla, but they also have cumquat, coconut, banana, grapefruit, jackfruit and cocoa, all of them we saw on the way) and honey tea and played some traditional South Vietnamese music to us. Very unusual for Western ears.
Then we got on a small boat with 4 people and were rowed through small side-arms of the Mekong along water coconut trees to another family home who make coconut candy. We bought some and it is fantastic – it tastes like caramell only less sweeter and stickier.
Then we got onto a bigger boat with the whole group and made a tour on the gigantic Mekong, passing tons of boats and housed on the shore.
We took some lunch on the famous Tortoise Island in a lush flowery orchard. Thier speciality was a gigantic fish called Elephant Ear fish, but Tina and I had some Tofu with vegetables instead. In My Tho we visited Vinh Trang Pagoda which was clearly a Buddhist worshipping place as there were 3 giant Buddhas (1 standing, 1 lying on his side and 1 fat happy future Buddha) situated around the building. After another 2.5 hours riding on the bus we reached Can Tho, the 5th biggest city in Vietnam and were dropped at a hotel to spend our leisure time on our own. So we went out to have some dinner and look at the river. By accident we came across a statue of Ho Chi Minh, were we had to take some weird socialist photos. The next morning we had to get up veeery early, at 6 am, to go to the floating market by boat. We went for about half an hour until suddenly there were many boats: big ones, small ones, motor boats, rowing boats – every possible kind.
Every selling boat puts up a big bamboo stick with the products they sell, so for example: a watermelon and carrots. Many small boats came alongside us to sell something to the tourists. I got us some Ca phe sua da (ice coffe with sweet condensed milk) from a boat guy. I tell you, this coffee is waaaaay better than any Latte Macchiato in the world! We got several people addictd to it, who were on the trip with us. Tina and me couldn’t stop taking photos of people on the boats, on the shore and just selling scenes and boat scenes in general. Phantastic, you don’t find anything like this market in Europe. After circling the market twice we headed onwards to a smaller canal where we visited a family run rice noodle soup factory (all made by hand). Our guide told us how the rice pancakes were made and then dried and cut into noodle stripes. They also sold very good dry banana pancake.
A little while later we reached another family run farm, where we could explore on our own a little using monkey bridges, for which you need a good sense of balance. For the tourists they added a handrail, which didn’t make it any lesse scarier for some people.
You could also try grilled rat, frog or snake at the place. We actually went for the fruit salad… After a boat trip back and a lunch next to our hotel, we had to endure 4,5 hours of bus riding ‚home‘ to Saigon, where we checked into our old hotel. The people there were somewhat overenthousiastic and the boss gave me a weird high-five. We had to insist again on our negogiated price for our third and last stay and did the payment in the evening, so to avoid someone in the morning who didn’t have any clue about the better price we had got. But well, the next morning was trouble-less then: breakfast, someone called a taxi and OFF to the airport. Tina was leaving for Bangkok and then the next day to Auckland and I was going to Malaysia.