On the Road to ‘Nam… Alone

I headed back to Sihanoukville because my previous one-week jaunt there made it a familiar place with familiar faces. It’s more lively with more backpackers so I also thought I might have a better chance of finding some people to travel with there. Lo and behold, I found an Italian. Oh great. Italians are trouble. Of course, since I’m an Italiana at heart, Massimo and I hit it off well. We discovered we both had ideas about heading to Vietnam soon. So, we decided to try and explore ‘nam together. But first, Massimo had to go to Phnom Penh to pick up his visa. I’d already been, so I stuck around Sihanoukville to get going on my blogging and to get some work done online. We were shooting for meeting up in Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, in two days. Well, it’s been two days and I haven’t made it to Ho Chi Minh. I have made it to Vietnam though. I had bought a bus ticket from Sihanoukville, Cambodia to Saigon. The only bus left early in the a.m. I don’t have an alarm clock or anything with me, so I always have to rely on others to get me up if I need to be up early. I asked the crew at the beachside guesthouse I was staying at to give me a wake up knock. They promised they would and they have done it before, so I had no reason to doubt. But, no knock ever came… and I woke up an hour late. That means I was out the $17 because you get no refunds for tickets. The guesthouse crew told me ‘too bad’ and said I’d have to go the next day. Up until that point I had really gotten to know the crew at that guesthouse and had spent plenty of time and money there, with lodging and food for the past week and I had edited some of their website pro bono, so I was a little irked by their ‘we forgot, too bad attitude.’ I wanted to get to ‘nam though so I decided to tag along on a bus back to Kampot (it’s closer to the border) with another traveler at the guesthouse. We were supposed to leave at 9 am, but the guesthouse crew screwed up again and waited til 10 mins before the bus left to try and book our ticket (even though we asked them to book at 8 am). Unsurprisingly, the bus was full at 10 mins til departure. There were no more buses to Kampot for the day, so our only option left was to take a taxi. Okay, book us a taxi then. Well, they generally leave every hour, but all the taxis were being used at 10, so we had to wait til 11. Eleven rolled around… no taxi. We asked what was up… and got a response of “Oh I call the taxi for you now.” What?! But then I was really irked. It was weird. The guesthouse was really really accommodating at first and now they were being total crap. The other traveler, a swiss guy, and I decided to just grab a moto to the taxi station and book the taxi ourselves. Finally, we were en route to Kampot. Yeah! Things went more smoothly there. That is, after a stray nail on a chair ripped a huge hole in the seat of my pants. Good thing I was wearing long top that covered it!

From Kampot I was able to snag a last-minute, one-hour ride to the border on the back of a moto for $10. At the border, I snagged another moto ride to get to the nearest city in ‘Nam, Ha Tien. That turned out to be really cool because we stopped at a pagoda that was built into a huge rock. It had great views of the border where ‘Nam meets Cambodia. It also had some bats. Nice little surprise. The moto driver also took me to the nearby beach for a quick look on the ‘Nam side. Right away, there’s a noticeable difference in ‘nam from Cambodia. It’s tremendously more developed. More paved roads (though they’re still bumpy) and more concrete houses versus shacks. There are still numerous shacks though. To the average Western ‘Nam would still be significantly underdeveloped, but after being in Cambodia for the past two weeks it seems like such a modern world.

I was still a ways off from Ho Chi Minh and it became evident I wouldn’t make it there by the end of the day so I started reassessing my plans. Ha Tien is on the southern coast of ‘Nam and there’s this island off the southern coast that’s supposed to be a star attraction of ‘nam, so I figure I should hit it while I’m so close. So, that became my new destination. But, not so fast. Even though Ha Tien is the closest city in ‘Nam to the island, it doesn’t have a ferry to it. I have to go further down the coast to a bigger port city to catch the ferry. Only, the moto driver said there were no more buses for Rach Gia for the day and I’d have to wait til morning to go. The moto driver didn’t seem to pressed for time and he hung around once I found a place to stay, so he took me to an inet café. I since learned he was planning on staying with me in my room so he could take me to the bus station early in the morning. Oh great. How am I going to get out of this one. I kind of needed him because he spoke at least a little bit of English versus the non-existent English with all the people in Ha Tien. Ha Tien isn’t big on the tourist trail. What’s a girl to do? Go change some money. The moto driver took me to an ATM. Luckily the atm happened to be at a bank and though the bank was closed, some workers were still there. Better yet, one spoke English very well. I asked him if there really were no more buses to Rach Gia that day (well, evening by then). He said ‘No. Not really. There is a bus at 8 pm.’ Great! That puts me closer to the island and further from the moto driver!! I told the moto driver to take me to the bus station and he did. I got a ticket for the night bus and by 8:15 I was en route… on the bus… the bus with a death wish! The mini travel bus only had two other passengers and I guess that was reason enough for it to race down the paved, but narrow, bumpy and pot-holed road at deadly speeds. The driver was manic! I survived the death bus though… and made it safely into Rach Gia where my trusty Lonely Planet actually correctly directed me to a nice, cheap guesthouse… for once!

Tomorrow I’m waking up early to meet Massimo at the bus station. I emailed him about my change of plans and it didn’t take much for him to decide to follow suit and change his. He had just made it to Ho Chi Minh, but he barely whined before taking off to get a night bus to Rach Gia so he could join me on my exotic island excursion.