Chau Doc

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From Saigon we headed to a small town in the Mekong Delta called Chau Doc - it's the last town in Vietnam along the Mekong River. Rather than a motorbike taxi or car taxi, (Vietnam doesn't generally have Tuk Tuks for some reason), on arrival we opted for what can only be described as a bicycle-drawn cart - one each from the bus station into town. When we set out on this journey I'd like to point out that we didn't quite realise just how far it was and when we arrived at our first choice guest house the drivers were erm, absolutely knackered from. Xan did buy them a bottle of water each while I looked at the room!

Chau Doc is a very small town, with a large local market that runs along the riverbank. Was great wandering around it, all the weird, wonderful and downright unappetising food!. Went to a place for lunch that had been very much built up - one very well traveled writer/explorer described it as 'the best food on the Mekong'. Was a tiny room, plastic chairs and tables run by a family that were just sitting down to their food when we arrived. Despite the hype it didn't disappoint. Clay pot fish was particularly amazing!

Not much of what you could call a night life in Chau Doc so we had a couple of beers in our room and an early night. Even still we managed to nearly miss our bus the next day. The receptionist from the hotel had to jumping on his moped with my massive backpack between his legs and me on the back (better than other way round). Xan was on the back of his mates' bike, holding his crash helmet to his head while racing to the bus station.

Wouldn't have been too bad a thing if we'd missed the bus - it was the oldest one we've been on yet! Tiny little about 12 seater, packed full of locals and the two of us squeezed on the back seat, and the air con (open windows) really wasn't up to much. Was a bumpy 6 hr ride and with being on the back seat we bore the brunt of it with Xan hitting his head on the roof a number of times. Luckily we both found this hilarious and the time actually passed pretty fast.

We arrived at Ha Tien (pretty hot, sweaty and bashed about) we were expecting to have to run around sorting tickets for a boat to take us to our next stop, Phu Quoc Island, however turns out there's only one place to get them and the bus dropped us off right outside it! Perfect. Was a great boat service, proper fully functioning air conditioning that worked and although a bit choppy a comfy seat and a free bottle of water! Luxury. The only thing that spoiled the 1.5 hour journey was the very loud and very cheesy Vietnamese live stage act they played on the telly, had the locals p*ssiselves though so clearly was all in the punch lines!

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Photos

Paula in the market
ooh it smelt bad.