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Published: February 8th 2007
The Alte Haze
Ueli going spare at the thought that we might not go to Phu Quoc. "I swear I'll eat this carrot if youdon't come!" Carrot? Crazy Swiss...Greetings Fellow Bioinformaticians,
I am writing to you from the Peoples Committee for the Accurate reportage of Travel and Ice Skating here in the depths of Communist Party HQ in Saigon. Today's blog will be about our ill-fated attempt to reach the supposed Island paradise of Phu Quoc. What follows is a tale in the tradition of National Lampoons Vacation and Speed (mostly National Lampoons).
Saigon: January 4th 2007. A meeting at a cafe in a darkened Hemway takes place between two Swiss and two Australians
Ueli: You must come, you simply must, we can't complete our mission we two only (slams fist on table takes a bite from an imported block of Swiss cheese)
Dominator: Ueli's right, we need your expertise and your sexy times skills. We just can't carry on without you. Please you must, for the sake of world peace and Swiss puppetry you MUST come with us. You MUST (sobs without shame and takes a massive bite of an equally huge block of Toblerone).
Jaso: (Takes sun glasses off) Cool ya boots Swisses. We can see that you desperately need us. Consider us there...but certain conditions need to be met first.
The Meeting
Ueli after we informed he and Dominator that we would help them with their mission on the Islandof Phu Quoc Domintaor & and Ueli: (frantic) Name them!
Saartje: You must arrange the safe passage of the troupe of Nepalese Tupperware saleswomen to the Island. I can't do without my thrice daily massage. Oh and one other thing, there must be an adequate supply of KFC on the Island, I just LOVE my fried Chicken.
Dominator: (In her cute Swiss German accent that makes all the Vietnamese boys weep with lust) It can be done! And you Jaso, what do you require.
Jaso: (looking off into the distance) Me? (Gives a small laugh) I am the wind, I am nature itself, I crave no middle class pleasures....but if you can manage some diet soft drink and a plasma screen with the cricket on, I'm onboard.
Ueli: (excitedly) It will be done!
So the stage was set we were going to try and get to Phu Quoc to spend some time with our bonza Swiss friends. Nothing could stop us! Dom and Ueli were leaving for the Island the day after the meeting (the 5th) so we were looking at getting flights down to the island on the 7th. To that end we thought we would utilise
The Dominator
Dom looking very pleased after we agreed to travel to Phu Quoc where she could utilise our sexy times skills. the travel service offered by our guest house. "Hi Em Lan, is there a chance that you can get us a flight to Phu Quoc on the 7th and a return around the 15th?" "Sure no problem, let me just call the airline" (she calls airline) " Sure no problem flight on the 7th but no flight back on the 15th." "No problems we just need to get there on the 7th, we can come back later than the 15th no problems" "Ok Anh Jason
I have ticket for you. I'll let you know the return date".
Sweet! We pulled off a miracle! A flight to Phu Quoc in peak season! Awesome. We called the Swissers and told them to book some accommodation for us and we would be down on the 7th. The next morning at 7am Em lan calls our room, "Anh Jason there is a problem
they don't have a ticket for you on the 7th, they only have a ticket for you on the 9th." "What's that? You said yesterday that you had tickets for us, why not now?". "Anh Jason,
they made a mistake. No more tickets. You can go on the 9th." “No
Pure Evil Personified: "Yes I have tickets booked for you...."
Em Lan the evil genius receptionist. Moody, mean and the love child of George W Bush. we can't go on the 9th our friends will only be there for one more day and we have accommodation booked."
Things were starting to go pear shaped. But not to fear I remembered reading somewhere that you could get to the island by boat. So Saartje suggested that we go and check some travel agents out and see if we could get there that way. We walked into a travel agent and asked and were told we could get a bus to Rach Gia (6 hours) stay the night and get the Hydofoil over to the island the following morning (2 hours). Excellent we thought! It was now about 9am on the 6th, the bus would leave at 2pm, we would get to Rach Gia at 8pm, sleep there the night and make it to Phu Quoc by about 8am on the 7th the same as we would have had we flown! "What's the hotel like?" We asked "Very new and clean, price includes breakfast." Awesome! We'll take it! Give us a ticket for the bus, the room and the hydrofoil! We pay the money and the sales lady says and I quote "One problem, the boat hasn't
Death by bus
Super cool times guy Jaso faces imminent death from boredom on the return leg of the 19 hour bus trip. Nice tongue. gone for the last 3 days because of bad weather but there is an excellent chance that it will go tomorrow, but no guarantee..." Ok...we thought, still looking good, hasn't gone in 3 days, weather can't be that bad for another day, good chance that it will go, lets do it!
Back to the guest house and tell Em Lan that we are bugging out and heading for Rach Gia on the bus today so we can catch the boat tomorrow. Well didn’t she put on the darks! "Why you not go on the 9th? I can get you flights then! I could have got you the bus cheaper to Rach Gia. You should go on the 9th!" And with that she stormed off.
We trudged up stairs packed our bags, came down settled our account with Em Lan and took of for the bus stop. The bus was a little late, but no problem. We get on the bus and it starts heading in the opposite direction to Rach Gia. It goes all the way across to the other side of the city to pick up two young mothers with three small children and one grand mother
No I'm not eating.....
Funky times cool chick Saartje on the munch, nothing unusual here... this took 40 mins. The bus turns around and heads back right past where we started from, another 40 mins. We were starting to think that perhaps it was a bad idea to go Phu Quoc. We start heading out of Saigon and our phone rings. It's our lovely friend Em Trang calling to tell us that we left our passports behind! Shit! You can't do diddly without your passport! You can't get accommodation and you can't board planes or boats! Em Lan is supposed to give you your passport when you check out, but she conveniently forgot....we frantically spent the next ten minutes figuring out what to do. We called Lan and asked her if she could speak to the conductor to see if she could meet the bus somewhere before it got out of Saigon. It turns out there was a chance! The bus would stop for supplies and Lan said she would send a motor bike out to meet us with the passports. Just as we get to the stop, it starts raining, we knew we were sunk. The bus couldn't wait any longer and we left without our passports. We call Lan and she said she
Bridge Carnage
Bikes turning around after a giant meteor smashed the other end of the bridge and forced a detour. Luckily there were no injuries. was going to send them to the Island when we got there. Not ideal at all, but better than nothing. It was really looking like this was a bad idea...still there was hope.
On the bust droned, past places we had been before when we were with Van and Kieu and still the rain fell. It started to get dark just as we hit the dirt road, Holy Sufferin' Jesus H Christ. So many pot holes, we had traveled this road before but the recent wet weather had caused it to deteriorate even further. Consequently the lovely 6 hour bus ride turned into a 9 hour ride into oblivion. 9 hours cramped in the back of a bus in the dark with a driver that didn't want to slow down for pot holes, animals, bikes or people. By the time we arrived at Rach Gia, we had no kidneys left and Sarah's breasts had increased in size thanks to the lack of a sports bra. Still at least we were here and we could get some sleep...
We were dropped off right out the front of our hotel and we walked upstairs aching for bed. The reception dude
Mighty Mekong
A small tributrary that flows into the Mekong. There are literally thousands of these in the Delta. greeted us with a smile and was very happy to see us until he asked for our passports. When we told him they were still in Saigon he literally nearly burst into tears. He kept saying "No, the police, the police" and started howling like a wounded wolf. Eventually we got him to call Lan in Saigon so he could get our passport numbers, but still he wasn't happy. He called the director of tourism for the government there in Rach Gia and asked him what to do! Apparently he said it was ok, but the dude still wasn't happy. Excellent. We could finally get to sleep. He led us up to our room, gave us the key and sulked off back down stairs. We opened the door and the stale smell hit us in the face. The room was old and dank and don't ask about the bathroom. Faaarking gross! Still it was late we were tired and the dude down stairs was going to call the boat for us at 6am and find out if it was going. It looked as if things were going to work out regardless of all the problems.
We got to sleep
A Village in the Delta
One of the numerous poor villages that dot the landscape of the delta. They may not have running hot water or a solid floor, but they ALL have TV areials! Now that's what I call the American Dream! very easily, we were buggered. Then at 4am in the morning we were blasted awake by extremely loud music emanating from loud speakers down the road to the right. It sounded like a mixture of communist propaganda and marching music. I got up and looked from our balcony and down the street there was a crowd of people gathered in a square doing communist aerobics at 4 in the morning! Ludicrous. It couldn't get any worse.....15 minutes later to our left a Vietnamese funeral began, brass instruments howling, bass drums banging and dudes singing. No more sleep for us, the 4 hours sleep we got was plenty anyway....
6am rolls around, no call from reception. 6.15 still no call. Bugger this I went down and saw the dude. He saw me, picked up the phone, called the boat company and nearly burst into tears. "Not going!" Shit. "What about tomorrow?" I asked "I don't know" he said nearly in tears. Great!
I asked about breakfast and he said no breakfast for us! Great, easy for him to say, but he wasn't the one that had to tell Sarah there was no breakfast! The short of it was he didn't want us staying in the hotel another night without our passports so he was trying to make it uncomfortable for us. It was working.
I went upstairs and told Sarah the news. She threw the television out the window killing a small dog and her 9 pups, she needs breakfast.... After this we went in search of breakfast and found a local travel agent. He was really nice, we asked him what the chance was of the boat leaving tomorrow and he told us that there is no chance of the boat leaving within the next 3 to 4 days! Brilliant! I turned to Sarah and said "Sod this, let’s just go back to Saigon and make sure our passports are safe". She agreed it was pointless staying there, by the time we got to Phu Quoc, the Swisses would be gone and their attempt at restoring Swiss puppetry would have failed. So we organised a bus back to Saigon and waited at the hotel until it arrived. While there we asked for a coffee, we got one! Yay team weather....The bus arrived and we were about to walk out and they asked us to pay for the coffee! Zoinks! Sarah nearly jumped the counter and strangled the chick! We just walked out.
The bus trip was another 9 hour hell ride and we were so happy to be back in Saigon. When we got back to the hotel Em Lan tried to blame the passport fiasco on Em Trang! We couldn't believe it! We just shook our heads and trudged off to bed. 18 of the last 26 ours we spent on a bus. But it's funny looking back now, we got our money back for the ferry and the return flight from Phu Quoc. The Swisses don't think it's funny because they agreed to give us some form of restitution for our efforts....they may live to regret it....
Fine and sunny with a touch of pressure building up within Saartje causing death and destruction to millions. She wanted breakfast....
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Strauchny
non-member comment
the poor puppies
Did Sarah bury the puppies? It's real nasty, killing puppies, you know. Anyhoo - how are you two? Nuebeck and I are deep in pre-season steak eating in preparation for season '07 and I am also deep in long-on long-neck drinking as a member of the press gallery first XI to play the coalition on February 25. I hope I'm the man out in the middle when Johnnie comes on, bowling those arm ball pies - let me at 'im. Strauchny