A ferry boat form Ha Tien took us to Phu Quoc, an island actually closer to Cambodia than to Vietnam. There are very few roads (in not too good conditions or even dirt roads) so the car drive from the harbor in the East to the Chen Sea Resort in the West took a while.
Chen Sea resortOur favourite sundowner: mango margarita at the poolMy favourite: ca phe sua da
View from our our beach bungalowWriting “The pool” is too much of stating the obvious but I have no better idea
There are all sorts of gadgets for one purpose only: RELAX
Fish market in downtown Phu Quoc at night
A one hour motor bike drive from the Chen Sea Resort took us to a great beach in the Southwest of Phu Quoc. There were only two small restaurants and very few people there. I really hope that remains for some time and no big resort will be built there!
A beautiful white beach in the south-east part of Phu Quoc
Looks like a celebrity shootingnext celebrity shotnot so much of a celeb shot 😉best place for enjoying life
One day we drove down town Duong Dong for lunch and got surprised by heavy rain that filled the streets within a few minutes. While J refused to drive back to the resort, life in the streets seemed to go on almost as usual:
The rain continued and after a while we (or should I say P) decided that driving through the rain is not a big deal. At least, the rain was warm….. Driving on dirt roads in such weather conditions is actually a bit of a challenge!
Our plan was to take a bus from Saigon to Can Tho, spend a night there and visit the floating market early the next morning, then head to Ha Tien also by bus for another night before taking the speed boat from there to Phu Quoc to spend 5 relaxing days on the beautiful island to complete our first journey in Vietnam together (I then flew back to Frankfurt while P stayed with her family in Saigon alone for 10 more days, the parting war hard I tell you…). Taking a bus in Vietnam however, is very much different from taking one in Europe. Although our bus from Saigon to Can Tho was quite comfortable with air-condition and wifi, the trip was tiresome cause the roads were often quite narrow, crowded and bumpy. A distance of roughly 200km could therefore easily take more than 4 hours.
We didn’t book any hotel in advance so the first thing we did upon arriving in Can Tho was looking for one. We had to search around Ninh Kieu Pier for a while (many hotels were fully booked, some overpriced, others too “simple”) before settling for one of the simple local hostel at the waterfront. Nothing fancy but clean and with a nice view across the Mekong river. We spent the afternoon strolling the streets to do what we like most, trying out street foods. The grilled eggs were fun to eat. The eggs are “injected” with some spices through a needle hole on top and then grilled on charcoal. An interesting new way of preparing eggs, we’d never seen it again anywhere else in Vietnam.
We made a mistake though, like most first-time tourists did. At the hotel foyer we were approached by a lady showing us brochures and albums of tours she was trying to sell. Not wanting to waste any more time looking, we decided to book a private boat tour to the floating market for the next morning. Not that we didn’t expect it but it caught us by surprise as she went directly from talking to us to talking to one of the small boat-ladies waiting across our hotel and paid her haft the price to do the tour for us. Needless to say, we were a little upset and felt sorry for the lady who owned the boat and actually did the hard work herself. Our lesson is: for a city like Can Tho you don’t need to book anything in advance. There are enough hotels/hostels at every price range and category at Ninh Kieu Pier. You can just go in, take a look at the room and agree on the price. Same thing with boat tour to the floating market. Go directly to the harbor and talk to any of the boat-owners waiting around and agree on the price and time to leave. You might end up paying exactly what you would have paid to the middle-man, but at least your money will go directly to those who truly earn it. And that’s exactly what we did 3 years later when coming back here.
Well, the experience was a little put-off but didn’t stop us from enjoying our day. We approached the same boat-lady and offered her a small sum to take us out for a small sunset cruise on the Mekong. She was of course very happy to do just that. She took us to a restaurant on an island across the harbor, which was part of a fruit plantation. Having very delicious fish and chilling on hammocks underneath tropical trees was the perfect end of the day:
A nice restaurant and fruit farm, on the evening of our arrivalThat fish was soooooo yummy!Lotus flower closed …..… and open
The next morning at 5am she was already patiently waiting for us in front of our hotel to take us to the floating market, a 40 minutes boat-ride from Ninh Kieu Pier. We were very glad we took the “private” tour in the small boat, just the two of us. We could stop anywhere we wanted for however long we wanted to take photos, have breakfast, or just siting around and let the atmosphere sink in. (The real tourist boats just bring you there in a crowd of 20+ people in a big boat, let you have a quick look from the distance and then head back to the city to pick up the next crowd – not something we would recommend doing.) Imagine a whole sale market on the water with each boat heavily loaded with one kind of fruit, or vegetable only. Have a look at the beautiful scenery:
Starting at 5am in the morning for the floating marketPineapple trading on Mekong riverBreakfast being served on the boat, pho bo and ca phe sua daHappy breakfast face !!busy morning on Mekong riverGuess what/whom he is looking at when smiling like this….A real surprise shot taken by a German colleague whom we met by accident at 630am in the middle of the Mekong delta! It’s a pretty weird feeling when somebody totally unexpectedly calls your name from behind in such a remote location……….
My first time in Saigon with only 2 days to get an impression of a city that I mostly know from some history lessons at school and from which there are some “pictures” in mind from various Vietnam movies – both mainly influenced by the time of the US being present in the country.
Like in a lot of other cases when visiting a country or city for the first time, as soon as you are on the ground, you realize that you have to revise a lot of perceptions from the media/movies/history lessons. Politics suddenly don’t play a role anymore when you meet the people. The only visible reminders of the US presence in the country are the war museum and the former US embassy. The latter is well known because of a photo from Dutch photographer Hubert van Es of a helicopter landing on top of a roof on Apr-29, 1975 when the last Americans fled the country. However the building on the foto wasn’t the embassy but an apartment building of CIA employees.
In fact, the influence of the French colonial time is much more present in Saigon. There are a lot of official buildings downtown (have a look at the pictures further down) and in some residential areas there are even some streets with obvious French architecture. Even in the language there are several words that stem from French like cà phê, bia, ga to – just to name a few. Unfortunately, more und more of the colonial buildings are disappearing and make place for shiny business buildings, sky scrapers or high-end apartment houses.
Another obvious thing in the very busy streets of Saigon the the love of the people for coffee, fresh fruit and food. Vietnam is the second largest exporter of coffee in the world and you find many coffee shops and various roasts all over the place. I strongly recommend cà phê sữa đá (Vietnamese iced coffee), perfect for hot weather but beware: highly addictive with a large potential to stay on your hips…..
But now have a look yourself…..
In the park in front of the mayor’s houseThe post office, built by the French during the colonial timesInside the post-office with Uncle Ho overlooking the sceneKissing the nieceIn front of Nôtre Dame – except that it’s in Saigon, not in ParisIn front of Notre DameThe opera houseBest fruit in the world, you can eat it all day longChom-chom is my favourite (also known as Rambutan)At the coffee shop – Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of coffee in the world !Multiple coffee choiceFoto session on a bridge across Saigon riverSisters in crimeCoffee breakBeside Saigon river, in front of Saigon’s skylineYummy fruit juices at lunch breakStreet food: freshly made waffles and madeleines, baked on a coal ovenDried fish in Ben Thanh
Hoi An is definitely our second favourite city in Vietnam after Saigon. It’s very touristy yes, but you receive decent services for your money and the foods are excellent (we kinda plan all our travels around the foods). Also, the city mayor had long ago forbidden all the restaurants in town to charge foreigners more than what the locals paid for, which made this town even more pleasant to visit.
Hoi An is also famous for its tailor industry, you can for example have a suit made over night at a decent price and excellent quality. But you could run into the risks of paying too much for it, so shop around for price before making the order because even though the shops appear to be of different owners, they might have their clothes made from the same tailors that worked behind-the-curtain. It’s the biggest industry in this town. Don’t be afraid to bargain in Vietnam, whatever they say, offer them half of it and walk away ;-), it won’t always work but it’s worth a try. We’re not good at bargaining ourselves, sometimes we just do it for fun and pay what we think the good is worth to us. People gotta earn their livings after all. We often give generous tips to those who need them the most (Xich Lo riders, street-food vendors, small family-run shops etc.) and negotiate our way with big hotel chains and resorts to make the most value of our money.
On our search for a quiet place to stay we came across Villa Hoa Su, a very small hotel with only 5 or 6 rooms and a huge garden that was so beautifully decorated that we ended up spending most of our time there. We appreciated the fact that they didn’t try to build a five-story “plastic” hotel on this ground and focused on offering guests a very unique experience instead. The common open space serving as the restaurant in the middle of the garden surrounded by fish ponds was actually an original ancient house that the owner had brought pieces by pieces back from Hue, the Imperial Capital of Vietnam during the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945). Saying we liked this place a lot is an understatement. If we could, we’d move in here in a heartbeat.
Breakfast by the pool everydayOur own outdoor shower and marble bath tub under the starsBest pool ever (mainly because of the mermaid….)Different view of the pool (same mermaid)Very beautifully decorated garden
Cua Dai beach & Coconut water – our favourite drinkGotta get hands on….A must-eat in Hoi An “Banh Quai Banh Vac” at its original place 533 Hai Ba Trung street, Hoi An.Water spinach field in the middle of the cityDinner downtown at Morning Glory, a quite famous restaurant chain both to locals and tourists. It definitely had a tourist price tag, but the foods were authentic and very tasty. We would eat here again anytime.Rice fields everywhere you goBaby rice plants (still planning to do this at home)Hoi An downtown: A dog studying art in front of a galleryHoi An marketAncient Town – Ancient House
