Heading to Cambodia

Despite Phu Quoc’s proximity to Cambodia (14kms), it’s quite difficult to get there. Most people take to plane back to Ho Chi Minh to get their visas, a flight over to Phnom Penh (capital of Cambodia), then a bus down to the coast. This is not only expensive, but time consuming too.

After literally hours of searching on the internet and lots of emails, including to 3 different embassies (which go unanswered), we finally discover that there is a land-crossing which recently opened between Vietnam and Cambodia which is only 3 hours away by boat, but everything we read says that you must already be in possession of your visa. We hear a rumour that someone crossed two weeks ago and managed to get a visa at the crossing and decide to risk it.

No Super Dong this time. We’re on an old wooden boat, with wooden benches a foot apart and an overpowering smell of fish sauce. The only foreigners on board, we’re joined by several motorbikes and a dozen boxes of fish. We provide the locals with 3 hours of entertainment as they watch our every move.

On arrival at Ha Tien, we get a taxi to take us the short distance to Xa Xia, where we leave from Vietnam. Then a 500 metre walk on a straight stretch of road between the most beautiful scenery on either side….and over to the Cambodian side where our visa are issued. Phew, sigh of relief. The guy initially asks for $74 of Vietnamese dong but we tell him we only have US Dollars, so he asks for $60 instead. The next step is the health declaration form where that official asks for $2 in exchange for a piece of paper each for Will and I with a telephone number on it in case of medical emergencies. I question him over the reason for the $2 before I realise he’s on the make. I take one and give him one dollar before telling him he’s “a very naughty man”. He’s about to ask for another dollar before changing his mind and going back to lie in his hammock.

Final stop, the immigration police who have to check everything’s in order before letting us in. He asks how much we paid for the visas and we misunderstand when he mentions $20. In fact, he’s not asking for any money, but telling us that the guy who issued the visas has just charged us $20 too much as the kids visas are free. I take all the passports back again and ask if he might kindly return the money which he’d taken in error. He looks me straight in the eye and says “I’ll give you $10. I need $10 for my children”. Nice try matey, but I used to work in the City you know. Hand it over now, before I charge you some additional upfront costs, admin fees, management charges and interest.

Fortunately, our pre-booked taxi is waiting for us, otherwise our only form of transport would have been a couple of bony old cows.

Phu Quoc - Island Paradise

The Super Dong turns out to be far less impressive than the last Super Dong I encountered, but maybe that’s just my memory playing tricks with me. Anyway, this one did the job (as did the last one, I think), and before we know it, we’re dragging our bags off the boat, into heat and…brilliant sunshine. At last!

We’ve pre-booked 2 adjoining bungalows at Cassia Cottage www.cassiacottage.com, right on the west-facing beach and we’ve made a excellent choice. A gorgeous view, a great stretch of beach, a lovely pool and even WiFi in our rooms, which is always handy for booking up accommodation at our next location.

Pho Quoc is Vietnam’s largest island and is home to some 80,000 people. I say it’s Vietnam’s island, but actually, if you look at a map, you’ll see that it looks much more as though it belongs to Cambodia. The Vietnamese border comes down in a pretty straight line then takes a wild swerve out to the left to include Phu Quoc…but that’s another history lesson.

We take a long walk up the beautiful stretch of beach and discover a clutch of beach bungalows, one swanky French-colonial looking boutique hotel (Verandah), one bar (Eden) and one beach-shack restaurant. Perfect. The water is calm and clear, the sky is blue and even the palm trees are bending out across the beach at the perfect angle for scenic photo shoots. We already liked it here before we discovered that a very good one hour massage on the beach costs $3. Bliss. The memory of all that rain soon becomes a distant one.

The shack is rather unimaginatively called The Palm Tree but their fresh seafood BBQ scores much higher. The freshest fish, huge prawns and squid, straight out of the sea, onto the BBQ and onto your plate. It’s run by a gorgeous guy called Anh Tú who has been living here, literally in a bamboo shack on the beach, for the last 10 years and we book onto his boat trip for the next day. We stop for some fishing where I hook a tiddler, but you should have seen the one that got away… several stops for snorkelling and then a stop at a true Robinson Crusoe beach; a tiny stretch of pure white sand covered in shells and broken bits of coral, surrounded by palm trees and only accessible by boat. Homeward bound, we stop off at Soi Beach in the Southeast where the waves are wild and the sand is white and the drive home, as the sun is setting over the ocean, along the longest stretch of straight coastal road pretty much wraps up a perfect day.

We took a trip north to investigate the jungle which covers much of this island and a short uphill hike takes us to a waterfall and a pool big enough for a dip. Stopping off at Mango Bay for lunch, we discover another gorgeous little beach and some great bungalows scattered around in the gardens. Definitely the place to stay if you want to get away from it all.

We loved it here and all said we’d love to come back. I hope it doesn’t become the next Koh Samui and change beyond recognition in the next few years.

Rach Gia and Super Dongs

After breakfast on the roof, we hop into our mini-bus where the lady from Bao An Travel Service (Welcome Travel), www.welcometravelvietnam.com (I only give you her details so you don’t use them, should you ever find yourself in HCMC) insists that we must take the front 3 seats and one behind, rather than our current two in front and two behind arrangement. Apparently, all seats are pre-sold and pre-allocated. We’re not 5 minutes up the road before the driver pulls over and insists that all four of us squeeze onto the front 3 seats. I refuse and they call up the woman from the travel agency who insists that the front row, although being only 3 seats wide, is actually counted as 4 seats in Vietnam. I refuse to move, as does the bus driver. We eventually reach a compromise where I will sit up front with him (all just a cunning ploy to get me to sit next to him, I’m sure). I feeling quite vulnerable this close to the windscreen, as he hits speeds of up to 130 kph on small windy roads, at times using the grass verge as a lane, and it’s very fortunate that we’re not involved in the motorway pile-up which we pass by some hours later.

The children are fantastic for the entire 7-hour journey to Rach Gia where we check into one of the best hotels in town (there’s only 3), Kim Co, where rooms are £6 per night, mating geckos for free. We splash out and take two (rooms, not mating geckos, who only come in two’s). A late afternoon stroll around in search of a restaurant for dinner confirms that this is a town largely untouched by tourism. The typical tourist takes a 1 hour flight from Ho Chi Minh directly to Phu Quoc, but since the flights were sold out for several days, we’re reduced to staying here for the night before our early morning boat. We’re somewhat of a novelty and manage to attract a little crowd of local kids who follow us in our search and Harley, as ever, is touched, pinched and stroked whenever he passes people. We eventually manage to find a restaurant but whichever chicken previously owned the legs Ruby had, I think he must have been a champion weight lifter.

With nothing else to do here, we get an early night in preparation for our 3-hour boat journey to Phu Quoc on the Super Dong, express boat. Whoever owns this also owns a sense of humour. “Hey baby, wanna take a ride on my Super Dong?” could prove to be the Vietnamese chat-up line of choice.

Chu Chi tunnels and War Remnants museum

The infamous Chu Chi tunnels are just over 30 km from Ho Chi Min City so we arrange a car and driver through Saignoncitytour.com. Taking advice from the wonderfully camp Luxe guide (www.luxecityguides.com) our driver Mr Thang stops at Annam, a shrine to Harvey Nicks food hall, so that I can pick up some food for a picnic.

The day proves to be a history lesson to rival any other, but unlike history lessons I remember, this one is fascinating.

Work started on these underground tunnels in the 1940s and it took 25 years to complete them. Built initially to evade the French, in 1960 the invading North Vietnamese communist army successfully overran many parts of the capitalist south, including Chu Chi and was one of the reasons citied by Lyndon Johnson to involve the United States in a war that, frankly, had naff all to do with them. But that just goes to confirm my (some may say tainted) image of certain of our Yankee brothers. Those canny commies went on to dig tunnels which came right up into the US base camp causing for many a soldier to wonder how it was that they were getting shot at in their tents during the night. The area around Chu Chi was virtually obliterated by the B-52s who carpet bombed it. The villages were evacuated and razed to the ground, chemical defoliant was sprayed from the trees and napalm ensured the job was finished off sufficiently so that there was no hiding place from the US troops.

Driven underground, the commies continued with their burrowing until there were 250kms of tunnels, some running several stories deep housing kitchens, hospitals and weapon factories. We were shown how the smoke from kitchens was exhausted meters away after having passed through a series of other tunnels, cooling the smoke down in the process, so that when it finally escaped over the forest floor, not only was it cool enough to stay low but it didn’t give away the true position of the tunnels. Some entrances were hidden underwater and could only be accessed from rivers. The men and women here would live underground for weeks, even months on end. In fact, one of the ladies who worked here was born in the tunnels.

There’s just one or two places to see where the tunnels are still their original size and even Harley has to crouch down to get inside. The rest have been widened and heightened to allow access to fat tourists, and still even skinny Ruby has to bend over. My slight claustrophobia gets the better of me and I decline the chance to scramble through but the others scuttle in and emerge hot and dusty a few metres further along.

We saw the bombs and missiles of the US Army, stacked up next to the crude but nastily effective weapons of the Vietnamese. Trap doors set in the jungle floor, landmines created from unexploded US bombs. All pretty nasty stuff.

For $1 per bullet, you can have a go at firing a rifle or even an AK-47. Plumping for the latter, I fire off a few bullets but this 30 year old gun is off centre and loud enough to make your ears bleed so I pass over the last 5 bullets to Will who also manages to miss the target. We’re both a bit spooked out afterwards to think that this gun was probably used during the war with devastating effect, although the sight must have been slightly better then to have inflicted any injury.

We decide to round off the day with a visit to the War Remnants Museum and ask Mr Thang if it’s suitable viewing for the children. He assures us several times that it would be ok to take them in and, since Harley’s now fallen asleep anyway, we take Ruby tentatively in. We’re greeted by the sight of old US army tanks and aircraft, an all too familiar sight to us by now. Pushing on inside, we can instantly see that this is not viewing for a 7 year old. Will takes Ruby to sit on a bench with him and sleeping Harley whilst I take a good look at the photos and stories on the walls. It’s a truly horrific sight: American soldiers carrying pieces of Vietnamese bodies in their hands, like souvenirs; smiling soldiers sitting around a couple of Vietnamese heads whilst the bodies lie discarded to one side; pictures of the area around Chu Chi pre- and post- napalm; torture; the My Lai massacre (where the American army suspected the South Vietnamese of harbouring the enemy, so killed every man, woman and child in the village, just in case); pictures of many of the victims of Agent Orange and, just for good measure, three pickled still-born babies, all badly handicapped as a result of Agent Orange. It’s more than I can face and I return, sobbing to Will telling him to go on without me. I take the kiddies outside to get some air and remember that the bottle of red I’d bought for the picnic is still sitting in my bag, and now seems like as good a time as any to drink it. I’m soon feeling better but you’ll have to read Will’s blog (www.willsworldtour2.blogspot.com) if you want further details about the museum as I didn’t move from that spot until closing time, when he returned dry eyed and completely unemotional. Boys, eh?

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

A short flight (delayed for an hour by a flat tyre which needed 10 people to prod and poke it, before attempting to pump it up with a bicycle pump) takes us to HCMC, formerly the capital and called Saigon until is was renamed by the Hanoi Government following North Vietnam’s defeat over the South in 1975. Everyone here still refers to the city as Saigon, but officially, it’s only District 1 where most of the government buildings and tourist attractions are that still goes by its former name.

We’re staying at the brand new Elios Hotel (www.elioshotel.vn) in District 1 and most things of interest are either a walk or a cyclo ride away. I have developed a deep sense of respect for the cyclo drivers who, I have discovered through my recent steep learning curve about the Vietnam war, were previously doctors, teachers or journalists here in South Vietnam. Post-war, they were punished by the new communist regime for siding with the U.S. (they didn’t, they were just too intelligent and the communists feared that they would not accept the new ruling without question) and sent to re-education camps, for months or sometimes even years, and stripped of their citizenship. Since their certificate of official residence has never been retuned to them, they cannot own property or even a business and are forced onto the streets, sleeping in their cyclos and eating on street corners. The government is now talking about phasing cyclos out so you have to wonder what will become of these men.

The traffic here, although far heavier than Hanoi, is much quieter, partly due to the fact that the bikes get their own lane on many of the streets. Even when our taxi knocks one of the ubiquitous bandana-wearing ladies off her motorbike, he merely hops out, wheels the bike to the side of the road and drives on.

Our tour around the city takes us to the Reunification Hall (previously the Presidential Palace) where the first communist tanks charged through the gates in their governmental overthrow. It’s a monument to the 1960’s, both in its architecture and it’s interior design of brown and yellow swirls on the carpets. It formerly housed the South Vietnamese president Diem, but he was hated so much that his own air force bombed the palace in 1962 in an attempt to kill him. The place where the two bombs were dropped has been marked and can clearly be seen from the fourth floor balcony. They might have missed, but his troops had more success and managed to kill him one year later. We’re slightly disturbed to find out that one of the pilots who bombed the palace is still a pilot, now working for Vietnam Airlines, who we’ve flown with a few times. I hope he’s calmed down a bit. Following the bombing of The Palace, it was rebuilt with a bomb shelter in the basement. These concrete tunnels also housed a cell, an impressive war room and a telecommunications centre to make Virgin Media proud, but that’s not really too much of a compliment.

The Vietnamese History Museum is housed in a gorgeous old wooden house with a beautiful courtyard in the centre. It’s located just inside the gate of the zoo so a wander around there seems like the natural thing to do. Sadly, there’s nothing natural about this zoo. The animals are at best living in cramped, dirty conditions and at worst, going out of their minds. We witness 4 elephants rocking back and forth in an area less than twice the size of our garden and an ape screeching and pulling frantically at the bars of the cage, as well as on otter scratching over and over at the same tiny piece of metal cage in a desperate attempt to get out. The various types of deer seemed to fare slightly better for space although several of these were limping.

Speaking of limping, we’re not really at all surprised by the treatment of the animals when you consider that the war veterans are seen on most streets, with one or more limbs missing, sometimes also blinded in one eye, and reduced to begging to survive. But with no other means of support (apart from their crutches), that’s the life they have been forced into. At least the zoo animals are fed and housed.

We visit Paris Square with a replica Notre Dame cathedral (from the outside. Inside it’s less impressive than my local, St Peter’s) and a post office designed by Monsieur Eiffel but with a huge portrait of Ho Chi Minh looking down on everyone. Not sure if Mr. Eiffel would have approved. Surely it’s the job of the French to look down on everyone?

Sunset drinks are imbibed on the 26th floor of the Sheraton, where a round of drinks during happy hour sets us back more than the price of a meal for 4 (including drinks) at most restaurants. Dinner at French restaurant L’en Tête ensures we’ve well and truly blown the budget once again.

Nha Trang and Captain Pugwash

A short flight from Danang and a rainy 40 minute taxi ride along a 30km stretch of beautifully wild, undeveloped beach. There are hoardings here to suggest that some mega-resorts are going to be built and, on the opposite side of the road, some shacks have already been pulled down and are being replaced by rows of 2-storey brick buildings. We pass several cemeteries, where the bodies are encased in brick and concrete tombs and at one, we see that several of the tombs are smashed open but no bodies are inside. We’re not sure if the damage was caused by a particularly strong typhoon or something more sinister…

As we pull up to the our hotel in Nha Trang Bay….a flood, right outside our hotel!! It’s the only stretch of the whole street that’s under any water – just our luck! But the Golden Hotel provides us with a huge room with two double and one single bed, a sea view and it’s bang on budget, so it’s not all bad.

Nha Trang is the perfect spot to arrange diving at one of the 71 outlying islands and this was our original plan. Unfortunately, the diving season ended two weeks ago and visibility is currently too bad for snorkelling to even be viable. From the beach, we can see a couple of these islands, including one with a huge Hollywood-style lettering in the hills saying VINPEARL. Truly a blot on the landscape.

There’s quite a European feel to this place with beautifully manicured gardens and children’s playgrounds set directly behind the beach and before long, we find the equally European Sailing Club where we settle back for sunset drinks. Ruby and Harley are playing at the waters edge when some particularly wild waves come crashing down, taking Harley with them. Before we can reach him, Ruby’s turned into Pamela Anderson (without the plastic surgery) and pulled him up and out by the back of his shirt. This must have (finally) given her an appetite as she devours 18 pieces of tuna sashimi like a woman possessed.

Next day, we’re heading over to the harbour to charter a boat and notice a cable car stretching across the sea, out to one of the islands, so we make for that instead. Only as I’m buying 4 tickets do I see that there’s an option to buy a package to include “all attractions”. It seems the cable car will take us over to the afore-mentioned Vinpearl, where the Vietnamese equivalent of Disneyland awaits. Unfinished and unsafe it’s a bit of a tacky affair owned by Sofitel (who owned the gorgeous beachfront hotel we stayed at in Bali earlier this year), the normally classy French hotel group. I don’t know whose idea it was to be associated with this venture, but I will forever now associate them with tack. Still, the kids had a great time and are now itching to get to Hong Kong where they will visit the real Disneyland.

Chartering a boat the next day, we get Captain Pugwash to take us on an island-hop. First stop is a fish farm on Hon Mieu which also boasts an aquarium. Housed in a huge concrete boat, I’m hoping Johnny Depp might be aboard but I have to make do with the cast of Finding Nemo instead. Next stop Tam Island for a spot of swimming and lunch. Will orders up some fresh crab for lunch and at £1.50 for 3, I think I might be curbing his extravagant taste. Ole Pugwash beckons us back onto the boat where he’s got a couple of totty sitting with him and tries to convince us it’s time to head back to port. We’re more convinced that he wants to turn into Seaman Stains, so Will puts his foot down and insists he take us to the nearby fishing village, as planned. This proves to be the highlight of the day as we hop onto a raft, pulled into shore by rope and watch the comings and goings of the fishermen in their gaily-painted boats. They’re moving from shore to boat via round, bamboo coracles, one of which we see destroyed by the local machete-wielding coconut picker who has failed to properly secure the rope used to drop them gently to the ground and instead they drop from 30 feet onto the boat and ruin some poor fisherman’s week. Not sure he’ll take a coconut as compensation.

Our evening foray takes us to a seafood restaurant called Truc Linh 3, where, not only is every single waitress in the place fawning over Harley, but Will is fawning over the selection of live seafood. Only Harley asking Will if he could go to see where someone’s chosen lobster was going (to the kitchen to be murdered) deterred him from choosing the same and he made do with a pile of prawns, each one as big as your hand.

There’s a photo gallery some way out of town where the owner Long Thanh (if he was Thai, would he be called Love You Long Thanh?) displays his black and white pictures of rural Vietnamese life for which he’s won several awards. He is a lovely man, easy to talk to and his equally lovely wife sits the kids down with a plate of fresh pomegranate so we can have a good look around. I particularly like the picture of a young boy running over the backs of wallowing water buffalos, whilst Harley appreciates the slightly more obvious qualities of the bare-breasted hill tribe women.

The kids are worried about missing out on Halloween and I fortuitously stumble across a bar (unfortunate turn of phrase there) hosting a Halloween party that night. I manage to beg, borrow and steal some black bin-liners and a broom and before you can say Blue Peter, Will and I have whipped up a rather fabulous outfit for each of them, turning them into a witch and her cat, for which, at the party, we’re rewarded with a free shot of something alcoholic and yummy.

We change our plans to head west overland to Dalat, home to the country’s vineyards and decide to continue south in our seemingly never-ending quest to find the sun. After the laidback, European feel here, we’re wondering how we’re going to cope with the onslaught of Ho Chi Minh City. But there’s only one way to find out….