Day 41, August 25th, 2008 (No Malaria)
After bringing everyone down with Phnom Penh, I’ll write about my trip traveling from there to Saigon which you should enjoy for the ridiculous nature of every part of it and the level of insanity that it caused me.
I have been backpacking around SE Asia for many weeks now but I have not really been a true backpacker. Most of the people that I meet who are doing similar trips are staying in dorms every night, not private air-conditioned rooms. They are busing it or training it between destinations, not flying. For Vietnam, my final country in SE Asia, I decided to rough it a little more. I’m not staying in the dorms, of course (I haven’t sunk that low) but I did decide to use some less airborne forms of transportation to get around the country. My first big overland route was from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon).
The day started with a few hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to a small port on the Mekong River. This was a port if you consider a few half-sinking fishing boats parked in someone’s back yard a port. I was with about 9 other backpackers all of which were European. They were all experienced with overland travel and were even surprised at the woeful state of the boat that we were suppose to take down the Mighty Mekong.
Joining us on our voyage were a handful of villagers from downriver who were returning from selling their goods somewhere near civilization and obviously haven’t had much contact with white people. For the few hours that they were with us, they gawked at us, open mouthed, the entire time.
As we are pulling out of “port,” I begin to take some short movies on of the river and the people on the boat. As I’m about to get a shot of the captains son bailing water out to keep us afloat, the engine stops. I have this moment on video and will post it, along with many others, as soon as I can. Frantically, the captain tears into the engine compartment and starts tinkering away while the entire time, his son bails. He got the engine started and we went back to port for some more repairs. Underway again, it was a few hours to the Vietnamese border in a slowly sinking, mechanically unsound boat in the middle of nowhere.
After bringing everyone down with Phnom Penh, I’ll write about my trip traveling from there to Saigon which you should enjoy for the ridiculous nature of every part of it and the level of insanity that it caused me.
I have been backpacking around SE Asia for many weeks now but I have not really been a true backpacker. Most of the people that I meet who are doing similar trips are staying in dorms every night, not private air-conditioned rooms. They are busing it or training it between destinations, not flying. For Vietnam, my final country in SE Asia, I decided to rough it a little more. I’m not staying in the dorms, of course (I haven’t sunk that low) but I did decide to use some less airborne forms of transportation to get around the country. My first big overland route was from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon).
The day started with a few hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to a small port on the Mekong River. This was a port if you consider a few half-sinking fishing boats parked in someone’s back yard a port. I was with about 9 other backpackers all of which were European. They were all experienced with overland travel and were even surprised at the woeful state of the boat that we were suppose to take down the Mighty Mekong.
Joining us on our voyage were a handful of villagers from downriver who were returning from selling their goods somewhere near civilization and obviously haven’t had much contact with white people. For the few hours that they were with us, they gawked at us, open mouthed, the entire time.
As we are pulling out of “port,” I begin to take some short movies on of the river and the people on the boat. As I’m about to get a shot of the captains son bailing water out to keep us afloat, the engine stops. I have this moment on video and will post it, along with many others, as soon as I can. Frantically, the captain tears into the engine compartment and starts tinkering away while the entire time, his son bails. He got the engine started and we went back to port for some more repairs. Underway again, it was a few hours to the Vietnamese border in a slowly sinking, mechanically unsound boat in the middle of nowhere.
The Vietnamese immigration station at this border crossing looked like it was a roadside hotdog stand in Pigsknuckle, Arkansas. It was a series of shacks in the middle of nowhere. The picture does no justice to how isolated the area is. We were detained in quarantine for about an hour to make sure that we weren’t carrying SARS. Also, while we were waiting, a motorbike hauling about 2 tons of ice almost overturned onto half of my group. Thankfully, I was out of the way buying water about 20 feet away and tried to snap a picture of the incident.
After our quarantine, we were put on another ferry for the remaining trip to the port city of Chou Doc, Vietnam. This was another few hours in this smaller, slower boat. The accommodations (lawn chairs) were great, though, and this boat didn’t seem to be sinking as much. This was actually pretty cool as we were traversing a portion of the famous Mekong Delta. We passed clusters of houses that could only be assessable by boat. It is so desolate that I often felt like we could have driven right off the edge of the world.
As we approach Chou Doc, the heavens open up. I have never seen rain like that in my life. Luckily, while we were in the boat, we were mostly covered but still seemed to all look like we had just showered with our clothes on. It got so windy and rainy that the captain had trouble docking. We almost swamped a family fishing on their small wood raft. We did eventually dock and the rain let up for a few minutes to allow us to get off of the boat and all figure out our next steps.
I got to Chou Doc with no clue how I was going to get the additional 7 hour bus ride to Saigon. I was told in Phnom Penh that I could go to the bus station in Chou Doc and get an express but that leaves several times a day. When we got off of the boat, there were several cab drivers and, fearing more rain, I ran to the first driver I saw and asked him to take me to the bus station. As I’m in the back of his rickshaw, the heavens open up again. At that moment, all I wanted to do was to get under the shelter of the bus station. The driver drops me off at a restaurant near the harbor that doesn’t remotely look like a bus station.
Looking for a little reassurance from my driver, I ask him, “This is the bus station?”
I get back is a quick, “Yes.” At this point, I am questioning our ability to communicate.
I tell him that I don’t want a meal but a bus and he says, “Yes. Bus.”
It’s still pouring and the restaurant is dry, smells good, and does have a small picture of a bus on the sign in front so I decide to take my chances. Inside, I learn that this is a stop for a private bus company. The rickshaw driver probably gets a small kick-back for bringing me but at this point I’m wet, desperate, and don’t care what kind of bus I take to Saigon as long as I get there. A few minutes after I arrived, two German guys that were on my boat showed up on another rickshaw. I knew that they were trying to get to another place in Vietnam and this made me a little more confident that I had reached an actual spot where I could get a bus. I found out that it was $10 for a minibus to Saigon and the bus was leaving in 5 minutes. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, a large, empty 12 passenger van arrives to take me to Saigon. At this point, I think that I’m going to get to ride the entire way with a little room to stretch and maybe even take a nap. I was wrong.
Within one hour, I was in the same 12 passengers van with 17 other people, three child-sized bags of macadamia nuts, and not a soul that spoke a work of English. Also being wet, dirty, and cramped, I was not in the most positive mood and vowed that from that moment on, it was trains or airplanes…no more buses or ferries…ever.
I have seen some crazy roads and driving while over here but for 5 or the 7 hours of this bus ride, we were on horrifically bumpy dirt and gravel roads. The road is often not even wide enough for two cars side-by-side and if two cross, one has to swerve off onto the shoulder…if there is one. Add to this hundreds of motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and our constant 50 mph speed and you can begin to image why that will be my first and last Vietnamese bus ride. It was terrifying, I didn’t get my nap, and spent most of the trip with a 70 year old Vietnamese woman half on my lap. A big regret of mine is that it was so dark and cramped; I took no pictures the entire ride. On second thought, maybe it’s better I just forget it.
Honestly, with the lack of communication, I really didn’t even know if I was on the right bus or headed the right direction. Wherever I ended up, though, I was going to find a hotel and be happy to be off of the bus ride from hell. I did eventually make it to Saigon and was ready to collapse immediately upon arrival.
The trip from Phnom Penh could have been a $50, hour-long flight and ended up being a wet, cramped, dirty, and sorrowful 16 hours of my life. It does make for a good story though.
As we approach Chou Doc, the heavens open up. I have never seen rain like that in my life. Luckily, while we were in the boat, we were mostly covered but still seemed to all look like we had just showered with our clothes on. It got so windy and rainy that the captain had trouble docking. We almost swamped a family fishing on their small wood raft. We did eventually dock and the rain let up for a few minutes to allow us to get off of the boat and all figure out our next steps.
I got to Chou Doc with no clue how I was going to get the additional 7 hour bus ride to Saigon. I was told in Phnom Penh that I could go to the bus station in Chou Doc and get an express but that leaves several times a day. When we got off of the boat, there were several cab drivers and, fearing more rain, I ran to the first driver I saw and asked him to take me to the bus station. As I’m in the back of his rickshaw, the heavens open up again. At that moment, all I wanted to do was to get under the shelter of the bus station. The driver drops me off at a restaurant near the harbor that doesn’t remotely look like a bus station.
Looking for a little reassurance from my driver, I ask him, “This is the bus station?”
I get back is a quick, “Yes.” At this point, I am questioning our ability to communicate.
I tell him that I don’t want a meal but a bus and he says, “Yes. Bus.”
It’s still pouring and the restaurant is dry, smells good, and does have a small picture of a bus on the sign in front so I decide to take my chances. Inside, I learn that this is a stop for a private bus company. The rickshaw driver probably gets a small kick-back for bringing me but at this point I’m wet, desperate, and don’t care what kind of bus I take to Saigon as long as I get there. A few minutes after I arrived, two German guys that were on my boat showed up on another rickshaw. I knew that they were trying to get to another place in Vietnam and this made me a little more confident that I had reached an actual spot where I could get a bus. I found out that it was $10 for a minibus to Saigon and the bus was leaving in 5 minutes. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, a large, empty 12 passenger van arrives to take me to Saigon. At this point, I think that I’m going to get to ride the entire way with a little room to stretch and maybe even take a nap. I was wrong.
Within one hour, I was in the same 12 passengers van with 17 other people, three child-sized bags of macadamia nuts, and not a soul that spoke a work of English. Also being wet, dirty, and cramped, I was not in the most positive mood and vowed that from that moment on, it was trains or airplanes…no more buses or ferries…ever.
I have seen some crazy roads and driving while over here but for 5 or the 7 hours of this bus ride, we were on horrifically bumpy dirt and gravel roads. The road is often not even wide enough for two cars side-by-side and if two cross, one has to swerve off onto the shoulder…if there is one. Add to this hundreds of motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and our constant 50 mph speed and you can begin to image why that will be my first and last Vietnamese bus ride. It was terrifying, I didn’t get my nap, and spent most of the trip with a 70 year old Vietnamese woman half on my lap. A big regret of mine is that it was so dark and cramped; I took no pictures the entire ride. On second thought, maybe it’s better I just forget it.
Honestly, with the lack of communication, I really didn’t even know if I was on the right bus or headed the right direction. Wherever I ended up, though, I was going to find a hotel and be happy to be off of the bus ride from hell. I did eventually make it to Saigon and was ready to collapse immediately upon arrival.
The trip from Phnom Penh could have been a $50, hour-long flight and ended up being a wet, cramped, dirty, and sorrowful 16 hours of my life. It does make for a good story though.
No comments:
Post a Comment