… Vietnam! I have no photos today, but I think I can paint you a pretty good picture of the nightmare/farce that was my trip from Phu Quoc island to Rach Gia and then on to Can Tho. We were picked up (we being myself and two Aussie girls staying at the same place) at 6:45 this morning and taken to the Superdong (it‘s okay to laugh), the boat that would take us back to the mainland in 2 ½ hours. The ride was a little rough, but not bad really. We got free water again and I was highly entertained by a group of Vietnamese kids sitting near me who kept saying, “Hello! What’s your name?” or, “Hello! Sit down,” repeating what they must hear in school. Very cute. Once we got off the boat is when the nightmare began. We were swarmed by motorbike taxi drivers (“Where you go?”) claiming to be able to take us to the bus station for 150,000 dong, which is like $8. I almost fell for it, but then spotted what looked like an official building and it turns out this was where they sold tickets for the bus, and transported you to the bus station at no extra cost. The price of the ticket? 60,000 dong. Big difference. The Aussie girls went for the motorbike scam and were basically driven around the block and dropped off nowhere near the bus station. Hmm… they got away with just paying a small fee for this “service”.
So after we’re shuttled to the bus station we get onto the “bus,” again another mini-van, where we’re packed in nice and tight. Well, I wasn’t feeling that great to begin with (having Googled sandflies I’m a little paranoid currently that I may have contracted some horrible parasitic infection) and so for the first five minutes I’m sweating buckets in the backseat, trying to hold it together when I spot a little black bag in the seatback pocket. I reach over to get it as nonchalantly as possible and moments later it’s full of the contents of my stomach, which fortunately wasn’t much. Anyway, I feel better immediately, of course, and this feeling lasts for most of the rest of the three-hour journey. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to fall victim to the ridiculously bumpy back-and-forth of the mini-van. A woman in the seat in front of me starting throwing up just minutes later… and continued to throw up the entire ride. When I threw up I didn’t make a sound. This poor woman was literally retching, which leads me to believe that maybe she didn’t just have motion sickness. Lovely. I felt bad for her, but at the same time I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation - stuck in a van with nowhere to go, forced to listen to this for hours. (My counterfeit iPod from Bangkok also died, by the way, so I had no way to drown it out.) And if that weren’t bad enough, dude in the backseat with me decides that now would be a good time to smoke a cigarette. Hello?!? We’re in a VAN, man, small enclosed space? Three people are sick (a small child had joined the ranks at that point), airflow is limited, and this guy decides to light up. Awesome. I started coughing, partially because it made me cough, and partially to let him know I was not happy about his decision. He looked over at me and said, “Sorry, ma’am,” which really I’m not sure what the point of that was. Sorry but I’m going to keep smoking this cigarette, and in fact smoke another one shortly after it, despite the fact that you’re looking a little yellowish right now? Um, OK. One of the Aussie girls gave him a nice death look when he lit up a second time, but to no avail.
Now I'm in a hotel room in Can Tho, one that has AC and cable TV. My Aussie companions were kind enough to go out and get some crackers for me, so I just ate a bunch of those and drank some water. We'll see how that goes. I could be feeling sick because of the sandflies, because I got too much sun, because the heat is getting to me, or maybe even because of something I ate. Who knows? Regardless, this day ranks as one of the lowlights of the trip, for sure. Not every day can be wonderful, of course, and if nothing else, at least it makes for an interesting story.
No comments:
Post a Comment