The whole trip was a short one of less than 2 hours. Hatien has no major sights, there is a nice beach with limestone formations about 40 km away, but we decided against renting a moto and to walk the city. We felt like we were the highlight of the day for the locals. Old and young greeted us cheerfully.
In the evening we went to the local market for dinner, they have so many water snails on offer and Robert went ahead to try one! Not so much our taste.
So after the snail we had a squid rice dish and a squid noodle soup dish which was much better! We finished the culinary experience with some kind of sweet rice, yum.
The next morning we took the slow boat to Phu Quoc. When we arrived at the island we had to take a mini van for US$ 5 each and it took about an hour on a really bumpy road to get to the other side. Another taxi for another US$ 5 drove us to our home for the next 3 days: "The Lounge"!
The Lounge is a basic accommodation in bungalows or rooms next to each other in lovely garden setting, however it doesn't have direct beach access. The rate included breakfast and as everything is more expensive on an island that was a great deal. The breakfast included eggs, baguette, honey, butter, coffee and fruit.
As it was off season it was very quite on the island and we were about to find out why so little people were on the island. Most of the time we were on the island it was raining hard and we had to spent our time in our room or in a restaurant. However on the day we had ferry tickets booked the sun finally came out and we were able to spent the morning at the beach.
Actually we walked to and along "Long Beach" three times. It is a lovely beach, but as most countries in South East Asia there was a lot of garbage on the beach especially after all the hard rain and the hotel staff hadn't had cleaned the beach yet. Nevertheless it is properly one of the nicest beaches we have seen and during dry season it must be gorgeous and wonderful especially for couples.
As it rained so much we were not able to rent a motorbike to discover more of the island, as it is a very big island.
We booked our ferry and bus to Can Tho with an agency and the lady wrote everything down for us:
12pm pick up
1 pm ferry to Ra Chia
4 pm bus to Can Tho
We got picked up 11.40am. When we arrived at the ferry port at 12:10 pm and showed our voucher, the ferry people showed a ferry that had already departed. First we thought they must had made a mistake. But then we realized the agency made a mistake. Luckily there were locals who called the agency with their cell phone to see what to do. There were still two ferries going the same directions. So we were sent from one ferry to the other and back. It was quite frustrating especially when you don't speak the same language. We ended up on one of the ferries and I think even the captain called in the end the agency, while cruising towards the main land. Everything was sorted out, we were not thrown over board to be shark food and the rest of the trip was as promised.
More pictures from both destinations.
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