December 6th
The staff at the Guesthouse advised us that there is no FUTA bus to Ha Tien so the only choice is to go by local bus or via private car (70 USD). We need to get to Ha Tien as we will be taking the fast ferry to Phu Quoc Island tomorrow for some classical R&R in the sun. The breakfast here is quite decent and the owner, Wayne discusses the state of the world with us …he is an interesting character having spent some 20-plus years in various 3rd world countries working on healthcare development with and for governmental agencies. It would have been informative to spend more time with him as he is well-versed in countries like Afghanistan, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea etc. Interestingly, he felt quite optimistic about the future of Vietnam attributing in large part the emphasis on the family unit as a stabilizing force, in the face of the furious pace of development in the country.
After breakfast we get a GRAB to the bus station several kilometres away, identify our bus >> the beige one below, get our gear onboard and wait.
Lots of comings and goings as scooters deliver passengers and various goods. It is an interesting drive of some 2 hours, we are on the right side of the bus > good for views as we follow a river for the most part heading towards Ha Tien. We passed a wedding ceremony (generally they place marques on the side of the road) which in this case caused a major traffic jam, villages and lots of barges, mostly transporting rice. We stopped twice en route and we only figured out at the 2nd one where the “pit” in “pitstop” was > see pic with 2 women by the river and the shrouded ladies’ “room”, as for the men, well you can take it from there, towards the end, we saw numerous prawn farms which this region is famous for…
Ha Tien is a border town (Cambodia) with a population of some 30m ….it’s main claims to fame are as an access point to Cambodia, a ferry terminal to reach Phu Quoc Island, in the Gulf of Thailand and an active fishing fleet…
Ha Tien was a province of Cambodia until 1708. In the face of attacks by the Thai, the Khmer-appointed governor, a Chinese immigrant named Mac Cuu, turned to the Vietnamese for protection and governed this area as a fiefdom under the protection of the Nguyen Lords. During the 18th century, the area was invaded and pillaged several times by the Thai. Rach Gia and the southern tip of the Mekong Delta then came under direct Nguyen (Vietnamese) rule in 1798.
During the American War, the area around Ha Tien was an important weapons-smuggling area for the Viet Cong, who transported guns from the deep harbour in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, to the delta in fishing boats. Thereafter when the Khmer Rouge regime came into the fore, Cambodian forces repeatedly attacked Vietnamese territory and massacred thousands of civilians here. The entire population of Ha Tien and nearby villages (in fact, tens of thousands of people) fled their homes. Also during this period, areas north of Ha Tien along the Cambodian border were sown with mines and booby traps, some of which have yet to be cleared. Clearly, an area which has endured a fair bit of hardship in it recent past.
We shared a taxi with some other folks on the bus and 60,000 Dong later reached Ha Tien and the River Hotel, which unsurprisingly is located on the river and quite close to the fast ferry terminals. The regular welcome routine and shortly we are ushered to our room. This hotel was built in 2012 but clearly, the materials and workmanship were shoddy plus….it looks like it will need major renovations shortly…
Lunch in a local resto …
we were the only patrons and after that, a bit of a walkabout in this rather sleepy-looking town was in order…
…the following pics look like pretty nice condos or apartments….however, it is unlikely that anyone can guess what they actually are >>>>
Answer: homes for swift-lets. In nature, the swift-let makes its nest by sticking its own saliva strands onto the wall of a cave. But as the demand for the nest, which is widely believed to be very rich in nutrition and offers extraordinary health benefits (think bird nest soup), has grown, people figured out a way to host the birds by building big swift-let houses….each house has a bird calling machine, which seems to be on continuously. Bird calls are pleasant…but nonstop and at top volume, it could make one seriously insane but it is a very profitable business and money talks!
…time for a siesta, then guess what dinner time …more seafood and beer and then time to call it a night…
A decent day with the drive being a bit of an unexpected highlight. Tomorrow the journey ends and the vacation starts !!!!