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Kat
and Griff highlight the frustration of travelling in Vietnam - lies, damned lies
and plain deceit are common.
We ran out of time for a Mekong Delta tour, and had failed to find an operator to take us over the border from Cambodia via the Mekong river...
Lucky us...
From:
katharine so
Sent: 02 April 2002 13:09
To: isobel; jason@flashpacker.com
Cc: griff
Subject: Hello from phnom penh!
Hi guys!
how's it going? Good to hear from you - and hear of you latest adventures! God are we glad to be out of Vietnam at last - we just arrived here (Cambodia) yesterday and unfortunately left ‘The Nam’ on a rather bad note as our 2 day Mekong Delta tour was THE WORST TOUR IN THE WORLD!
Unbelievable - words can barely describe it! The first day, spent nearly an hour getting on and off buses as they tried to work out who was going where - should have got off then… We ended up on the bus for 2 hours then did a 'tour' of 3 islands that were exactly the same - enjoyed ‘tropical fruits' on one, had lunch on another (crap needless to say) and did nothing on the third.
The guide didn’t have a lot to say for himself apart from 'fishing boats - lots of fishermen, they catch fish, boats cost around a million dong...I think...'
…anyway, could handle that, couldn’t handle getting put on non-tour minibus with locals at 3.30pm to Cau Doc (where we were staying the night), no explanation, shoved on the back seat of this bus, no one spoke English, no guide, no travellers… constantly stopping to pick up/drop off locals… didn’t get to guesthouse until 10pm! (Originally should have been 7pm…) everything closed no tour guide to meet us etc etc.
Imagine our anger and frustration being woken up at 6.30am the next day, no tour guide from our company there, someone tells us our breakfast is free then the hotel people demand money - just shouting 'no' at us every time we say 'but that tour guide just told us it was free and you were there'!!’ What a nightmare - Griff had a big argument with the guys there – ended up having to pay (amount not being the point) and told him to 'shove your f*&$ing money up your f*&$ing arse!!' - as you can see, we were beyond being calm by then!!
So, after that, herded onto slow boats (fast one gone missing), get to the boarder, hang around for a few hours, finally cross - yippee!! The last 1½ hours of the journey were spent on an 8 seater mini-bus (no a/c) with 14 travellers and 14 rucksacks!! Then got dropped off on a rubbish tip street by some scummy guesthouse!!
Kat & Griff xxx
PS Nha Trang was good fun - very hung over most of the time - one of the Irish lads we met up with was pick-pocketed twice! Once whilst shagging on the beach(!!) and then coming home pissed the next day by group of 'ladies' offering blow-jobs! He cottoned on and turned one of them upside down and his wallet fell out!!!