Well after a wonderful few days on the island I decided to keep moving. I caught the ferry back and a bus to Chao Doc where I will go to Cambodia from tomorrow. There was one funny hassle story, when I was getting on the bus, again on the side of the road instead of the station my bike driver said it would be around 40000. The lady on the bus said 140000, so I politely in my most colourful Australian said I would pay 40000. after about 5 mins of arguing she stopped the bus and kicked me off. When I was walking away she kept yelling 140000, but I kept saying 40000. Then she said 100,000. Anyway about 15mins later with the whole bus still waiting I got back where I was for 40,000 after she wouldn’t let me go. I wish she was understanding what I was saying from the beginning.
When I arrived in Chao Doc I went for a walk and was caught in a massive thunder storm, this would have made Noah nervous. The amount of rain was insane. these two ladies in a fruit stall told me to come and wait with them, anyway we started eating fruit, and then all their friends were giving me samples of all this fruit I have never tried before. Some of it was great but more of it tasted very different to what we get.
Well today I just decided to chill out, spend all day doing nothing, eating, watching the day go bye etc. When I got breaky there was this guy bringing his cows down the beach quite funny really!
being woken to the sound of waves crashing against the shore is quite refreshing. It is something that you would really be able to get used to. We went next door for some breakfast then hit the road. We wanted to check out some cool waterfalls and some beaches at the very northern tip of the island.
The one thing that makes it hard is there are almost no signs and we were using a map that was pretty dodge. We went through town and the next thing I know Eddy came off his bike going about 30 dressed in shorts, thongs and a t-shirt. It wasn’t totally his fault a bus was coming the other way and decided to overtake a bike and swerved towards him. He scraped all his leg and was a little limp after that. There was a family across the road who gave him some stuff for the leg and bent the bike back into shape with a bar.
We didn’t want to let that stop us, we headed towards the waterfall we were looking for, it was pretty hard to find but we got there in the end. It was 2000 to get in, so we walked up and decided to have a swim. There were some girls in bikinies there, not sure whether that was part of the 2000 or they were just there. After this we decided to head for the beach. This was an absolute mission, it was dirt the whole way, sometimes we were wondering if we were on a track. We also had to cross about three wooden bridges which were pretty rickety, but it was awesome at the same time. We stopped along the way a few times and had a swim which was good.
When we finally reached out goal we got to this shack on the beach which was really funny. It was really overpriced, and there was an old guy singing which sounded really weird but it was entertainment. We had a few beers before we decided to head back, the problem was we left it a little late and about half way back it got dark, which is a pretty tough ride on dirt in the dark not really knowing where you are going. The closer we got to town, the more traffic there was so we just followed everyone else.
We were pretty tired by the time we reached home but definitely had a great ride and was well worth it. I went for a swim then hit the hey!
Well I didn’t have the best nights sleep AGAIN there were bugs all over the place AGAIN, and when you pay an extra 10,000 for air cond make sure it works. Seeing as the ferry did not leave until 1pm I just lay in bed and was finishing my book, it was a good read and a good ending. Then time to get onto the ferry I went to get some breaky around the corner then jumped on board. The Ride was really smooth, and fast we went a long way (62 miles) and it was around 2:30mins so the boat was flying. I went on the Bien Xanh express ferry and it was 180,000 or $13AUD, so I thought that was good value compared to the Jetcat in Sydney.
When I landed there were about 13 billion people asking me to stay in their hotel, I also had no map, no idea where the hotel I wanted to stay in was and also how bloody big the island actually was. I was used to people saying things are very far so it will cost a lot, so I told them the most I will pay to the hotel is 10,000 as I knew he was getting a cut anyway. It turned out that it was 32km most of it on dirt road to get there which was a long way! I was a little edgy at first on the bike going round the corners fast on dirt, but you get used to it. When we rocked up I was a little put off we went down this dirt track about 500m and I was thinking what the… when I got to my room I realised it was 30m from the water with a hammock and the beach was amazing. I had my own bungalow which was sweet!
The island was much more remote than I thought and relatively untouched, 90% of it is protected forest, however the beaches are amazing the one we rode past on the way would have been 12km easily or perfect beach and perfect water. in 10 years this will be Phuket for sure. I hired a bike for that arvo and the next day for 80000 which was pretty cheap, and I knew I would get some good value. When I was going on the bike to head into town I bumped into a Swedish girl Frida and met another guy Eddie. We had dinner together and then went for some drinks. The one thing lacking is a night life it is very peaceful, but not a lot to do at night. We went back to our hotel and swam until about 2am on the beach, there was this great luminos plankton in the water it looked amazing. The next day Eddie and I organised to go riding around the island as Frida was leaving.
