I had no intentions to stay in Ha Tien for more that twenty-four hours, and therefore enquired at a hotel about the bus to Ho Chi Minh city. I could either go at eight that evening, or wait until eight in the morning. I was tired and didn't want to be lumbered with my belongings all day, so I chose to book into the hotel. After a bit of relaxing I re-emerged to book my bus ticket. The details of this proved difficult due to the language barrier, but finally a man at my hotel drove me to the station and helped me order my ticket.
My next task was to get some food. After a comedic conversation with a woman at my hotel, I found out how to say 'chicken & rice' in Vietnamese. Armed with my magic words I set out. The restaurants of Ha Tien, however, were very sparse. Furthermore, whenever I did manage to stumble upon an eatery and use my magic words (sometimes with a supplementary 'eating' motion) I was always informed that there was no food served, only drinks. It took about thirty minutes of wandering until I finally found a place with cutlery on the tables. "Gom gau" I enquired. "Gom gau? Yes, gom gau!" came the response to my relief. I took my seat. Moments later a huge tub of rice was revealed to me from behind the counter. "Gom?" came the enthusiastic question. "Yes!" came the happy and hungry response.
And then my food arrived. The 'gom' (rice) looked fine. The other various monstrosities on my rice did not. Upon my bed of rice were various shapes, colours and textures like I have never seen before. Whether they had been baked, harvested or slaughtered I could not tell. Furthermore, attempting to discover the 'gau', the chicken, was a game I wasn't looking forward to playing. There were a couple of strips, however, that possibly looked chicken-like, and so I tried some. I then realised that the strips were more bread like and quite bland. After that I was at a loss, yet fairly confident that none of my food had actually ever touched a chicken, especially the huge black growths and the little red bubbly ball. I opted to sample the reddish orange circular slimy thing with the seed type things. I tasted just a slither of it before shuddering and taking a huge gulp of my Sprite. It was very sour. From then on I whimpered out, choosing just to neck the grains of rice which hadn't been tarnished by the juices of the evils in my bowl.
Later that evening I briefly used the downstairs internet before realising that I hadn't yet looked at my bus ticket. Upon inspection I became slightly worried. I was expecting to leave at eight in the morning, but the numbers '20:00' were on the ticket. After another scan I noticed the date on the ticket - today's date. Through misunderstanding most probably, the man at my guesthouse had ordered me the wrong ticket. I looked at the current time and it was 18:30. I had little time left, and I fully expected much of that to be spent trying to communicate the problem with the hotel staff.
The conversation was a struggle, but luckily a man from the neighbouring hotel came to help. His English was good, but he informed me that it would cost a fair bit to change my ticket, but also that my hotel would not refund me if I didn't use the room that night. I therefore decided to just cut my losses and take the bus that night. Luckily a nearby restaurant had opened so I was able to eat - and to my surprise they even had an English language menu and some beef and rice that looked like beef and rice!
Before long I was nodding in and out of a light sleep on my night bus to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. This journey also involved the bus driving onto a ship which sailed over the river!
Upon arrival in Ho Chi Minh City it was 4am. There were many hotels and guesthouses around, but the main doors were not open. However, there were a few bars still open, and when I walked past one bar-restaurant I was invited in. They informed me it would be open all night, and so I ordered some food and drink and stayed there until the daylight of 6am. Watching the day begin and the early morning joggers canter past seemed surreal from my ever drooping eyes. However, once I dragged myself up I was able to wade through a selection of hotels, choose one, and finish off my nights sleep.
Today, therefore, I have explored the streets of motorbike frenzy Ho Chi Minh City, and visited the Vietnam War Museum, which was good. Tomorrow morning I have a trip booked to the Cu Chi tunnels.
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