Before we had even spent a night in Chau Doc, we ran into some people we had met in the visa office back in Phnom Penh, they had managed to take a slightly different slow boat to Chau Doc and told us about their plans to get to Phu Quoc. Using someone elses motivation to find the cheapest price seemed advantagous to us, so we followed him on a tour of the ticket sellers of the town settling on a combination minibus/ferry ticket (with transport between at own cost) for the next day.
Getting up bright an early, to get on our little minibus, we decided that the few dollars saved were due to the fact our minibus was definately not express and even backtracked at one point to ensure that it was always full to 120% capacity. Fortunately Ellen and I had ended up it the danger seat- the seat beside the driver which meant we didn't have to endure the tidal flow of extra passengers squeezing on and off, as the driver refused to let go of the horn it was noisy but relatively safe.
Arrival at the bus terminal we endured the rush of motos trying to obtain our patrinage putting them off till after we had eaten. Facing them once again we negotiated as best we could before climbing onto a bike each, at least Vietnam is one of the countries with compulsory helmets. Traveling to the Dock via the ticket office, we recieved our boarding pass for the ferry- always a releif when things happen the way you are told we made it through the hours of waiting for departure, and the crazy martial art gambling movies that played during the trip. With only the final stint to long beach and the resorts we agreed to take a minibus that promised if we didn't like their resort they would take us to the other resorts we wanted free of charge... we should have known better. We ended up staying one night there due to exaustion, the rain now falling and the fact it was the cheapest resort in the strip, but the following morning we moved on principle as we don't like being mislead!
Moving to the some what more extravigant Tropicana Resort ($20 rather than $10) we gained A/C a much nicer bungalo looking onto the gardens and best of all a swiming pool. As the beach wasn't the most beautiful beach we had ever seen and the weather was churning up the water so much we ended up spending a lot of time in the pool and enjoying the beach for the sound and view. Three days here was great for just managing to relax and get ready to explore Vietnam which was expected to be a bit more challenging than Cambodia.
Deciding that the last time we debated between saving not all that much money and taking a 2 day journey turned out not so well, after quite some debate we elected to be sensible an splurge on an air ticket to Hanoi (Really not that much more that the ferry/train coast anyway). So with a free transfer that actually was free we left early in the morning for the airport to see the sights of the capital.
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