To Vung Tao: On a Hydrofoil

I had two days off.. believe it or not.. it was my first two days off in a row since I started working at ILA. So we took off to Vung Tau, a small seaside town about 125 km from Saigon.

We’d heard the hydrofoil was the romantic way to head to Vung Tau, so we headed to the riverside early Thursday morning, hoping to catch the next hydrofoil.. apparently they run every hour. Well, our xe om drivers dropped us off at Greenlines Hydrofoil kiosk and we found out that one boat had just left and the next one would leave two hours from now, i.e. around 12.30. We guessed there would be other hydrofoil companies along the riverside, but the heat and humidity of Saigon does not really support adventure. We bought two tix for 12.30 and headed into downtown (along the river).

The Saigon downtown is huge.. it spans at least 2-3 square kms. There are an endless number of shops, restaurants, souvenir stores, salons and street-sellers. P and I have been to downtown several times since January, when we moved to Saigon, but we still found a few new streets to explore in the two hours we had.

In a sprawling souvenir store reminiscent of the Bombay store in Pune, but way more rustic, I found tons of colorful, wooden dragonflies. Must buy those. Must, Must. Saw some exquisite silk scarves and a dress so flowy and romantic, it took my breath away. In rich, silky hues of rust, orange, peacock blue and bottle green, the dress had an empire waistline studded with fashioned fabric roses, and simple noodle straps. To die for! Also found a really nice tee-shirt store in the market below the RockIt club.

We had an uninspiring lunch of a Pho Ga at Pho 24, and headed to Greenlines. The bullet-shaped hydrofoils were swift, and the service was good. But really, it was a little claustrophobic in there. There was no ventilation and obviously, the doors were only opened in between journeys to let passengers in and out. It was a good thing there were sickness bags, though I didn’t need them. We’d bought our tix two hours before take off, or shoot off (these boats definitely don’t sail off into a bucolic, bobbing ocean), so we got front row seats. Good for the views. As long as we were on the river, the journey was smooth, we barely felt the hydrofoil rock, but only as long as we were on the river. Once into the sea, the choppy waves left no stones unturned to let us know we were mere humans, no match for the forces unseen.

The 1.5 hour journey was swift enough, and in retrospect, I think the 180,000 dong was worth it. Yeah, the hydrofoil guys are smart. Once the price has been printed in the Lonely Planet, they hike up their prices.

We went the bus route on our way back. We ended up in a hotel right across the Vung Tau bus station, so we took a MaiLinh Mercedes 16-seater back to Saigon. And though the price is a third that of the hydrofoil (we paid 60,000 dong per person), the hourney is an hour longer, and the MaiLinh dropped us off at the Binh Thanh bus station, instead of Ben Thanh market which is where we wanted to end up. The pronunciations of Binh Thanh and Ben Thanh are ridiculously similar, wonder how the Vietnamese make themselves clear. I guess, if we had shopped around, we’d have found buses to drop us off at the Pham, but it was too hot. And we forgot to take our Lonely Planet, a blunder in itself. And it was too hot.

Too hot, too hot..