This morning, the girls woke up to Charles knocking on our door at 7:30. I got up and packed my stuff, then headed over to the main hut for reception and food. I ordered Heather and I bread and jam. The group paid for our food and ship ride, and then collected our passports. We hopped into two taxis which took us on a half hour ride through Phu Quoc over to the pier where we were going to catch our fishing boat.
There were three guides there that helped us make it to all of our meeting places for transportation. One of them wants to open a touring company, and he should because of all of the stuff he put together for us in less than 24 hours. They took us to the ship, and we all got on. We found out that it didn’t leave for another hour and a half, so we started to get comfortable. I was worried that I would get seasick, because the boat was small and was rocking a lot. We had a six hour ride ahead of us.
When it was finally time to leave, the fishermen just began to load cargo into the hold. One of our guides told us that it was live octopus in the containers that they were putting into the bottom. There were so many; they filled five holds! Then they loaded on people’s motorbikes. There was a rooster on the boat along with a dog. The whole thing was packed with people sitting on containers that had been left out or laying in hammocks. One group had hammocks that had US army written on them. There were now nine of us, because one guy on the other ship decided to get on ours. He was only concerned with himself the whole time and wanted to get back as soon as possible. We all sat at the front of the ship in the sun; this was where I got my horrible burn, even though I had on sunscreen.
By now the ship was weighed down with cargo, so I no longer felt it rocking. For the first few hours, we just sat and talked and had a good time. The time passed by so quickly. Then we got quieter and found out that water was coming up onto the deck where we were. I was right at the front, so I barely got wet, but Heather and everyone else was soaked.
After five hours, we finally could see land. There was a city in the distance; the first one we had seen since Saigon. We went up a small river that was lined with boats everywhere. The entire beach was covered in garbage. It was a very dirty city; I did not like it. We finally got off of the ship and ran to the bathroom and the ATM. We got into our van with the guides, but took forever to leave, because four more people showed up to get in with us. They did not have money to pay and were not sure how much to pay, so it was a mess. It took half an hour to sort it out, but we finally got moving.
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