With the e-visa across the border to Ha Tien/Vietnam

Due to the Chinese New Year, it was unfortunately very difficult to find a bus to Ha Tien and a printer to print the e-visa, which we had applied for online a few days earlier. After several attempts, we were lucky in a hostel in the city center of Kampot. Here, both were delivered to us, although not at the time we wanted. Due to the New Year, there were only 2 buses heading towards Ha Tien all day, and we had already missed the early morning one. So we had to wait until 4 pm. We passed the time with a good breakfast and a few fruit shakes, enjoying doing nothing.

Once again, the bus didn't arrive when it was supposed to, but we are getting used to it... Most people wanted to take the bus to Ho Chi Minh City, which would probably be a terrible odyssey considering the late hour. We were glad to only go to Ha Tien, just across the border. Everything at the border crossing was very simple. There were no additional fees and we received stamps from both Cambodia and Vietnam without any problems, despite having the e-visa. However, this way we did not receive a nice sticker in our passports.

The bus even dropped us off right in front of our hotel, which was a welcome change from the bus stops paid by tuk-tuk cartels outside the city.

In the evening, we walked around the city a bit. From TripAdvisor, we knew that there was a good restaurant for fresh crabs. We wanted to try that here in the port city. However, due to the New Year, it was so crowded with Chinese tourists that we could hardly find a place. The tables left by the Chinese were also full of garbage and leftovers on and under the table, so no one wanted to sit there anymore. The only other Europeans in the restaurant (two older Dutch people) kindly made room for us at their table. So we ordered a huge portion of fried rice and a crab curry, without any idea how to eat a crab. Fortunately, the Dutch woman knew a bit about it and in the end, we cracked the legs of the crab by hand or with our teeth to suck out the meat. Sounds brutal and is actually a huge mess. Also, so much work for a little bit of meat?! Well, at least we can cross that off our list now. It tasted delicious though! But we probably won't go through that effort again...

On our way back, a supposed teacher on a scooter approached us; he was on vacation because of the Tet Festival and would like to show us the city tomorrow if we had some time. We were a bit suspicious but agreed to meet at the hotel the next morning at 9:30 am.

As far as we know, the Tet Festival is the biggest holiday of the year, a mixture of Christmas and New Year's Eve. It lasts for 3-7 days, families celebrate together and exchange gifts, and it welcomes the new Vietnamese year. This year is supposed to be the Year of the Dog. Please don't try to get a room or book any tours or buses during the Tet Festival - no chance! Also, hardly any shops are open.

From our balcony, the next morning we occasionally looked down in front of the hotel to see if the "teacher" was actually there waiting for us. With some delay, we arrived in the lobby, not expecting this little plan to actually work... but there came Kong on his scooter and took care of us with his good English (the receptionists at the hotel couldn't speak a word).

As we suspected, he was indeed a teacher who had to earn some extra money as a scooter driver for tourists. Unfortunately, that is very common in Southeast Asia, as teachers in other countries also earn only about $150 per month. In any case, he was standing there with a woman and 2 scooters in front of the door, and we rode with them to a pagoda with a beautiful outdoor area, a cave that was also a monument to the murders of Vietnamese people by the Khmer Rouge, and the beach of Ha Tien. Unfortunately, everything was completely crowded with Vietnamese tourists who were on vacation. Our driver gave us about 2.5 hours at the beach, but we couldn't use it because we didn't have swimwear and the beach wasn't particularly nice. The bigger highlight was us, blond Germans, in the midst of Vietnamese people who took us for some kind of attraction and constantly wanted to take photos with us.

Well, you can do a tour like that, but you don't have to... the surroundings on the tour were nice, with well-built small roads, passing by green mountains, small Mekong canals, and a harbor for crab fishermen by the sea.

At least our driver took us directly to the bus after we picked up our luggage, which was supposed to take us to Can Tho, the metropolis of the Mekong Delta. This bus was also quite expensive due to the Tet Festival, but there was nothing we could do... In addition, the bus broke down about 40 km before Can Tho. After half an hour, another minibus came and squeezed all of us in. Luckily, we Europeans were allowed to sit in the front and had enough space. But this bus stopped again very far outside the city, with the additional problem that there were no tuk-tuk drivers waiting to bring us into the city. So we started walking in search of a taxi. Since we were hungry and found a restaurant earlier than a taxi, we went there first. Unfortunately, there was no English menu, so we ordered something with rice and chicken. They brought a rice soup with chicken. At least the chicken foot made it into the soup until the end... the rest of the chicken and unidentifiable greens came on separate plates. It tasted very delicious (like chicken fricassee), but we didn't know exactly how to eat it, armed only with chopsticks and a spoon. The restaurant then ordered a taxi for us, and we arrived at our hotel cheaply and quickly.