01-Sep-2006 -- Where did you go on National Holidays? We, a group of 15 enthusiatic young people, had longed for a far-away trip since very long time together and then the chance to come, we had long national holidays. You know, it would be great to start on journey to significant places in these days. We called it as a big plan because our destination would be the provinces in Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta, over 2000 kms far away from Hanoi
We came to Saigon as first destination in all transports: 7 persons by car, 2 persons by train and 5 persons by plane. After reunion in Saigon, we spend 1 day driving 8 motors from Saigon to Rach Gia (250 kms). Then, we got on Express boat to Phu Quoc, the most famous beautiful island in the South of Vietnam. Also, it is the only one place in Vietnam where the people can see the sun sets into the sea as a clot of fire. In the noon time, we visited to Da Ban stream, Tranh stream, Phu Quoc fish sauce producing workshop and had dinner in Ham Ninh fishing village with many kinds of sea food. This day was Virgo318's birthdat and we had a wonderful birthday celebration night with sea foods and tranditional wine brought from Trang Bang - Tay Ninh, in the sound and warmth of the sea brouhaha of laughter.
On the next morning, it was raining very hard with great winds. We wake up and felt worried about our tour schedule, that maybe cancelled because of the bad weather. Soon after that, we went to Coi nguon place, where many kinds of pearl product are displayed and a special kind of dog (with a curly hair on the back as so named "cho xoay") in Phu Quoc is preserved. Then, we came to Bai Sao beach to get on a boat coming to the confluence. At that time, the raining had stopped, and the weather was very nice. Some of us were swimming directly to the boat, which was anchored 150ms far from the coast. Others came there by a junk with our luggage (of couse those who can not swim too). The boat started going to the sea at 9am.
After 40 minutes swimming underwater to see a coral area near Dam islet, enjoying and making much noise as well as laughter in the sea, we swam back to the boat and we consisted of 7 men and 8 women decided to go straight to the objective 10N 104E not later.
Virgo318 and Black_horse stood inside the hold of boat instructing the captain to go following the arrow's way in GPS handheld. Head of our group, dau_dau was standing at the prow holding the foremast and shouted: "Come on! Going there!"
The boat overcame to Mr Doi cape, went across An Thoi port and came directly to the southwest of Dua islet. The windy was bigger and the wave was up higher, 3 kms then 2 kms far from the confluence. Many people thought there would be no problem with some kilometers from the island to the sea. But in fact, when we went outside the area that was covered by many islets, the sea was frightfully violent to toss a very great wave train. Although the captain steered a boat skillfully but the big waves rushed out to the freeboard to make it came up and down continuously, which made 11 of 15 people felt seasick, the were vomiting.
10:40 am, we were about 400 meters far away from the confluence, then 300 meters, then 200 meters. Under the GPS showing, the boat turned left, turned right, even turned back. The boat rocked like hammock, made us feel like a shaking inside the washing machine. We were feeling, nervous at that time with our faces turning yellow. Finally all of us really reached the destination - 10N104E confluence. We arrived at 11:5 am took some photographs in despite of the fear and tiredness.
Being influenced by the wind, the waves and suffering from seasickness, nobody could have had lunch on the boat. We tried to come back to An Thoi as soon as possible. Goodbye Phu Quoc islands in Super_Dong express train, we planed to next the destination - 9N 105E confluence