Our Vung Tau Adventure

We decided to be adventurous this weekend so we went on a day trip to Vung Tau, a beach area an hour and a half away from Saigon by hydrofoil, or around a two hour drive. We opted to take the ferry on the Mekong River since it seemed pretty straight forward to buy ferry tickets and ride versus the stress of haggling with a cab driver to drive us for two hours, not to mention finding a cab driver who was willing to take us back. I still have memories of our adventure to Koh Samet from Bangkok, and while it's do-able, it's not something I'd willingly want to do again.

We took our time, so when we got to the Ferry port,
we were arrived just in time for the 11:15am ferry.

The two companies on line were Greenlines and VinaExpress but we ended up buying from the one with the biggest sign.
I was crossing my fingers that it was not a mistake.
oooooh, check out my nice nails! :)
One way: 200,000VND (US$10) for weekdays, 250,000VND (US$12.50) for weekends.

They had announcements in English so it was easy to figure out when it was time to board.

It looked comfortable and had free wifi.
They also had life jackets, mineral water and wipes for each seat.
Sofia watched the Chipmunks.

View of the ferry port from the boat.

They even had an attendant making sure everyone got water, wipes and candy.

Sofia was eating our snacks while watching the film.

After around an hour and a half the water turns blue as we enter the ocean.
The mekong was really brown.

It got quite tricky when we got to Vung Tau because I didn't really do much research. My friend who suggested the trip gave me a list of things to do that was quite generic: go to beach, see Christ statue, see lighthouse, eat in the restaurants... you get the drift.

I didn't count on the fact that they didn't really speak English well there. The first thing we did was get return tickets for the ferry back to Saigon in the afternoon. We randomly chose 4pm with the last ferries leaving at 4:30-4:45pm. Then I asked for a map. They gave us a big, proper one and it was free... except everything was in Vietnamese and I had no idea where we wanted to go, so we just went into a cab (who agreed to use the meter) and wing it from there.

We asked him to take us to the Christ Statue.
It was around 2km from the ferry port.

I thought he could take us right to the top,
just like in Brazil, but NO! you have to go up on foot.
I heard the view is really great from up there.
I will take their word for it.

Yay, atleast this Christ, we actually saw.
Which is more than I can say for Brazil.

Then I told the driver to continue driving us to Back Beach.

The sand was white and fine enough where the cab stopped.

It pictures really well too.
This was shot in vivid mode with the Canon S95.

There are mixed reviews online as some say it's around 10km of fine white sand.

But then there are also reviews that say this beach is infamous for it's bad quality.
Honestly, it reminds me of Goa or Batangas.
Good enough for a day trip, but not good enough for High Maintenance Sofia.

There were a lot of drink stands because it was so hot.

One thing I noticed in the short stroll I had was there were a lot of big shells.
This hasn't been the case in the many beaches I've visited in the last decade or so, not even in Maldives.
I got this one for Fif, so she has a souvenir from the beach she refused to step foot in.

On we went with the tour. Our cab driver just patiently waited for us while I took pictures. Since my daughter refused to step foot on the beach... (nothing against this beach, she just hates getting sand on her feet... or on her. period!) I just told the driver to start driving to the Front Beach. From what little I remember from my research, I knew that one was a swimming beach, while the other one was the sightseeing and picture taking beach. I assumed we were done with the swimming one.

The driver was actually very nice and he would slow down every time we passed something of interest and he would point on the picture on the map. I think we passed an old palace but we didn't care to stop. 

We saw the Mother Mary and child Jesus statue beside the church so we stopped for pics.

It's sunny mom!

The statue shot in vivid.

Me with the statue.
Credit for this lopsided photo goes to: Sofia

The gardens on the grounds were nice.
I think you could also walk up, we just didn't want to.

That pretty much concluded our city tour.

We asked the cab driver to drop us off at the cable car station that we passed.
Sofia wanted to ride. It just reminded me of my Pakistan traumatic experience.

They were charging us 200,000VND (around US$10) per adult and 100,000VND (US$5) for Fif),
but they refused to take my credit card despite a Mastercard is Welcome here sign.
That was a good excuse for me not to ride. Whew!

We ended up taking the same cab that dropped us of and we asked him to take us back to the Ferry Terminal because they had several food options. He actually offered to take us to a Seafood restaurant, but with the language barrier and knowing nothing about the place, I didn't want to risk him taking us somewhere we didn't like and not knowing where to tell him to bring us.

No Judging Please.
It was 2:00pm, we were happy to have lunch at KFC with a view.

Finger lickin' Good!

We passed a big children's park on our way back, in front of what I am assuming is Front Beach so I promised Sofia we could walk there after lunch so she could play and I could take some pictures. We were lucky the weather cooperated because it started getting cloudy, so it was a nice stroll.

I loved taking pictures of the fishermen.

Shot in vivid.

Portrait orientation.

Fif also enjoyed looking at them.

Look Mom!
I forgot what she was showing me though.

Smiling for the camera.

New pose.

With mom!

Can you spot the lady who was harvesting shellfish?

More fishing boat pics.

I just loved taking pics of this.

Abandoned fishing boat.

The wind was so strong,
I couldn't figure out if they were holding the tree so the tree won't fly away, or so they won't.

View of the water from the park.

Fif at the playground.

It was quite stressful for her because she hates the sand.

Her love of playgrounds won.

You can see this is really grossing her out. Hahahaha.

The local kids were all barefoot, while my finicky daughter was struggling.

Overcoming her sand irritation.

Climbing up on everything.

Pretending to be stuck.

Fif up close.

I'm still stuck mom.

Mom and Fif.

Swinging like a monkey.

This is the beach part of the front beach.
Now you know why it's for sightseeing and picture taking only, though there were locals swimming.

There were crabs and fish sellers along the way.

Fif and Yaya walking back to the ferry port with just enough time to catch our ferry back.

Bye Vung Tau. That was not too bad for a day trip.

Vung Tau was a good place for a day trip and a change of scenery from Saigon, but the lesson I learned is clear... make sure you do your research and capture them on screen shots on the iPod/iPad so we can show pictures or the local names when there's a language barrier. I'm going to do that for next weekend because we're going on an adventure to Cambodia by land. Wish us luck! Just Saying :)