Michael Batson

Hà Tiên is an old provincial city in southern Vietnam (Việt Nam). It’s been described as a feng shui masterpiece of land, water, and wind tucked away in the most southwestern corner of Vietnam just over the border from Cambodia. It’s a coastal city and a jumping off point for Phú Quốc, Vietnam’s largest island and tourist mecca. Most of the city is on the western bank of the Giang Thanh River, crossed by the bridge which bears the city’s name, a modern structure replacing the old pontoon bridge which had existed for years. There is even talk of a road link to Phú Quốc, which would replace the fleet of ferries moored along the river’s banks. With its laidback charm, shophouses, and cooling sea breeze Hà Tiên has earned the nickname of Pearl of the Mekong Delta.

You can get to Hà Tiên from Ho Chi Minh City or elsewhere across the Mekong Delta by bus or bprivate car, by boat from Phú Quốc (90 minutes away), or by land from Cambodia. The city has a lot of hotels, but most tourists don’t stop there and just pass through on their way to the beaches of Phú Quốc. I came from Kampot in Cambodia: a trip of about two hours involving two buses, two drivers, a bunch of mainly French tourists, and across two border crossings you must walk, about 500m apart.

To get from Kampot to Hà Tiên one route is through seaside Kep or Krong Kaeb (pronounced “Kipe”). Kep is both a town and a province. Kep Province is both the smallest and least populous province in Cambodia and one of the newest, having only been around since 2008. There’s not much to Kep town today. During French rule it was known as the “Saint Tropez of South-East Asia” or the “Cambodian Riviera” with beachside mansions built for colonial officials to take in the sea air, escape Phnom Penh’s heat in the hot season, and to be seen. During the 1960s the Riviera continued to flourish attracting a who’s who from around the world including monarchs, heads of state, and glamorous icons such as Jackie Kennedy taking in the sights. Today Kep is part dilapidated, part contemporary nouveau riche, but mostly it’s just quiet.

At Kep beach where there are some shops, the only other English-speaking passenger, a young guy in a Brazil football shirt, got off to be descended upon by tuk-tuk drivers circling like sharks. We then picked up another French tourist, a grey packer, and we were off to Vietnam, twisting and turning through the backroads to the border crossing avoiding the main road Route 33, for most of the time. Once we stopped on the Cambodian side of the border, our driver showed us all a photo on his phone of the vehicle that would collect us on the other side, and we were all invited to take a snapshot of the image on our phones. We all then climbed out to collect our bags where upon our driver took a group photo of us all as proof I guess, he’d delivered us as required, and not dropped us somewhere else entirely. How travel has changed.

Then things took a comical turn. With no direction and very little signage we wandered off towards the border crossing, or where we assumed this was. A group of Cambodian officials sat about in a control post looking very disinterested and waved us on like farmers to locusts trying to protect their crops. There was hardly anybody about. Not the world’s busiest land border crossing it appeared. Many of the facilities on the Cambodian side seemed deserted. Grass was overgrown, windows open, rooms deserted. Inside a hall we found people, a couple of booths with smartly dressed Cambodian immigration officials and some bewildered looking backpackers. Some were sitting waiting for visas. Some were at the arrival’s desk, which was next to the departure desk, while others were just wandering about. After getting our exit stamp, the group wandered off one-by-one or in their pairs seemingly towards what we hoped was Vietnam, but no one was sure. Again, there were no signs for direction and the officials looked entirely uninterested.

The border crossing on the Vietnamese side is called the Hà Tiên International Border Gate, in the village of Xà Xía, a short 7kms drive west of Hà Tiên. On the Cambodian side, the border crossing is known as the Prek Chak International Border Checkpoint in Kampot Province. Besides conventional Vietnamese visas, this border crossing is also listed as a Vietnamese e-Visa point of entry for foreigners. One absence at the border was freight. There seemed to be none going in either direction or none seen that morning. The border itself is marked by a series of concrete markers stretching off across a field.

There’s a difference in the demeanor of officials across the borders. Cambodian officials look like they’re being officious as part of an opera. Facilities on their side of the border looked shabby and neglected, almost in a state of abandonment, which as it turned out, some indeed were. They do a good uniform do the Cambodians I have to say, better than their cross-border counterparts. Vietnamese officials meanwhile look steely-faced and more likely to have offenders summarily shot. The Cambodians I always think, look like they’re about to burst out laughing. The Vietnamese look to be on some massive power trip. We stood about at the Vietnamese side of the border in sweltering heat, my clothes quickly became soaking wet.

Part of the delay in processing was the queuing habits of Vietnamese civilians, who just push in not queuing properly as you’re used to elsewhere. While their officials let them get away with it. The Vietnamese-American Pulitzer-prize winning author and professor, Viet Tranh Nguyen, puts this style of queuing down to his countrymen’s fear of missing out. I find it irritating but in such circumstances it’s best not to say anything, given you’re largely at the mercy of Vietnamese officials, who could leave you there all day, and do.

Entering Vietnam by land borders involves three checks. First, the passport control and visa, if you need to get one, and pay for this, though usually visa-on-arrival into Vietnam by land is not possible but it can depend on which passport you have and your point of entry. Then there’s the health check, where you fill in a form, have your temperature taken – always interesting after some time spent in sweltering conditions. And lastly, one further check over the road by another immigration official in a small booth where they again look at your passport before moving you on with a dismissive wave of their hand. My visa for Vietnam was free for 45 days but my health certificate cost me a dollar for which I paid 20,000 VND, or about 80 cents which the official accepted with a shrug.

And there we were with travellers from other buses sat in a café. We were waiting for all the passengers from the vehicle from Kampot to get through Vietnamese Immigration. Our vehicle, I could tell from the licence number in the photo our driver shared back in Cambodia, was parked across the road. When everyone had finally arrived, the driver asked for our tickets from Cambodia. He took mine and wandered off and I thought is he the driver? I made sure I’d taken a photo f my ticket in case he was just some bloke hanging about but as it turned out he was the driver. After everyone turned up after about 30 minutes we all piled in with our bags on the seats and off we went.

We rolled into Hà Tiên after a short drive listening to a collection of hits from the seventies including “YMCA” by The Village People. We went straight through the town and over the bridge passing the large ferries moored along the riverbanks. Some were fast ferries, others multi-decked, and yet more roll-on, roll-off varieties. One French woman was dropped by the roadside at a waiting bus. We then did a U-turn and drove to a roadside café where all the rest of the passengers bar me, got off to wait an hour for transport to yet another ferry not seen. The driver then turned to me and asked where I wanted to go. I gave him the address of a hotel and he dropped me at the door. He offered bus services to Ho Chi Minh City, his WhatsApp contact details, and sent me the travel brochure complete with departure times and prices. My hotel was one block back from the river seemed almost deserted as did most of downtown Hà Tiên.

A settlement and a port at Hà Tiên have been around for a very long time having been part of the ancient Kingdom of Funan (1st to 7th century CE). Funan, from the Sanskrit meaning “Land of Gold” and taking in parts of modern-day Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, is generally considered as the first known kingdom in Southeast Asia. Today’s town was established by Chinese supporters of the Ming dynasty (the Great Ming), under the protection of the Nguyễn Lords on land they got from Cambodia, then a vassal state of Đàng Trong. Literally “South of the River”, Đàng Trong took in all of what is now Vietnam south of the Gianh River, near the 17th parallel, also used later to separate North Vietnam from South Vietnam after 1954 until 1975.

The Chinese built Hà Tiên into a busy market and business town. The western river bank is home to large markets which dominate the riverside from near the bridge to the River Hotel, a large wedge-shaped glass monstrosity which threatens to suffocate the town’s charm and blocks views of the river from the buildings in behind. Aside from tourism, fishing, and the markets, 22kms south of the town is the Kiên Lương Cement Plant, once one of the largest industrial projects in the former Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) when construction was begun in 1961. Taking four years to build, the factory marked the beginning of the cement industry in Southern Vietnam. Now Siam City Cement, the plant runs 24-hours a day to keep pace with Vietnam’s consumption of concrete.

Hà Tiên seems to retreat from the sun at lunchtime in some sort of siesta. The main market buildings on the riverside were empty without vendors and no customers. The streets were largely empty, there was hardly any traffic, and few shops were open. Hotels had the windows open of every room without a guest, which is to say the majority of them. I could look into each room of the hotel opposite mine. The empty rooms in my hotel had their doors and windows open also which gave it an eerie atmosphere.

I went looking for an ATM but saw none. In the end I asked in a pharmacy where the woman behind the counter explained where to find one, in very specific English. I sat in a restaurant and ate a bánh mì for lunch, outnumbered by the staff. Bánh mì is a staple of Vietnamese cuisine, a baguette with thin, crisp crust and a soft, airy texture split lengthways and then filled with a variety of fillings. The bread can also come on the side with a hot dish, like mine. You can top it off with a fiery red sauce.

I sat in a small family run shop on a very low small chair I worried I’d be unable to get up from, and had a fresh orange juice and a coffee. I got my Vietnamese coffee in a clear plastic cup and the fresh orange juice in another and then came complimentary black tea in a half-pint beer glass. In one of the few other shops open, a woman wore a Joy Division t-shirt, which brought a smile to my face as I thought about how far from the roots of that band Hà Tiên is. The chords of their tune ‘Atmosphere’ briefly popped into my head as one of the song’s themes is about detached observation: “Walking on air” and “moving on with ease”.

The next morning, I got up early to discover the town had come alive. There were a number of flash looking vehicles parked up at a hotel behind the markets all with Cambodian licence plates. It seems that the Khmers were in town. The streets around the markets were full of people, and noise. I saw a few foreigners wandering about. Some pasty looking Russians had descended on a jewelry store and had their noses in among the gold displays. The market precinct is divided into four main buildings, each with a different specialty. There’s a dry goods market (Chợ Bách Hóa), a night market (Chợ Đêm) though aimed more for tourists, and three separate wet markets: one for vegetables and meat (Chợ Rau-Thịt), one for fish (Chợ Cá) and one for cooked food, flowers and fruits (Chợ Ăn Uống-Hoa-Trái Cây). Each of these markets has its own building or zone. The night market gets going from about 5:30pm until 10pm.

Unsurprisingly as a coastal town, Hà Tiên is big on seafood as towns around the gulf of Thailand are. The fish market (Chợ Cá) is right on the riverfront, where many of Ha Tien’s fishing boats unload their catch in the early mornings. You can watch the local fishing fleet sailing up and down the river at morning and night. It’s a familiar scene across the border in Kampot and in lots of little ports all along the coast in different countries. All varieties of fish and shellfish – from the rivers and the sea – are unloaded from the boats to the quay and then prepared for sale in the market building: chopped, gutted, washed, and laid-out for sale. Unlike when I arrived in the afternoon the day before, the market was a hive of activity come morning. It’s almost like the town wears itself out in a frantic burst of energy and then needs to go and recover for the next day.

I went to the Everyday Café down the quayside for breakfast. The floor of the café is a series of fish ponds which you step through on strategically placed concrete steps. It has lots of greenery and looks out from its corner location near the River Hotel across the river. It seems a popular spot with young professionals. The owner, a woman, sits at a table near the counter engrossed in her laptop. I liked the layout and the food was good. I had an orange juice in a nationalistic plastic cup complete with the Vietnamese flag, the Quốc kỳ nước Việt Nam, which naturally enough for a country that had to fight harder than most for its right to exist, symbolizes revolution and bloodshed.

Hà Tiên and the surrounding hills are covered in temples, shrines, and pagodas. From Buddhist monasteries to the Chinese-style tombs of the Mạc Dynasty which ruled over a unified Vietnam between 1527 and 1540, and northern Vietnam from 1540 until 1593. The Mạc dynasty lost control over the capital Đông Kinh (modern Ha Noi) in wars against the Later Lê Dynasty - the longest-ruling Vietnamese dynasty (1428-1527, 1533-1789) - and the feudal Trịnh Lords (House of Trịnh or the Trịnh clan) in 1592.

The Hill of Tombs (locally known as Nui Lang) on Binh San Mountain (or Mount Lang) is near the town center. The site contains over 60 tombs along with a temple, lotus ponds, and statues. One of the tombs is of one of Mac Cuu, one of the town’s founders who settled in Hà Tiên in the late 17th century. Near the Hill of Tombs is Tam Bao Pagoda reputedly established by Mac Cuu in 1730. Many other local temples are still active places of worship, though some are abandoned and others on the outskirts of town are in decay. On the slopes of To Chau hill overlooking the river and the town is the Buddhist Ngoc Tien Monastery reached via a narrow lane marked with a yellow sign topped with a Buddhist swastika (symbolising eternity).

The limestone hills north of Hà Tiên along the Cambodian border are riddled with caves many of which are considered sacred. The scenery here is described as some of the most beautiful in the Mekong Delta region. Limestone hills shoot-up from green rice paddies where water buffalo bathe eye-deep in muddy pools, just behind which are the stupa-topped hills of Cambodia. Thach Dong and Nui Da Dung caves a few kilometers from town are the most popular for visitors, mainly Vietnamese. In 1978, the Khmer Rouge, in one of their many cross-border raids, often penetrating a few kilometers into Vietnam and even temporarily capturing Hà Tiên, massacred 130 people at Thach Dong. A plaque by the entrance to the caves marks this event. Closer to the Cambodia border is Nui Da Dung cave. Child guides offer “services” as guides but then expect payment demanding all kinds of sums.

Hà Tiên has beaches. Any place on the Gulf of Thailand invariably does. Mui Nai is west of town and popular with the locals and domestic tourists. Essentially, it’s the town beach. From here you can see Phú Quốc and over to the mountains in Cambodia behind Kampot. Like any self-respecting Southeast Asia beach, it has seafood restaurants. Nearby are the Pirate Islands (Đảo Hải Tặc), a small archipelago (16 islands in total) accessible from Hà Tiên by ferry; and so-called because for centuries they provided shelter for pirates. Their location, in the middle of an ancient, lucrative and busy trading route between China, Southeast Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, made these islands an ideal hideout for pirates. From here they launched raids and robbed passing commercial ships as they sailed their cargo through the straits between Phú Quốc and the mainland. The islands are fairly quiet and often closed to foreign visitors but change is coming. Soon they’re expected to be connected to the national grid providing the 2,000-odd residents with 24-hour electricity an expectant tourist boom to follow.

Hà Tiên doesn’t lack hotels. They’re everywhere. I didn’t book beforehand but just rocked up to find the Hai Phuong Hotel virtually empty. The room was big, clean, and at about USD13 good value. I find most hotels I’ve stayed in during trips to Vietnam good value. The only thing I’ve noticed about hotels in Vietnam is that if the desk says they’ll send someone to fix something they don’t usually ever turn up, so nothing gets done. Most hotels have some form of cable TV. There’s usually about 3-4 movie channels and they’re big on football: local and international like the Champions League and the English Premier League, so you can watch those as well.

The minivan came to pick me up ahead of schedule and dropped me at the town bus station over the big bridge for my trip to Ho Chi Minh City. The minivan driver asked me to pay him cash up front which was one dollar more than the advertised price. At the bus station he went to the ticket window and collected my ticket. I noticed the price on the ticket was about 40 percent cheaper than I’d paid him. I mulled getting turned over while I had a coffee. My bus was the dreaded sleeper, popular across Vietnam even in daylight. I consider them claustrophobic, uncomfortable as you’re neither sitting nor lying and in a space narrower than I am wide. The trip to Ho Chi Minh City took an hour longer than the advertised 7 ½ hours and there was no toilet stop for the first five hours. The overpriced ticket from Hà Tiên included transportation from the southern bus station in Ho Chi Minh City to my destination, a trip of about 40 minutes in rush hour traffic in a minivan where I was the only passenger which somewhat eased my indignation of being fleeced earlier. After the sleepiness of Hà Tiên, Ho Chi Minh City was an assault on the senses, a polar opposite from one end of the Mekong Delta to the other.