WhyNot: How to get to Con Dao islands...or not?

Once again here is an example what can happen whilst travelling whit just a faint idea how to get "there".

There's this a group of islands on the south coast of Vietnam and since I had not heard any of the backpackers visiting that place I thought that maybe I should go there. Well to be honest Eeva also encouraged me to go there so after couple of days of considering my options in Saigon I decided to go for it.
There's only a single airline flying there so they kind of can set the prices as high as they want to and it just happened to be a little bit out of my range. Luckily there is also a ferry going there. A 12 hour overnight ferry with out possibility to book the tickets in advance or there might be a way but at least I don't know one.
So I took a bus from Saigon to Vung Tau where the ferry port is or not exactly there but in the surrounding area. There are many things that works in Vietnam really nicely and one of them is the busses and the transportation to/from the station. On the way to Vung Tau the co-driver who was really keen on speaking with me the whole ride (2hours) but with his very limited English the conversation was more like nodding and pretending that we understood each other asked me where I was heading. Luckily I had written the name of the islands to my mobile. Hey! I had done some preparations. Yehaaa! Well I kind of guessed that there will be some difficulties to tell people where I'm heading.
So when we arrived to the bus station in Vung Tau the co-driver lead me to a ticket sales woman who spoke english and that's when the demonstration of Vietnamese transportation skill begun. First I was to take a bus which was heading back to Saigon since the ferry port was 12km from Vung Tau. "Ok" - I said and sat down to wait for the bus. It took only 10 minutes after the woman hailed me to take the bus in front of the station. The staff there already knew where I was heading and just showed me to get inside with my backpack. After half an hour we were still driving towards the Saigon and I started getting a little wit worried because 12km doesn't take that long. Then the bus made an u-turn and pulled over to a place which turned out to be another bus station. Far away from a ferry port. No problemo! The driver had a conversation with the people there and in no time I was in another bus heading back to towards Vung Tau. "Ok, I guess this is one way to do it". After 10 minutes made a stop and the driver looked at me and said: "you, out". It still wasn't the ferry station. Once again there was a commotion about me and now I was to wait for a mini van. After few minutes they told me to get into a mini van where I was the only passenger. Once again a pointless conversation with the driver including a lot of smiles but this time I finally arrived to the ferry port. And all these lifts were for free. So I only paid for the original bus ticket from Saigon which was 4€ and then they just took me around the place for free. Gotta love this country.

The ferry terminal and the god damn ferry

Finally I was at the ferry port and there was still about one hour before the ferry was about to embark. If the ferry was about to go. The tricky part with my plan was the fact that the ferry doesn't run everyday and there is no website where to check when it was going. I read from somewhere that from march to june it was supposed to run everyday but there was no guarantees since it was dependable on the roughness of the sea.
Once I got to the ferry port I saw the ferry and hence was relieved. "So there is a ferry going to day!"
You should have seen the faces of the locals when I entered the building where the waiting room and ticket sales were. I guess they don't see westerners so often there :D
I saw the ticket sales booth with a typical Vietnamese queuing "line", aka "the mayhem ball". I took my spot in the "line" and the distant memory from my unfortunate trial to get to Laos came back to my mind vividly. People just went in front of me from both sides with out any guilt. This time I decided to do something before I was to lose my temper. There was this guy trying to keep some kind of order every now and then so I approached him.
"Tickets?"
"No tickets"
"Really, no tickets?"
F****ck. This wasn't going well. The guy waved to a woman inside the ticket sales booth and the woman came out.
"I would like to buy a ferry ticker?"
"No tickets today. Ferry full."
"When is the next ferry?"
"Next ferry in 5 days"- she replied
"What?!?!. In five days???"
"Yes, but that ferry also full. I can call you if there is cancellation"

So, after this whole masterpiece of moving one person all the way from Saigon to the ferry port was all in vain. There was also no other place where to buy tickers in advance so this was it. Busses good. Ferries still got some room for improvement. What to do next? There was still time to get back to Saigon the same day or I could just try my luck in Vung Tau. After some consideration I decided to haul my arse to Vung Tau. At least I hadn't been there yet and to be honest Saigon doesn't appeal to me that much. So it was time to take a moto taxi to the nearest bus station. Of course the driver didn't understand a single word of english and my attempts to explain to him that I wanted to get to a bus station were worthless. Luckily a Vietnamese guy who spoke english overhear our "conversation" and translated it to the moto taxi driver. Soon i found myself being back at the bus stop from where I was transported to the ferry port. After a frustrating conversation they finally understood that I want to get back to the Vung Tau's city centre. No they first took me across the street to the other side and told me to wait. They hailed a local bus to stop and told me to get in. Hahaa, this time I was traveling with interesting cargo including sweet potatoes, a camera stand and a lots of locals and once again my ride was free.

First I thought that Vung Tau is a really nice place with nice parks and beaches but in a few days the reality hit me. Vung Tau was full of old, fat and bald westerners with really young and petite Vietnamese (working)girls on their sides. So it seemed that I had landed on the promised land for sexpats. It was "boom boom" (vietnamese term for having sex) everywhere.

This also says "boom" but not the boom Vietnamese are
talking about.

Vung Tay bay

I gave Vung Tau a change anyways and explored the surroundings with a scooter and did nice runs alongs the coast road. Had the best western food I've had in whole Vietnam but other than that It for certain wasn't my favourite place. Wish I could have gotten to those islands....