Rach Gia
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Rach Gia is the ferry port of the far southwest. It is a working harbour city where almost every traveller is waiting for a boat to somewhere else. It is worth knowing how to spend the night.
What is Rach Gia actually for?
Rach Gia exists, for a visitor, as a port. Fast catamarans leave for Phu Quoc through the day. The Nam Du and Hon Son islands are served from here and from nowhere else, which is the one thing this town has that no other has.
The city itself is a few hundred thousand people and a grid of streets along a canal mouth, with a quarter built out onto land reclaimed from the sea. Nobody comes for it. Plenty of people end up sleeping in it, and the evening on the waterfront is better than that sentence suggests.
Which port for Phu Quoc, Rach Gia or Ha Tien?
Take Ha Tien if the island is all you want, and Rach Gia if you are coming from Saigon or the delta. Ha Tien's crossing is about an hour and a half and Rach Gia's is around two and a half. The difference that matters is the road on the other end.
| From | Crossing | Best for | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rach Gia | About 2.5 hours | Arriving from Saigon or Can Tho | Several fast boats daily |
| Ha Tien | About 1.5 hours | A short hop, or coming from Cambodia | Shortest sea leg |
| Nam Du | About 2.5 hours | Small islands, domestic prices | Rach Gia only |
| Hon Son | About 2 hours | The same, quieter still | Rach Gia only |
| Flights | 50 minutes | Skipping the sea entirely | From Saigon, not from here |
What are the Nam Du islands?
Nam Du is an archipelago about 80 km offshore, and it is the reason to give Rach Gia more than a night. Around twenty islands, one small harbour village, guesthouses rather than resorts, and a Vietnamese holiday crowd in summer instead of a foreign one.
Hon Son, closer in, is the same idea at half the distance. Neither has an airport, a chain hotel or a dive centre. Both depend on a sea that stops the boats for days at a time between May and October.
What is the Nguyen Trung Truc temple?
The temple honours a local commander who led the resistance against the French in the 1860s and was executed in this town. It is the one building in Rach Gia people travel to see. It is busy, working and decorated in the southern manner rather than kept as a monument.
Nguyen Trung Truc's festival falls in the eighth lunar month and fills the streets around the temple. The festivals guide covers how the lunar calendar sets dates like this one.
What is the reclaimed quarter?
The reclaimed quarter is a district built on land pumped out of the sea in the 1990s, and it is the strangest thing about the city. Wide boulevards, a sea wall and blocks of new housing sit where there was open water thirty years ago, on the western edge of the old town.
The sea wall is worth a walk at dusk, when the whole city comes out onto the wall and the fishing fleet is heading out past it. Kien Giang province has kept extending the idea since, which is a live argument in a delta already losing ground to the sea at its other edges.
Where do you eat on a night in the port?
Eat at the fish market and the stalls along the canal, because a port city is exactly where seafood is worth ordering. Crab, mantis shrimp and squid come in at prices that stop making sense as soon as you head inland.
The reclaimed quarter has the newer restaurants and a sea wall to walk afterwards. What is worth ordering and what to be careful with is in the seafood guide.
How do you reach Rach Gia, and where do you sleep?
From Ho Chi Minh City it is 250 km and six to seven hours by road, usually overnight so the boat can be caught in the morning. There is also a small airport with domestic flights. Can Tho is about 115 km east, two and a half hours.
Sleep near the ferry terminal rather than in the old centre. The fast boats leave early, and a taxi at six in the morning is an avoidable problem. Rooms are provincial prices at the bottom of the accommodation guide bands. The delta hub covers how this corner fits the rest of the region.
FAQ
Why do people go to Rach Gia?
Almost everyone in Rach Gia is there for a boat. It is the main ferry port of Kien Giang province, with fast catamarans to Phu Quoc and the only regular service to the Nam Du and Hon Son islands, and it works as an overnight stop rather than a destination.
How long is the ferry from Rach Gia to Phu Quoc?
Around two and a half hours on the fast boats, which run several times a day in the dry season and less often when the sea is rough. Ha Tien is the shorter crossing at about an hour and a half, so the choice of port decides the length of the trip.
What is there to see in Rach Gia?
The Nguyen Trung Truc temple, the fish market on the canal, and the reclaimed quarter built out into the sea. It is a working port city of a few hundred thousand people, and its interest is the harbour rather than any monument.
Where are the Nam Du islands?
About 80 km off Rach Gia, reached in roughly two and a half hours by fast boat, and served from nowhere else. Nam Du and Hon Son are small, cheap and almost entirely domestic, which is the whole reason to make the crossing.
How do you get to Rach Gia from Ho Chi Minh City?
By road in six to seven hours, about 250 km, or by a short domestic flight into the small airport outside town. Buses run overnight from the western bus station, which is how most people arrive in time for a morning boat.
When should you travel through Rach Gia?
November to April, the dry season on this coast, when the sea is calm and the island boats run to schedule. From May to October the crossings are cancelled often enough that a same-day connection is a gamble rather than a plan.