Phu Quoc Island...Attack of the Parts-Pirates!!.....Post 13..

---

So...Long time no blog!
Dont get me wrong, I'm not apologising, it was always the plan to tell you about our stay on Phu Quoc island either just before or just after we had left for the final part of our trip in Saigon.... But, with the power of hindsight I probably should have done the blog in stages. It now seems a bit of a daunting prospect to catch up with everything we have seen and done since my last update.....Still, no-one likes a shirker! Here we go......
Both of the places we stayed on the island were directly on the beach, south of Duong Dong town, the islands biggest community which lies on the west coast....The island is right at the early stages of what are obviously going to be some very major changes...Though 95% of the roads are just unsealed gravel and sand, there is work starting to happen on some isolated areas of what will eventually be tarmac roads to support the colossal amount of planned resort/hotel developments (currently only evident from information boards dotted here and there along the coastal stretches).. For now tourism is still extremely low key and concentrated in just the one area, but things are starting to happen, and there is every chance that the island will not be recognizable in a few short years. We are really glad to have seen the island in its current, virtually, unspoilt state....
Though the island is geographically closely linked to the Mekong delta it has a totally different makeup...Very hilly and densely forested in the interior, agriculture is limited to just pepper production, consequently Phu Quoc relies on the sea for its livelihood.....Every bay supports at least a few fishing vessels and relatively large fleets work from the three main ports.
As intended, when we first reached Phu Quoc we parked the bike up, unpacked everything, and didnt move from the beach for a few days..but, beautiful as beach-life on Phu Quoc is, I have to admit I started to suffer from a real sense of anti-climax....The excitement of the journey was still buzzing in my head and by days three and four I was desperate to get out and see a bit more of the island...
Though the roads were all pretty rough there was nothing too challenging and given the fact that the bike would be a lot less loaded up we were confident that biking here would be easy compared to some of the previous kilometres we'd covered....Easy yes...but uneventful no!
Our first run out was going to be down the west coast to a town called An Thoi on the Southern tip....just over 20km South, hugging the beach virtually all the way and then a longer sweep back along the east coast and inland through forested hills and valleys.....Should have been a piece of cake!! And without the puncture I'm sure it would have been....
Unfortunately just as we got to An Thoi the bike started to flap her tail about and a quick look at the back tyre confirmed our suspicions. 2000 + kms on awful mainland roads and nothing puncture wise......A half hour potter about on Phu Quoc did the trick!!!
I've said before about just how many mechanics are dotted along the vietnamese roads but even I couldnt quite believe that exactly where I pulled over was a guy sat in front of a shop with an airhose already in his hand....2 seconds and the tyre was up again and we pulled away to see whether the puncture was a slowie or a proper hole.....About three hundred yards later with the back end all over the place again we established it wasn't a slowie....Into a second mechanics, (this one about 100 yards away), we did the puncture dance/charade ( I made hissing noises while Rhianydd deflated) and sat down on plastic stools while a new tube was fitted by four guys falling over each other......As we were leaving Rhianydd shouted over my shoulder did they check the tyre for what had caused puncture in the first place and I, ever the optimist, said yes, of course they did, they're mechanics.......It wasnt until we woke the next morning to find the tyre as flat as the proverbial pancake that I remembered they were, of course, vietnamese mechanics...Not the same thing at all....Still at least it got us back to the bungalow...
This time we did the repair ourselves. So, we can now add, chocking up bike using driftwood/rear wheel removal/brake assembly removal/ fitting new tube/ and repairing old tube, to our fast growing list of newly aquired mechanical skills (and obviously putting it all back together again).....We even remembered to take the nail out of the tyre....Brilliant!
A few days later we planned a trip northeast through the interior up to a small community on the Northernmost tip at Bai Thon from where you can look across to the Cambodian mainland some 5 km away...We headed out through the town of Duong Dong, crossing the river mouth, densely packed with fishing boats, and through the busy street market to pick up the islands spine road....Again just pitted red sand and gravel but this time with some fairly steep climbs, all closely hemmed in with some really heavy "jungle-style" forest....I was nursing the bike as much as I possibly could as we were reasonably sure that John, a vietnamese guy we had met through Mike, the owner of Beach Club, really wanted to buy her. He had tried her out and fallen for her in a big way but needed to sell his current bike first so I was keen to keep "Poppy" in as good a state as I possibly could in the meantime....Some of the climbs really were a bit hairy though, and, by the time we reached Bai Thon, the clutch was starting to slip a little.....Luckily we made the bay and found the most beautiful stretch of beach looking out to a couple of small islands and then in the distance the grey shape of Cambodia....Photo call followed by spanners out for a bit of clutch fiddling and then, happy that we'd made the final tick box on our list of Phu Quoc "biking to do's", a very tentative run back to base where we intended to clean up the bike as much as we could before we said goodbye to her...
Everywhere we had been in Vietnam we had been absolutely hyper about the bikes security...She was keyless and just kickstarted, so we had always used 2 seperate wheellocks and always kept her inside wherever we were staying, but, both places we stayed on Phu Quoc had told us that there was NO crime and so, though we still religiously locked the wheels we had been leaving the bike outside...Sadly this turned out to be a major, major mistake....
Four days before we were due to depart and three days before she was to go to her new owner "Poppy" was the victim of parts pirating....Even though there was a night watchman, somehow, overnight, her carburettor had been completely dismantled and spirited away... After everything we had been through, all the different places we had seen and people we had met because of that idiosyncratic, often frustrating but big-hearted, fantastic bike, to see her with her middle ripped out was nothing short of devastating. We knew there was no way we could get any replacement parts on the island and the thought of just abandoning her was awful to contemplate......We both felt completely sick.

So....what to do?

As as happened before on this trip its when things have gone wrong that you find how incredibly kind virtual strangers can be.....Mike, the british owner of Beach Club, had been away in Saigon after the first day of our stay but heard via the staff what had happened. When I spoke to him I was just intending to apologise for the fact that we would have to leave a non working bike on his property as the guy who was going to buy it would no doubt no longer want it....I suggested that if Mike could get anything for her in her current state that he could split any proceeds amongst the staff...To say that Mikes responce surprised me is far short of the mark.....
He basically took full resposibilty for the fact that the night watchman should have prevented it happening in the first place...He told me he would source and buy a replacement carb while he was in Saigon and, either bring it back with him or get one sent down from the North..He said he would then get the repair organised and would complete the sale on our behalf and would then send the money to our UK bank via a transfer from his bank in Cambodia (money transfer from Vietnam being impossible)....To say I was lost for words is for once a completely accurate phrase!! I had met this guy for all of 5 minutes and, even if it did happen at his place, to go to those lengths to help out is absolutely unbelievable.....I hope you're reading this Mike....BIG BIG THANKS! Not so much for the fact that we'll get some money for the bike though that is great, more for the fact that we know that "Poppy" will live to fight another day and that John, the vietnamese guy who so wanted to buy her will be getting an incredible, even if somewhat demanding, motorbike....
Oh yes..One more thing, Mike also arranged a scooter for us, free of charge, for the last few days of our stay......What a guy!

(On that note, you'll remember a couple of posts ago that I said that any small bike would do at a push for a trip through Vietnam.....Sorry but I'm afraid I was talking cobblers!
After just a couple of short rides on a scooter on the relatively easy roads of Phu Quoc, even just one up, you realise that you'd be crippled by day two....There's no suspension, no ground clearance and the foot pegs mean the pillion passenger sits with their knees virtually above their head.......Dont even think about it!!!!! For island pottering a scooter is ideal but if you're going any real distance and have any luggage at all, Buy yourself a Minsk!!!)

We were on Phu Quoc for the greater part of two weeks and though we kicked back a lot (and had a few biking problems) we still managed to see virtually all of the island. We went out by fishing boat and snorkled on live coral just off the An Thoi Islands and with wind up torches explored the night time beaches finding fantastic places to eat some of the best seafood I've ever had....All in all a great, relaxing time but as the day of our flight got closer, both of us were looking forward to the excitement of Saigon, the last part of our adventure....
It was very difficult leaving the bike behind, particularly in her current sorry state, and when a van arrived to take us to Phu Quoc airport we both really had to grit our teeth as we walked past our beloved "Poppy" without being able to start her up one last time.....But I can say with all honesty that I will never forget a single bit of the amazing journey that she carried us through...
Three cheers for "Poppy"!!!
Huzzah....Huzzah...Huzzah!

---

Photos

Long Beach
over 20 kms of pretty much deserted beach on the west coast of Phu Quoc....

Puncture repair number 1.
"Yes of course they will have taken the nail out!!!"

The beach at Bai Soi
On the eastern coast...white,white sand and completely calm.

Sunset at Long beach.
Push back the shutters and this was the view from the bed in our bungalow..Passing the hipflask of brandy back and forth, listening to the sea just feet away. Pretty much heaven...

"Poppy" at Ong Lang
Another deserted beach at the end of a rough gravel track on the east coast...A small restaurant served us vietnamese tea while we took another load of pictures of our bike.....

Intrepid travellers....
North to South in mainland Vietnam...South to North on Phu Quoc island with all the bits in between...What on earth are we going to do next?