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Published: December 1st 2007
PHU QUOC
I am writing this on the verandah of our beach front bungalow. It’s mid afternoon and has been a beautiful day in late 20’s - our 5th day on Phu Quoc Island. Our bungalow sits on white sand with just a few meters away from the waters edge. A few late sunbathers are getting massaged on white loungers, some are sleeping under the shade of the palm trees, others are swimming and fresh pineapples and watermelon are on offer for a dollar. You can hear beer can tabs cracking and European chatter in the background, all waiting to witness the pink sunset in a couple of hours before moving to the beachfront restaurant, with wine in hand, view of the beach at dusk and a plate full of great tasting food. Jealous!
The 3km stretch of beach we are staying on (part of Long Beach) consists of a few hotels, bars, restaurants and bungalows. It is peaceful and tranquil and has not been exploited by tourism yet. You can get a 45 minute massages for just NZ$4 and other than fruit, there is nothing else for sale on the beach - bliss.
The day we arrived
Long Beach
Our stretch of beachit was a different story. Our beach was lined with rubbish the tide had brought in. Floating in the sea were water melon skins, plastic bags, takeaway containers, food, just rubbish. But luckily that disappeared overnight and the water has been crystal clear since. There are vacant sections between hotels that have rubbish but the hotel areas are clear. We walked into town and were amazed to see a fishing village with a beautiful white sand inlet that was covered in rubbish (see photo). Obviously the weather had brought it around our corner the previous day. There is nothing in town for non-locals and the walk consists of intermittent wafts of putrid smells which keeps you away.
But from our patch of paradise - it is perfect - as long as we stay here and don’t venture out it does not get any better than this! We wake up in the morning and go for a swim in the sea and watch the fishermen reel in the nets. Well actually, the women reel in the nets. The rest of the day consists of sunbathing, swimming, eating and drinking.
The perfect beach life is enhanced due to where we
are staying. We have walked along our stretch of beach and there is no other place that offers this fantastic beachfront life. I would not trade this for any of the expensive hotels, even though they have a swimming pool. So not much news here just a lazy week on the beach and yeh they have Long Island Ice Teas and a bar with a disco! .
Oh and yes we bumped into a guy from Ashburton, he and his family ran a restaurant and packed up and left for Vietnam. After 4 months he scored a job managing a hotel here on the beach. He has 2 kids 11 and 8 and his wife home schools. They moved here without visiting first or having a job lined up - pretty gutsy I’d say.
Accommodation We are staying at the Sea Star I was expecting the same type of wooden bungalows we had in Koh Phangan at the beach, but these are fantastic, white tiled floors, clean, new, big verandah with loungers on them, just great! The restaurant too has great tasting food at very cheap prices. The bungalows are a steal at NZ$60 per night for
beach front and NZ$47 for second line back, which still get a view of the sea from the verandah. You would pay 4 times the price for this setting elsewhere.
Sea Star Resort Next We have 2 more nights and we will be leaving for Saigon for 2 nights at which time I will upload this blog entry. Saigon will mainly consist of in-room 24 hr internet connection and hours spent surfing for places to stay and booking trains in India. We are totally reliant on recommendations and reviews on places to stay. But we will be visiting the Tunnels and some Museums as until now we have not seen anything related to the War.
Back in Saigon - We went to the War Museum today with a very biased view of the war but it was still shocking what the Americans did to the civilians, no one was given any leniency, they shot pregnant women, mothers, children, babies, and especially men. The impact of the bombs they dropped visible in the streets with beggars with no limbs or burns over their bodies.
God, how we had not missed the hawkers or the traffic. Today we found a
gloria jeans, we were so excited, we ordered a panini with ham and cheese and tomato and a latte. We were horrified to find it cost us NZ$20.00! My god that means we cannot have dinner - but it was such bliss it tasted delicious, our first latte in a month.
Sent home today half my pack - traded my black slip-ons and fancy gear for Velcro sandals, shorts and t-shirt - nice. No Tony, not the iron, I still use that. I am uploading this now, off to the tunnels tomorrow, but apparently fat westerns don’t usually fit down - so watch the news for the white westerner stuck half way down the tunnels in Vietnam.
Looking Back over Vietnam
We have had a great time but would expect the waste issues impacting their environment would need to be resolved prior to opening up the marketing of tourism to Vietnam to a wider audience. We have noticed a lot of German, French and Dutch tourists which make up about 75%!o(MISSING)f us. We saw a lot of young Ozzies and English in the North but not so many in the South. Have not come across a
Prime Real Estate
Double click to enlarge to get a better view of the rubbish. NZ tourist and finding people who speak English, and of an age that want to talk to us, is practically non existent!
The age of tourists here is interesting, mostly middle age, so of course older than us! There are of course a few young people but they tend to follow the beach route more. Heaps of lone travelers, more women in this category than men from what I have seen, but they never seem to be alone for a meal. Everyone seems to follow the Lonely Plant route, really outside of this there is nothing for non-locals, so we see the same people from place to place sometimes.
In many ways tourism in Vietnam is in its infancy and probably in 10 years many parts of Vietnam will be flooded with tourists.
It is an interesting place and every town or city we visit is different, the only consistency in the culture being the people and the rubbish! The people are lovely, the kids in the south always say Hello. I would not visit Vietnam for the food or the shopping, you need to be interested in visiting Vietnam to experience the country and people or
visit the beautiful beaches.
Although in saying that we have come across some fantastic Vietnamese food at Café 43 in Hoi An, Bee & Bi Saigon and restaurants on the beach at Phu Quoc. Except the French restaurant - you need a magnifying glass to spot the food. It is definitely a very very cheap place to holiday, as long as you stay away from Western food. We are paying NZ$60 a night on Phu Qouc and with 3 meals and drinks we still come within our NZ$100 budget. You can get a 500 ml of Saigon beer for 60 cents and a good size plate of food and rice for $3.00.
Most places charge the standard US$25.00 for a basic room which has exceeded expectations and necessities. You get fridge, hot water, 2 queen beds, TV (most have English news, sports and movie channels), toiletries and always includes breakfast - another bloody French stick!
There are many cheaper places, some even US$6.00 per night, but not having stayed in one I cannot say what they are like.
If we visited a second time we would definitely go to Sapa, people recommended the experience of the more
traditional Vietnamese life style. Our highlights have been the traffic in Han Oi, Ha Long Bay, floods in Hoi An, Sailing club food in Nha Trang, our alley way in Saigon, and the picture postcard beach style living in Phu Qouc.
New Zealand is famous here for the NZ Ice Cream. I don’t believe we have it at home anymore, I don’t think it was very nice from memory, but here it is everywhere. But it does not beat the Vietnam ice cream - its called FANNY ice cream - how’s that for making you desire dessert!
Vietnam coffee is not too bad, extremely strong, but given to you with a small filter sitting on the top of the glass with condensed milk in the bottom of the glass.
We have had 2 motorbike accidents happen right at our feet - no serious injury though. There is supposed to be 30 fatals a day in Saigon and 18 in Han Oi.
I have added in some last minute photos at the bottom looking back over vietnam, not related to Phu Quoc.
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BeHappy in Ha Noi
non-member comment
Love your sunset photos at Phu Quoc
Love your sunset photos from your bangalow long Long Beach in Phu Quoc. Thanks for your concern over rubbish in Phu Quoc. We locals will try our best for this issue which is bad in Viet Nam and seems worse in Phu Quoc. Please come back. Sapa is my favourite place and hard to know any ice-creams could beat Fanny ice-cream. Good luck with your travels. THT