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Published: February 13th 2008
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Lazy days
Phu Quoc beach at the front of our resort.
It’s Relax Times!
We arrived on Phu Quoc Island with a microdot of patience left in our reserves. We’d had a spectacularly crap travel day - a series of non-existent pick-ups, missed bus connections, manhandling ferry touts, unnecessary waits, suicidal moto riders and ticket rip offs. Needless to say after a two and a half hour ferry ride, sitting top-deck with the animals, smokers and sea spray (as opposed to indoors in the air-con) we were damp, tired and happy to go with the first tout to approach us.
After being on the road for almost three months, we thought we knew how things worked in Vietnam. You get off a bus, boat or train and there will be a gaggle of touts from hotels and guesthouses ready to whisk you off to their establishment. We weren’t really too concerned that every place we’d called on Phu Quoc had been full, or that our guide books strenuously advised us to book ahead: there had
always been plenty of options on arrival and there was bound to be other places not listed in our trusty guides.
Not this time, it turns out. No touts, just hotel and
Kimmie
Lounging on the lounges.
resort reps there to collect their organised, pre-booking customers. A touch of concern set in - Kim and Chris were arriving in two days to see in 2008 with us and this lack of interest in the arrival of a boatload of tourists from the mainland didn’t bode well for our accommodation prospects.
There’s much more to this story - a dusty day’s ride across the island looking at every option (all full) and getting good and lost along the way; making plans with Kim and Chris when we had no idea where we were going to be but giving our all to make it sound like it was going to plan; sublime sunsets that distracted us from the task at hand.
Just as we were preparing ourselves for the eventuality of camping on the beach, it all suddenly went right. The fancy resort that we thought was out of our price range did in fact have two rooms left (not just one, but two!) and wasn’t nearly as out of our price range as we’d thought. The relief was palpable.
And so our holiday on Phu Quoc
really began.
Kim and Chris arrived the next
Aargh me hearties!
Starting the day pirate-style with a shot or two of rum.
morning and amid the hugs, kisses and excited, bitsy conversations we managed to bundle ourselves into the van and head off to our resort.
And again, we found ourselves at the beach. The four of us lounged beneath the palm leaf umbrellas, sipped cocktails (a favourite - Sex on the Bus), attempted games of beach volleyball (embarrassingly poor), swapped traveller’s tales, gossiped, got massages and just hung out. I relished the time with my sister, Duncan bonded with his fellow man and it was all so relaxed and easy.
A day’s snorkelling kicked off with rum shots on the boat, followed (naturally) by jumps off the top deck, and finished with everyone dropping lines to try and catch the same fish we’d just been admiring underwater that morning. All the while Duncan and I feasted on their company, enjoying the comfort of being with family and hanging out and spending time together, something we’d not really done that much before, with just the four of us.
New Year’s Eve - well, let’s just say it was definitely a Vietnamese take on things. We enjoyed a delicious seafood BBQ on the beach then hung around for midnight. But
it seems in Vietnam the idea of the New Year being rung in at midnight isn’t something that’s really taken off, because at about 10.45pm the countdown started. On a big screen in front of the water, that had until then been playing VCDs of Eric Clapton, The Police, Bee Gees and others in that vein, there suddenly appeared a large 10, which naturally and inevitably turned into a 9 and so on until fireworks splashed across the screen, the table of fifteen of so Vietnamese men behind us leapt up and cheered and charged their glasses and made a huge ruckous and Kim, Chris, Duncan and I tried to decide whether this was it or what the hell was going on.
As it turns out, this was repeated a number of times until it actually
was midnight, at which time sparklers were produced, kisses were passed round, Duncan popped the champagne (bought purely for the purpose of spraying round - unfortunately for anyone in its path it was pink) and everyone formed a large circle, congo-line style. But in truth it’s rather hard to dance in sand for any great stretch of time, and the countdown (which was
yet again repeated a couple more times) was starting to wear on our nerves. So we bade farewell to our new friends and wandered up the beach, back home.
And that was it. Kim and Christo had further adventures awaiting in Hoi An, Hanoi and Halong Bay and all too soon were gone, leaving us to our final few days back in Ho Chi Minh City before heading to Thailand.
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Kim
non-member comment
For relax times!
Hey Shannie, Great blog - made me giggle back into my muesli while reading it at my desk!....Was so much fun hanging out with you and Duncan, thanks so much for spending your NYE with us! We had a fantastic holiday. Hope you guys are still having the best trip....Missing you guys...mmm, and missing that Pho 24 too...love to you both xxx