Phu Quoc


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Asia » Vietnam » Mekong River Delta » Kien Giang » Phu Quoc Island
November 19th 2010
Published: November 19th 2010
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ParadiseParadiseParadise

In real life this is a spectacular beach...until you get up close.
Phu Quoc is a tropical island off the coast of Vietnam and Cambodia that belongs to Vietnam. It has your picture postcard white sand beaches and palm trees swaying under blue skies dotted by puffy white clouds. We thought it sounded like a great place to take a break from our vacation. Once there, however, it did not live up to our hopes.

Although Phu Quoc is very close to paradise, it has so much trash floating in the water that I took to calling it the city dump for paradise. It is really difficult to enjoy the swimming when there are plastic bags curling around your ankles. We took a day long snorkel trip and one stop was a scene that looked like a postcard you would send home to make people jealous. Once we were on the beach, however, the trash was obvious and everywhere.

And it is expensive. Our room was a bungalow with cold showers, sagging bed and power only in the evenings. But it was twice as expensive as our most expensive hotel in Vietnam. And it was a budget lodge. Plus it was isolated so when we wanted to go to town we had to pay for a taxi.

And it was buggy. We did have a mosquito net over our bed but I rapidly grew irritated at all of the biting insects everywhere. And the ants…

On the plus side our host and his staff were wonderful and the food was good. Also we got several great thunderstorms in the evening that were fun to watch. The snorkel trip was okay but Hawaii is much better.

About this point you are probably thinking “what a whiner” so I will stop here and just say that Vietnam is not the only place in the world we’ve seen plastic trash despoiling the landscape. This type of packaging may be economical, but paying for proper disposal is not a cost poorer people and countries are able or willing to afford. I console myself with taking the long view of this problem - in a few million years it will have all decomposed.

Next stop: Cambodia



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20th November 2010

plastic trash bags
I too am frustrated by how much we see this non-renewable resource littering the landscape. it made me very proud of my adopted country when they passed into law requiring the change to biodegradable (cornstarch-based) bags. I have received two so far from stores where I shopped before I left, and I was thrilled! The technology required for changing over the production is not that complicated, and the raw materials turn out to be cheaper. heeellllllooooo? its a good and simple solution - just not as lucrative for the oil industry.

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