Phu Quoc 2 - multiple dinners and snorkelling

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After a lazy day reading and eating on the beach (30p for a delicious mango she cut up for me), I decided to venture out onto the main road for dinner. Early, so no-one was actually in the restaurants at the end of the track, so I walked along the road (black was not the best colour to wear for this particular activity - you really need the scooters to see you in the dark!) until I found one that wasn't deserted. V disappointing - the cheap spring rolls arrived on a plate with nothing else, so I went back to the resort and had dinner 2 in the restaurant there with the v nice elderly couple from Israel. Sadly, this meant having another 45p beer.

Bright and early for my snorkelling trip, which I booked through the hotel - $17 including lunch etc, with no mention of the inevitable detour to the pearl farm, which I knew was coming. Other reports of trips have mentioned a lot of tour and not much snorkelling, so I wasn't really expecting a great day out. Good travel conversations with other people on the trip - great way to get useful information. The best bit was when Ut, our guide went through his list of participants. He had 20 people down. There were 21 of us on the bus. When he asked who was staying at Arcadia Hotel, room B106 2 couples put their hands up. Looked at each other. We're in B106! No, we are! Well you can't both be, surely!!! So Ut checked the tickets and one couple was on the wrong bus, so he phoned their company and the bus stopped and kicked them off, as their proper bus was right behind us. but of the people on his list he only had about half of us!

Stopped at the pearl farm, but as usual here, there was no hard sell. Consequently no-one bought any. They are cheaper in the night market. On to the town at the end of the island on the boat, then chugged out and stopped for 30mins fishing with the same hook on a string method as the squid fishing, this time with bait. I was so excited to catch something this time, and I was the first, and only 2 other people did out of 40 of us. Then on to the first snorkelling site for an hour. The coral was pretty - blues, purples and greens but there weren't too many fish - not a patch on Koh Tao in Thailand, which is not so very far away from here in the Gulf of Thailand, had lunch (better than expected and no sign of squid porridge - see earlier blog), on to second stop, again not too much to see. Then we went back to the port and onto the bus for a short but teeth-loosening drive over unmade roads to Sao Beach, supposedly the best on the island. The sand is white sugar and the setting beautiful but heaving with people and you have to walk out a long way in the sea for it to get deep enough to swim. One hour, then drove back.

The island is not at all very developed at the moment, and we saw some really poor shacks at the side of the road, reminiscent of the townships, but everywhere you can see hoardings with planned hotel complexes and land clearance, so it obviously won't be long, especially with the new airport. Get here while you can - it's so lovely!

Back at the hotel it looked like a birthday party was going on at one of the beachfront villas, but it was actually a wedding. Very low-key affair. The female vicar wore a t-shirt and cutoffs, as did the groom. The bride had a long hippy-style dress and no-one at all had shoes on. See pics. Now armed with handy headtorch I'm going to attempt to walk along the beach to the next restaurant. It is pitch pitch black here after sunset.

Tomorrow - beach and then I'm going to walk into town for the night market and get a motorbike back. Hopefully this won't be my last blog........

xxxxx to all

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Comments

[Lady P]

Weljel 2
Definitely jealous now - cold easterly winds lashing across Essex bringing a cold snap whilst you're trolling around in second/third-hand flipflops! Pxx