Seastar Resort, Phu Quoc

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What can I say? The fliget was on time, our pickup was there with my name on a board, our beach bungalow was ready for us as soon as we arrived and despite my worries that the island would have changed completely, Seastar Resort is just great. There is a whole new block and swimming pool, but there are enough beds outside our room and it is quiet. Gill spotted a poster for a full moon party, but luckily that seems to have been last night, as they were taking down the lights. Doubt they would have had many takers - we are the average age here!

Our room in the beach, literally, has a fair few mozzies so I plugged the machine in straight away. May need 2! The bed has nets too, and the bathroom had a gap round the window. I fear we won't be sleeping alone! But is is really nice, with a bird's eye view of the sunset. We dumped our case and got into our beach stuff then did very little. So so hot in the sun, but there are a lot of trees for shade, so no problem. We had made rolls from the breakfast buffet for lunch, and that was a learning curve. The baguettes look good, but are in fact empty of any eating matter. When we filled them with egg, ham and tomato and left them to stew in our bags for a while they shrunk to half the size and turned into tiny chewy items. All mouth and no trousers, that bread! But we did buy some fruit on the beach from an old lady trotting along the beach with 2 round baskets balanced on a bamboo pole. How much is a mango? She drew 15p in the sand. Bargain!

We heard people near us say they hadn't seen any jellyfish...... today! We walked up to the main road and had a look. It is a building site, basically. You need to see beyond the unfinished breeze blocks. The little shop next door is still there for water, laundry and scooter hire (£4.50 a day). We called into reception and were more than a little disconcerted to find that breakfast is from 6am-9am. Jeez! We are on holiday, don't you know! Better set the alarm, then!

We walked to the beach bar, 30 secs from our room, to watch the sunset and have a drink, then as food was emerging from the restaurant, thought it was easier to stay put. It wae easy, but there was a wait and then what arrived was very, very small. And quite expensive. So tomorrow up we go to the main road. The waiter brought a mozzie coil for under the table. Dutch and French voices around us. Little lights from fishing boats on the sea. Chill out music. Nice!

Plan for tomorrow: to make breakfast, then nothing......

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