Phu Quoc: riding through the island under the sun!

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After a disastrous start to the day in Da Nang, we had lunch with Marie, Francois-Xavier and Valerian (Belgian, French and Swiss) in Ho Chi Minh during our stopover before getting all together in the plane to Phu Quoc. The five of us hopped on a taxi and chose to stay at the same hotel. We went to the beach next to the hotel and watched a beautiful sunset while drinking beers. On the beach, we met Bâ, a Vietnamese man who studies in Europe and therefore has very good English. He took us to the night market where we all ate seefood together.
On the next day, we met Ba who took us to a very nice remote beach called Starfish beach, 45 minutes away from our hotel. Unfortunately, even though it was remote, they were still tourists but we walked further along the beach and found a lonely and quiet spot. I had never seen a starfish in its natural environment and there were so many I accidentally stepped on a few!
We walked to the floating village to find some food for lunch. We had fried banana, various exotic fruits and rice cakes (galettes de riz soufflé, in French - I have no idea how to say it in English and Shaun is not helping, he said "rice that absorbs water" but he is amazing so it's ok...).
We came back to the hotel after sunset. Shaun, Valerian and I had dinner in the night market: we had lots of fried spring rolls and coconut ice cream and pancakes! i
On the next day, everyone went to another beach with Ba, drank from coconuts he had bought and ate fruits. In the evening, we had barbecued beef in a local restaurant (we grilled it ourselves!) and went to the night market for some more pancakes and coconut ice-cream!
On the next day, we had a quiet day at the beach. Shaun went for a drive in the north of the island, from where you can apparently see Cambodia - he couldn't see it but he saw beautiful landscapes nonetheless.
In the evening, we were invited for dinner by Ba's family. He met us on the beach and we followed him on our scooters. Half way to his house, Shaun realised we needed to go back to the travel agent we had bought our ferry tickets with (we were leaving the island on the next morning) to show them our passports. We were supposed to come back before 6pm, as they had said they were closing at that time, to secure our tickets. It was already 6:15! Luckily, when we arrived, they were still open. Once that was sorted, we came back to the crossroad where we had left Ba and the others and Ba came to pick us up after a while.
Marie, F-X, Valerian, Shaun and I had dinner with Ba, his parents and his cousin. We had prawns, squid salad and a noodle dish with fish. For dessert, we had papaya from their garden and pomelo. We had a very nice time, chatting with the family and learning more about how an upper class Vietnamese family lives.
After we left, Shaun, F-X and Valerian went to play pool while Marie and I drank a sweet Vietnamese drink (with litchis - yummy! - and mushrooms - less yummy! - offered by the hotel.
On the next morning, we were leaving early for a long bus journey to Can Tho.

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Photos

Seafood...
Here, you chose your fish alive before they cook it for you. They also often sell endangered species just for the pleasure of tourists' tastebuds...