Blogs from Phú Quốc, Mekong River Delta, Vietnam, Asia

We’ve landed on a little bit of Vietnamese heaven. Phu Quoc is an isolated island, home to the most beautiful beaches in Vietnam. We bagged a gorgeous little room with Cosy Bungalows for a bargain. A boat trip was first of our priorities on the island. The tour took us to Dam Ngang island and finished at May Rut island, where we snorkelled and sipped on coconut cocktails by the crystal clear sea. It was absolute paradise. Sadly the coral has been abandoned by sea life. Some tourists were actually standing on the coral which made it clear that people are killing the reef. It was disheartening beyond belief to see marine life being destroyed by tourists. We headed down to the night market and came to ‘Number 1 bar’, where all the backpackers gather. With ... read more

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 ... read more

So in the not-so-cold light of day the hostel has a few drawbacks. In the bathroom basically everything is hanging by a thread, including the actual door, although it’s better since Sam had a go at it with my Swiss army knife. Now we can close the door. Hanging up the washing line was a challenge, without all our smalls and the fixtures crashing down. There were 3 handy nails in the bedroom wall holding up ridiculous hessian bags with twigs in them, aka decorations. Sam also hung her v big washbag from one. It stayed there for 24 hours, then fell offf and we have lost the nail, after trying to bash it back in with her shoe. We booked in October through booking.com and the price included breakfast. Bargainous! They’ve since stopped doing this, ... read more

The Cambodian-Vietnam border is a funny little place, not like any other border crossing I have done before. I was going to do my usual solo-crossing, which would mean a motorbike or tuktuk from Kep to the border, then a motorbike from there to the Vietnamese town of Ha Tien, and then the ferry across to Phu Quoc Island (primarily to visit the Vinpearl Safari). But there is a tourist mini-van which does the same route, with the ferry included, for US$18 which is probably cheaper than doing it by myself (the ferry is US$10 alone). So I took that option. The leaving time was supposed to be 10.30am but was, naturally, quite a bit later. It didn't really matter because the ferry wasn't until 1.30pm. Normally at a border crossing you have to take your ... read more

I’m not very good at keeping secrets. Case in point, I was visiting my friend in the city of Phnom Penh when she told me about this obscure little island off the Cambodian coast owned by the Vietnamese. I realize now she may have accidentally volunteered this info after becoming fed up listening to me moan on about returning to soggy Canada. “Mate! Phu Quoc is what Thailand was thirty years ago!!” Her brown eyes explode as she oversold it with a classic Australian twang. I whip out my phone so I can immediately Google a beach hut and alarm quickly crosses Sarah’s face. “Aw mate, you can’t tell anyone else about it, ok. We expats want to keep it all to ourselves.” I'm like. "What, are you doing the sequel to the movie The Beach ... read more