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Published: June 14th 2010
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After Hoi An we flew to a small island which is in the Gulf of Thailand, along the southernmost coast of Vietnam near Cambodia. Phu Quoc is just on the verge of being “discovered” but currently only receives 50,000 visitors per year. It is quite tropical and lovely, and (best of all) it is not crowded. We were on the verge of monsoon season, but we were quite lucky with the weather, and only had rain at night.
We first stayed at an eco resort called Mango Bay, which was a lovely place where we had a “Rammed Earth Bungalow” with a creative outdoor bathroom (very nice), but-here’s the “eco” part; no air conditioning, just a fan and mosquito nets. It was stifling hot at night, despite the fact that we were right on the beach. (the fan does a good job blowing the hot air around the cabin!) I had arranged our trip with some wiggle room at this point in our schedule, and since the weather was nice, and we were enjoying the beach and the snorkeling, we decided to stay a few extra days on the island, but we moved to a different resort on the
island because I decided that I had to have the air conditioning!! The Sea Star was located on a different, but equally lovely, beach. We took snorkeling boat trips on two days and we saw some fantastic coral-the colors were amazing, the water clarity was excellent, and the fish were abundant. Really, I am a snorkel snob, having snorkeled in many of the best places in the world, and I was extremely impressed with Phu Quoc. We also met some lovely people at Mango Bay, and spent some time with Kim, Danny and Hitasha, all Americans who are living in Australia or Singapore.
We were reluctant to leave the island paradise and return to the hot city, but we were quite pleasantly surprised by Ho Chi Minh City, still known as Saigon by the locals. It is a much bigger city than Hanoi, but it had a very energetic and modern feel to it. We stayed at a small boutique hotel, the “Spring Hotel” which was lovely and quiet, with a terrific breakfast (all our hotels provided a full breakfast)We enjoyed wandering the streets and we loved the international assortment of restaurants. One evening we found a very
exotic breakfast fruit plate
Rambutan, passionfruit, dragonfruit, banana, papaya modern mall that was 6 floors high with very expensive boutique shops, but we were mostly amazed by the selection of restaurants in the food court, and ended up-sheepish grin here-having “dinner” in an ice cream place that boasted a 13 page menu of ice cream specialties!! Heaven!! One evening we were in search of a foot massage, ended up with $5 pedicures/foot massages, and then Rachel got a full facial and I had a full body massage (cucumber slices on the face and hot stones on the back included)-total bill$40 US dollars!!
For our educational/historical activity we took a day trip to see the Cu Chi Tunnels, a series of tunnels built by the Viet Cong during the “American” war. These tunnels enabled the Viet Cong to completely disappear in the jungle when the American GI’s were in pursuit, by carefully camouflaged tiny entrances to tunnels which even ran directly under the US military camps. One would think that the Vietnamese might not be too happy with Americans when you see the destruction of their country both from bombing damage and the damage done to the forest from napalm, Agent Orange and the like, but the people
appear to be remarkably forgiving. I asked our tour guide, a former South Vietnamese soldier, why they don’t hate Americans, and he simply said, “it’s over.”
Leaving Vietnam the next day, we flew back to Bangkok, but wanted to stay clear of the city due to political upheaval, so we stayed in a small town (Bangpli) not far from the airport where, as luck would have it, a big Buddha festival was in full swing. We attended the festival, which included a big market with vendors selling food and other items, and found enough people with some English skills that we were able to try some local foods-yum. Happily, our hotel had a lovely pool-named “the Magic Banana” so we could cool off in the afternoon. Rachel had a very early departure the next morning, so after I dropped her at the airport, I hung out at the pool for most of the day until my flight left in the evening.
The scariest thing we did on this trip was attempt to cross the street in both Hanoi and Saigon. Imagine stepping out into a 6 lane street with motorbikes, some cars and buses buzzing by,
where lanes are merely a suggestion. It is expected that you walk slowly across the street and the drivers will avoid you-but several times I froze at the curb and Rachel had to drag me across the street!! We noticed that in Vietnam drivers use their horns quite liberally-as in constantly. Rachel’s theory is that they are using them as a form of echo-location, so other drivers know they are there. It is quite noisy all the time.
Thanks to Rachel and Becky who gave me a new mini Sanyo digital camera which we used a lot on this trip; hope you enjoy the pictures!!
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Jill
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your trip
Wonderful travelogue. Keep your blog entries coming. Have you been to Ankor Wat?