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Published: August 7th 2007
Sunday 8th April
Up extremely early today (4.30am) to catch a one hour flight to the island of Phu Quoc in the very south of Vietnam (actually below Cambodia but belonging to Vietnam). This was a place that was an absolute must on our itinerary as it was meant to have beautiful beaches with 'crystal clear water'. The photos I had seen of it prior to leaving OZ had left me breathless and looked like absolute paradise.
We arrived in the morning to find it pretty overcast. It had apparently rained heavily that night which was unusual for the time of year.
After getting our bags, we made our way through the touts, and started walking into town. We have a pet hate of touts, especially motor bike ones as they nearly all try to rip you off at every opportunity and swear they can get all three of us, two large backpacks, one pull along trolley and three day bags all safely onto 2 motorbikes (including the drivers!)
We started walking into town in search of an actual taxi. Lo and behold though, none to be found. We knew this would happen soon! We had plenty
of offers from motorbikes but nothing else. Luckily after about 15 minutes of walking, a guy on a motorbike pulled up to us who was very friendly and he started chatting. We told him we were trying to find a taxi and he said 'no problem - give me 5 minutes and I'll go home, get my car and drive you to where you want to go.' And, it would only cost us $2! He was a lovely guy called 'Quyan' who had a bit of an aussie accent. He had lived in Melbourne for a while and had worked at 'Mekong' Vietnamese on Swanston St in the city. This is the vietnamese that I go to for lunch to have a bowl of 'pho' occasionally! Anyway, lovely guy and he even took us to a few places until we had found somewhere we liked.
We first tried the 'Thousand Stars Resort' but the vibe there was not very good. They said they only had one room available (this seems to be the case in a lot of places) which was around $35usd. We had a look and were unimpressed. Smelly and just a bit yuk looking, so no
thanks. We had a morning coffee there before we headed off to look for somewhere better. Am glad we decided not to stay as took Mia to the toilet at the 'restaurant' there, which was dirty and had two big cockroaches running around. YUK!
We left our bags with the staff there whilst we walked along the beach looking for a nice place. We had read about a nice place called Tropicana which were meant to have nice rooms for around $35 so went in search of that. We thought we had found it so wandered up to reception to see if they had a room available. The place was gorgeous, and we thought we could get used to staying here for a while! At reception they handed us a card with their room rates. Cheapest room $125usd plus taxes!! What the? Well, we had actually managed to walk into one of the nicest resorts on the island called La Verandah. Not Tropicana. So the search continued.
Finally we found what we were looking for. Not as nice as La Verandah, but lovely none the less. We scored a great fan room out behind the pool overlooking the
Phu Quoc
Mia on her first motorbike (and loving it!)gardens for $18usd inc breakfast - not a bad deal at all!
We checked out the ocean for a swim in the 'crystal clear water' only to find it very murky due to the heavy rains they had had. Very disappointing and we just hoped that tomorrow it would be nicer. After a swim in the pool instead, we hired a motorbike to drive around the island a bit for a squiz. Mia loves being on amotorbike and didn't even complain about wearing a helmet (I tiold her she looked like a girl from Saddle Club) We had been riding for about 1/2 an hour - Gav driving, Mia in front in between Gav's legs, and me behind. The dirt roads were quite bumpy and I noticed Mia seemed to be slanting dramatically to one side. I said 'Gav, is she awake?' "Um, yeah, I think so.' She'd actually started to fall to sleep (she had been up since 4.30am the poor pumpkin, and I think the bumpiness of the ride had lulled her to sleep.) We kept her awake by singing songs with her as we drove along to find somewhere to stop for a drink (to much
amusement of the locals). I gave her a coke when we got there to try and keep her awake for the return journey - it's shocking what a mum will do!!
We made it back with her staying awake and had a pretty early night as we were all pretty wrecked!
As we have spent a lot of times in swimming pools over the last few weeks, Mia's swimming has improved dramatically. Before we left she had little confidence, but can now doggy paddle happily 1/2 way across the pool, swim underwater very happily and had even managed a bit of freestyle!
Monday 9th April
We woke up last night to more heavy rain (there goes the chance of clear water). It was so heavy I actually thought I was dreaming. It was very quiet around and we didn't feel like swimming in the beach as it was so murky again that you did not feel like even putting your head under. We decided to hire another motor bike to go and find the fish sauce factory that I had been wanting to visit. Phu Quoc island is renowned for its fish sauce (Nuoc Mam) and
is meant to be the best in the world. One of my must do's was to go and have a look (or should I say smell) and buy a bottle to take home. We had our Lonely Planet map with the factory marked on it so off we went. And went. And went. We could not find it anywhere. We asked a foew locals who all pointed us in different directions, but still had no luck. We did go down one tiny local side street and suddenly smelt fish sauce, but could not see any factory. We went back to our resort to have a drink and get further instructions. It seems as though we had ridden right past the one we were looking for (where the smell was) but it was only a tiny wheeny factory (house?) hence us missing it. We where directed to a larger one which we found quite easily! The place stank (obviously) as the fish sauce was stored in huge vats like at a winery. We could have walked around and had a better look inside, but I think Mia would have killed me before she let me take her in. I bought my
Ho Chi Minh Airport
On the way to Phu Quoc Island (at about 5am in the morning!) bottle and now have it wrapped up tightly hoping it will survive the next 5 weeks and not break in my bag...
Next mission was to find a pepper garden (poor Gav) for me to buy some Phu Quoc pepper, which it's also famous for, to take home. It was only a few km's away on the map, so off we went. Well, about 1/2 hour later we had not passed anything resembling a pepper farm and proceeded to get ourselves sort of lost. The map we had was useless and we had ended up heading towards the port at the bottom of the island. Our bums were sore, we were covered in dust and just wanted to get back for a swim. We didn't want to turn back as we thought it would take us longer that way than going down to the port and then back up along the beach road (we had been coming along the road that runs down the middle of the island). We finally made it to the port around 5ish and stopped to have an iced coffee and rest our sore bums. The trip back was going to take us about 40
minutes and we were not looking forward to it!
We did make it back, after seeing some beuatiful scenery, but were all very pleased (especially Mia) to have it over with after being on the bike about 2 1/2 hours.
We decided to make this our last night on the island, as beach was not nice to swim in, and there was not much to do except get lost on motorbikes, or laze around the pool. When we had booked our flights to the island we were advised that all the return flights were full, meaning we would have to travel back by express ferry to the mainland and then work our own may up through the Mekong Delta. This sounded ok as we had been planning to do a Mekong day tour, but now could do it ourselves on the way through. We booked our ferry tickets and car to the ferry for the next day and just tried to relax before our big day of travel ahead.
There have been lot's of young girls staying at the resort (about 6 of them between the ages of 6 and 12) so Mia has had a ball
Phu Quoc
On the road in Phu Quoc colouring in and playing hide n seek with them! All in all, we were disappointed in the beaches on Phu Quoc, but I honestly believe we have been spoiled by spending so much time on gorgeous thai beaches in the past! The place itself is great - very different with not many tourists around at all which was lovely for a change!
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Belinda @ AMEX
non-member comment
Hi
Hi Shell, keep the stories coming, we're all loving them! It's bringing back great memories of Vietnam and makes me itchy about going off travelling again. Miss you, B