After Sa Pa we hurt. Two nights on a train, the trekking, the 5am arrival in Hanoi with 6 hours to kill until our flight, had all added up to some achy bones and some serious need of some relaxation.
Thankfully our next stop was the island of Phu Quoc. We booked 4 nights and planned to find all the beaches, seafood and massage we could muster.
We opted, rightly or wrongly, to miss out Hoi An as we were unsure of the weather. We’d heard conflicting reports of the weather in Vietnam overall, but we had read that this time of year on the central coast was prone to storms and typhoons. So we headed to the south coast and the island of Phu Quoc…the first night we arrived there was a heck of a storm. You just cannot predict the weather.
Still, even considering the unsettled weather, it was hot and sunny. We stayed near Long Beach at a lovely little bungalow near the main road. We hung out at bars along the beach – you could use the sun beds if you bought drinks. Long Beach was developed but not as much as some of the islands we’ve visited in Thailand. I’m not sure how long that will last, the building work on the island is of epic proportions with big resorts in the making all over the place.
The water was clear and, as it turned out, full of jellyfish eggs. You could feel them between your fingers when swimming, and see them washed up on the beach like tiny fragments on glass.
At night, the shores were also blinking with tiny green lights no bigger than a grain of sand. One night when walking along the beach, we noticed that the lights were bobbing about in the sea too. These tiny mysterious iridescent things were bioluminescent plankton.
According to research we later conducted, visitors to Phu Quoc can see amazing displays of this plankton, usually best seen around the time of a waning moon; we were 2 weeks too late for the full spectacle (a new phase of the moon had just begun) but we saw the tale end and it was magic anyway.
There were loads of star fish, after the storms we found them washed up on the shore, broken and, sadly, dead. Such is nature. There were also lots of crabs and hermit crabs. The beach was teaming with life and at sunset the locals would come hunting for crabs and whatever else they could pull out of the wake.
It was quiet enough on the island to hire a motorbike and that’s what we did. For 180,000 VND per day from our hotel, we were good to go with a pretty decent bike. We explored the south and north beaches over 2 days and got some pretty wicked sunburn to boot. The roads were paved, then suddenly unpaved, and you could be pretty sure any road turning down to a beach was going to be a bumpy ride.
To be honest, after all the exploring we still liked Long Beach the best. It was great to explore the rest of the island, and particularly fun to drive over the floating bridge and through the locals selling fish on the side of the road, but we found Long Beach to be the cleanest and have the most pleasant waters.
Our final day was spent relaxing on Long Beach, swimming and getting a massage on the beach (100,000 VND for a full body massage).
The thought of coming back to the city was slightly trepidatious. After just a few days on the beach we’d gotten into the swing of it, we’d even met Harry, Emma and Jess from the UK and had a regular crowd to drink and chat with (at Rory’s bar on Long Beach – good for a G&T). We also drove to the airport in the midst of another storm; it all seemed rather ominous.
But we got to Ho Chi Minh City (a 35 minute flight) and now we’re here in the thick of it again, and we know it’ll be worth it for all the great food.
We’ve already booked onto a cooking course and today we booked our trip to the Mekong Delta. So we have an action packed few days in Vietnam before we leave for a December spent in Indonesia.
Next stop: Mekong Delta
Transport: bus, boat and whatever else
As usual, here are a few photos from the phone:
A passage to anywhere - a travel log from two hungry wanderers 