"First world problems!" I hear you say. And yes, they are, but chill out for a moment because we're talking islands right now, and this one was not up to scratch, so if I can help other travellers or backpackers not to make the same mistake and save their pennies then I shall, because sometimes as a traveller all you want is some time to stop, relax and enjoy some easy-breezy living.
Welcome to Phu Quoc...
 |
| Phu Quoc, Vietnam |
Oh it wasn't all bad and I don't want to sound like an ungrateful, spoiled traveller. Yes we were very lucky to even be able to choose to visit this Island off the coast of Vietnam. But today we're discussing islands. And part of Phu Quoc's scrutiny may help other travellers to save their cash for an island that gives you a little more than littered beaches, construction sites and polluted sea with stingers.
***
We decided to fly to Phu Quoc, an extremely short flight of half an hour, it may not have been worth the whole airport pa-lava but we did because it's faster than a boat and the prices at the time were pretty reasonable.
We pre-booked at The Sailing Hotel for $28 per room, per night including breakfast. Fantastically they offered a FREE airport pick-up which was great. Bow was at reception when we arrived and he was very friendly, warm and welcoming from start to finish. He always gave us information, advice and even some New Year chocolate treats! Plus breakfast was pretty tasty too. We opted for the omelette and toast option and it never failed us. Tasty!
Despite our lovely big, comfy room at the hotel, which we were very happy with, the first impression of Phu Quoc was rather disappointing because quite honestly it looked like a construction site. The pavements were half complete, with sections of bricks, sand and road, so you zig zag your way to towards town, on and off the pavement wherever possible. We did take the construction with a positive pinch or handful of salt, thinking that we had arrived in the evening, hadn't yet seen the beach yet and we were excited to get stuck into easy, breezy island life.
Night Market
So on our first night we decided to walk to the Night Market, we'd read about it being a great place for dinner and were up for it, strolling the market, finding some tasty food and just taking it easy.
The Night Market however, was really just one street, first some restaurants, all selling fresh fish, then lots of stalls selling nuts of all things, then there were the ice cream makers and then the usual clothes and jewellery stalls - although not many. Actually the market was quite unimpressive, all the same things and despite having a decent meal of tasty vegetable kebab, chicken and rice, we quickly learned that the island's prices were on the steeper side and were going to take a toll on the wallet.
Easy-breezy!!! That's all we were looking for!
Let's hire a moto scooter
We woke up on our first morning with cheer in her hearts, ok a little dramatic, but we were well up for an explore of a tropical island and the chance for our own little private spot on a beach!
We decided to hire a scooter/moto for our great exploration...heading to the beaches in the North, having seen pictures of crystal clear water and read descriptions of silky soft sand, we were sold immediately.
We had fun on our mission to the north, enjoying the drive there with some good views and it's a great way to see how the locals live outside of the tourist town.
So after about a 30 minute drive we arrived at Bai Dai Beach which held promises of paradise!
Unfortunately, it was also home to a construction site complete with digger, and a fairly littered beach. We did go for a swim but, sadly the water was quite murky, had some stinger thingys in and generally seemed unclean. So, we decided to move on and find a new and better beach! No stress! (Still searching for easy-breezy!)
With optimism we powered onward and we did find a pretty looking, if not smelling, fishing area where we took some photos. We continued and found another beach, smaller and a bit more tucked away, not surprisingly near another area of construction and again, quite littered. Not only that, there were a lot of local men there doing some fishing and to be honest, it felt a little uncomfortable lying on the beach with them there. Women are very modest here and it just wasn't the beach for bathing. Anyway, we stopped for half an hour or so and then decided to make our way home, stopping as the sun started to set to enjoy a tonic water at a local restaurant on the beach; spontaneous and one of the nicest parts of our day.
Overall, we did have a lovely day, mostly we enjoyed the exploration rather than the discovery but hey, tomorrow was another day and there were other beaches to go find on Phu Quoc...
Going to the beach... Day 2!
The town of Duong Duong is where most of the resorts are. When booking our hotel we read that there was easy access to the beach, but little did we know that the resorts along the beach own the beaches in front of them and the public beach starts 50m in front of that, aka, in the water!
On our second beach day we decided to head to a nearby beach and had thought we could just pop through one of the resorts, our endeavour ended up being a bloody frustrating one. Why? Because they don't let you just 'pop' through their fancy-shmancy resorts and when you do finally find a sneaky way through to the precious sand there is nowhere, other than the fancy-shmancy private beaches, to go. Cue the extremely attentive (annoying) man telling us that it was "only $10" to use one of their sunbeds. $10? Do you know how many meals I can get for $10 back in Ho Chi Minh?
And breathe... in the end, after sheer frustration, we paid $4 for a sunbed just so we could actually finally start relaxing, seeing as this was day two of our 'relaxing beach time'.
"We're on a 'paradise island', it shouldn't be this hard to find a nice beach!"
Meanwhile, on our expensive sunbeds, we did relax, despite still being stung by 'things' in the water, and boy did we stay on those beds right to the bitter end! (We did also eat an entire watermelon for lunch, thanks to a passing fruit lady, because it was refreshing and cheap - unlike the island!)
Diving and snorkeling
We had heard that diving was quite good on Phu Quoc, and it'd been so long since we chucked on a BCD, we booked in with Flipper Diving, excited to jump back into the big blue.
Unfortunately, Tom awoke on the morning of the dive with the start of a cold and we decided against diving as this can cause a 'reverse blockage' when equalising on the way down (it hurts your ears, a lot!), and so the company understood completely and let us change our diving to a snorkeling trip instead.
They picked us up from our hotel, the boat was cool, well-equipped, there were lots of dive team members on-board and everyone was very professional, not to mention the delicious spread they put out for lunch - the perfect end to a half day out at sea!
The snorkeling itself was good, there were moments of good viability and moments of not-so-good too, so in the end we were pleased with our decision not to dive. We had been spoiled with our diving in Utila, Honduras but here in Vietnam the visibility and array of sea-life is limiting.
Snorkeling was cheaper, the reefs were shallow enough to snorkel close to and we still got to see lots of cool fish, including: clown fish, trumpet, angel, butterfly and parrot. We had a great time and we'd certainly recommend Flipper Diving for professionalism and a fun day out on the sea!
Sunset and more on Phu Quoc
On one of our evenings we took a walk along the beach at sunset, it was beautiful. And despite my moans about the island as a whole, it did certainly have beautiful bits. Lovely stretches of beach with rugged rock and palm trees, quaint little ports scattered with the locals' colourful fishing boats and plenty of friendly people.
***
Easy-breezy just doesn't seem to exist on Phu Quoc if you're a backpacker or traveller, unless you're staying at a fancy-shmancy resort that is, and I think that is where the issue lies.
We have been on a few islands now on our travels, and we had found them to be relaxed, easy places to be; with travellers and backpackers looking for a short break in their adventure. Some peace, some quiet and a coconut, enjoyed in paradise. But Phu Quoc, it just doesn't offer that. You can't just rock up on the beach, spread out your towel and snooze the afternoon away; and if you do, it isn't the paradise that it's described as, and do you know what, when you're travelling you embrace and look forward to the peaceful easy times in between the crazy times of travel, but also something that is important, which seems frank, but that's value for money - because you want every penny you spend to be worth it. You want to remember every experience, every taste, sight and sound. Ok, that is not entirely possible, but when you find yourself somewhere that seems to want to strip you of those pennies with the bare minimum in return, it makes you a little sad. But it's also a learning curve and it certainly makes you look forward to the next place and your next adventure... so always with a positive attitude we go on exploring this wonderful teacher that is this grand Oyster!
Onwards and upwards, and to Mui Ne we go!
No comments:
Post a Comment