Phu Quoc Island:

February 24th, 2005 - February 27th, 2005

Greetings from Phu Quoc Island...

We are currently on the southwestern-most tip of Vietnam near to the south coast of Cambodia. In fact, this island is so close to Cambodia that the Cambodians claim the island; however, Vietnam being the mightier nation, have set up military bases around the island and thus it belongs to them!

Getting to the island was not going to be easy - we opted to go by air versus boat, bus, boat. Unfortunately, Vietnam Airlines is anything but hassle free.

We had booked our tickets about a week ago at the Vietnam Airlines head office in Lao. Nothing was mentioned with regards to reconfirming tickets.

When we showed up at the airport on Thursday it was a disaster. We were told our reservation had been cancelled and that the flight was now full and we were not going to be able to fly until Friday. We raised quite the stink - along with a few other people who were finding out this policy at the airport! Finally, with 30 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave, they gave us two seats of people who were late to show up and check-in. In the end what was right was right, but we found out that they also cancelled our return reservation (even though it was more than 72 hours away)...

The earliest we could get back was Monday, but that was going to be a big problem in setting us back from the start of our bus journey to the north. So, we took a "confirmed" reservation for a flight back on Monday, but were told we had to re-confirm when we landed at Phu Quoc!!!

The landing to Phu Quoc was one of the craziest we have ever experienced. Our turbo prop plane made a sharp 90-degree turn across the island. Once over the runway it started a controlled spiral to descend to the airport. It was the weirdest landing ever. It worked out, but was not fun on the way down...

The staff at the airport could not help us sort our tickets because their computers were down so we had to come back into town later and go to the head office to figure that out. In the interim, we went with a driver to Tropicana Resort, which was recommended in the book.

That didn't prove to be too much fun, either, as we were told they had cheap rooms but at the resort they said they only had expensive rooms! We were warned about this situation. We held firm and in the end I allowed the owner a way to save face (this is important here) and we ended up with a cheap room despite being told there were none available...

Phu Quoc Island is very undeveloped and that suits us perfectly. We are located right on a white sand beach and there are hardly any people around to bother us (like in India and Thailand). It is not a place to be if you want partying and nightlife as you really are getting away from it all.

Unfortunately, I spent the rest of the day trying to sort out our plane ticket. I confirmed our new reservation for the Monday and got us wait listed for all the flights on the Sunday.

Back at the resort I was stopped by a local who sounded like he was half Italian. Turns out he is known as "The Godfather" ... his name is Tony and he is actually mentioned in the Lonely Planet book and described as such! His voice really sounds like a mafia don. Anyway, the book said that it was likely Tony "would find you" and he did - he is a local guide who proved to be most helpful. He put in a few calls and next thing we knew, we had a flight back on the Sunday! That's just how things work here in a less than "on the level" country.

In return to Tony, we agreed to sign up for a boat / snorkeling tour he was running today. It turned out to be a blast. We went on a big fishing boat with about 12 other people and spend the day around the islands south of Phu Quoc. We got to snorkel and two sites, both empty of other boats and people. The reefs were beautiful and plentiful. The water was also crystal clear.

On the way, we purchased some fresh fish and squid from local fishermen who were on the water. Talk about fresh - one squid was still squirting ink when a guy on our boat ate it. I didn't eat the head and Jess tried, but ended up just eating the "good parts" or what we are used to when ordering calamari.

Aside from relaxing and being lazy, we rented bikes the other day and drove around the dirt roads to get to town. Town is really local and there are not any foreigners about - in fact, people were looking at us with a bit of shock as we biked on our Japanese style bikes, dinging our bells as we drove through town!

That's about it for our fun in the sun. We are off to Saigon in the morning and will spend the night there before starting our hop-on-hop-off bus tour over the next 2-3 weeks to Hanoi in the north.

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