Good morning Vietnam!

As I mentioned in our last post, we took quite a while to get to Phu Quoc which some argue is the best beach in Vietnam (others say Mui Ne - we have both on our agenda so will cast a deciding vote).  We arrived on the end of a LONG pier that had to just out into the bay about 1/2 a mile.  I didn't realize it when we picked up our bags so I picked up my day pack which is loaded with the electronics and enough clothes and stuff for a few days (I generally live out of that one), my big pack (which actually weighs less than the day pack at 14Kgs according to the airport scales) and Jen's packs which she's jammed full of stuff she's bought since we shipped home a bunch of stuff from Laos!  The pier is only about 6' wide and you had to dodge motorcycles and their trailers going in both directions as you walked.  By the time I got to the end of the pier, I was pooped - especially as it was nearly 40 degrees and sunny.

I should mention that we still haven't seen rain in the day since we've left Singapore and even that was a 30 minute deluge twice during our 7 days there.

Anyway, we finally got to the end of the pier (Jen, Shawn and Rachel raced down like they were headed for their last meal)... I plodded along behind thongs of tourists and locals carrying everything from fresh caught fish to chickens.  Then it was into a little minivan with a bunch of other tourists for the ride across the island to Long Beach on the other side (west side... we arrived on the east).  The town itself (Duong Dong) was pretty small and we just raced through it to drop off the rest of our minivan at local guest houses.  Nothing there that made us want to head back at night to see it.

Our hotel (well... we hadn't booked it but Jen had done some research and it seemed reasonable so we wanted to check it out) was about 3kms south of town and about 1/4 mile from the beach.  The places on the beach have already started to hit North American prices but our place was quite reasonable and had air and wifi which is more or less our daily average these days.  After being off the grid in Rabbit Island without even a fan, the air was nice.

We dropped off our packs and headed down to take a look at the beach.  WOW.  Its about 15kms of nice white sand.  No waves to speak of, no jelly fish, rocks or anything.  It reminded me of Long Beach on Phuket but without the 10000 Russians.  We found this little place called Amigos that was run by a couple of Aussies and used their deck chairs/lounges for the days we were there in exchange for drinks and lunches.  The place had changed owners in the last 2 days so we got to know both sets of owners.  The new ones were retiring Aussies looking to stay in Vietnam.  They'd just finished travelling for 4 months looking for a place like this and settled on Phu Quoc.  (Philippines, Bali, Thailand, and all of Vietnam).  Things were looking good for Phu Quoc!

We stayed there for 4 days before we felt we needed to move along as April 5th, the day we fly out of Hanoi for Paris is fast approaching.  We're down to under a month in Vietnam now.

Our beach in Phu Quoc right in front of Amigos

Looking south.  That point is just a rock outcropping... it goes on for another 12kms after that!

See what I mean?

A little jetty we ran into on this side... wasn't much narrower than the one we came in!

Now double the width, make it a half mile long and throw in motorbikes, trailers and backpackers/tourists in both directions and that's what the ferry jetty was like.

Most nights we'd have dinner right on the beach a few places down from Amigos.  They had a seafood deal that was to die for.  A huge Tiger Prawn, Squid, Crab, Tuna Filet and 4 scallop like clams grilled on a barbecue right there on the beach with a beer for $7.  Life doesn't get any better than that!

A table on the beach anyone?  That's a light above the table

Deciding upon our many choices

Shawn has discovered Iced lemon drinks

Sea food makes me happy.  I stayed away from the Tuna the first night... and got a second prawn.  I tried it later... was good but I'd rather have the second prawn.

And the kids attracted two puppies to provide out entertainment

We quite loved Phu Quoc and found 4 days wasn't enough for us but had to move on.  It is unfortunate that we did it at the start of Vietnam (and in what I still consider to be part of Cambodia) as I'm worried it is going to spoil us for the rest of it.