A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
To provide a little background information, Phu Quoc is just a few miles off the Cambodian coast in the Gulf of Thailand. It is shaped like an upside-down teardrop and is about 30 miles long. According to the Lonely Planet guidebook, it is disputed territory between Cambodia and Vietnam, but since possession is 9/10th, as they say, the presence of a sizable Vietnamese military base at the north end of the island would seem to tip the scale in Vietnam's direction.

Most of the tourist activity is on the west side of the island, where the airport, main town, and the longest beach (and I mean long -- it must be at least 15 miles) are located. As I mentioned previously, it is still quite undeveloped. There are really only a handful of "resorts" on Long Beach, and they are very small scale apart from the monstrosity being built by the government. None except the government resort has a pool, for example -- they are basically just bungalows, some motel-style rooms, beautiful beach with umbrellas and a large open air dining area.

For the first two nights we stayed in a bungalow at one of these Long Beach resorts, doing basically nothing: walking down the beach, eating fresh seafood, reading novels under the beach umbrellas and going swimming every hour or so. It was really rough, as you can imagine. Sometimes I had to exert myself to reapply the sunscreen or get something to drink.

My second two days were decidedly more adventurous. We moved to a new location, a tiny jungle bungalow resort a few miles north of Duong Dong, the main town. They came to pick us up on motorbikes, as usual. The first bit of the drive was smooth sailing, as the communists have conveniently paved the stretch between airport and the new government resort (located close to the Kim Hoa where we were staying). Just past the airport the road transitioned into the well-graded, mostly well-drained clay and gravel road which mostly runs the length of the island. About 5 miles north of Duong Dong we turned off onto an inferior dirt road, which in turn became a bone-jarring, rocky dirt track fit for neither man nor beast, though admittedly there were a fair number of cows, chickens and pigs milling about.

The resort itself reminded me of going to camp Zanika Lache as a 10 year old Camp Fire Girl. Maybe 10 or 12 small bungalows (we each had our own -- quite a change from Zanika Lache), a large open-air eating area under a huge thatched roof, and a walk down a short hill to the beach. Coconut palms and other tropical plants everywhere, and each of the bungalows was made of woven palm fronds, bamboo, and a thatched roof. Oh, and we had plenty of mosquitoes, too. I knew there was another reason it reminded me of Camp Fire Girl camp. We only had electricity from about 6:30 - 10:30 pm, so all the guests would hang out in the dining room eating, chatting, reading etc. It was really great -- beautiful setting, friendly and interesting guests and staff, and fabulous food all in the middle of nowhere.

More on my adventures in Phu Quoc later today -- I think this may be getting boring anyway.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:08 PM