Phu Quoc Island

Mike and I said our goodbyes to Sam, had one more night of cheap beer and plastic chairs, and then were off to Phu Quoc Island.  Phu Quoc is the largest island in Vietnam and a growing tourist destination.  On a map it's not that far away from Saigon, but land travel is notoriously slow; would you rather have a 40 minute plane ride or 10+ hour bus and ferry combo?  Considering we found a one-way ticket for all of $40, flying was a no-brainer.

Phu Quoc looks like it might be part of
Cambodia, but it's actually in Vietnam

On our "booze cruise" in Nha Trang we met three English backpackers, and they also happened to be traveling to Phu Quoc.  They had first taken a bus to the Mekong Delta, south of Saigon, to tour the famous floating river markets before heading to the island.  The day after Mike and I arrived they came by ferry, and although we weren't at the same hotel we all met up several times during our stay on the island.

From right, David, Grace, and Laura

I remember back during my Semester at Sea trip in 2008 a few students flew to Phu Quoc island, which seemed an off the beaten path destination at the time.  I'm sure there were some tourist facilities there, but a lot has changed in seven years.  A new airport opened in 2012, along with an international hospital in June of this year, and a casino is currently under construction.  I rented a motorbike to tour around the island and discovered a series of large construction projects south of town, one of which will be a giant Intercontinental Hotel.  The boom has improved living standards for many of the island's 100,000 residents, but I can't help but feel that the place is also losing its character.

I got the impression that the transformation is largely in its early stages; most accommodation is still small hotels or guest houses and the crowds of tourists were small.  It will be interesting to go back in another five or ten years to see what Phu Quoc has become.  I can see it going two ways: development is a "success" and the island starts to look more like a resort beach town in Thailand, or the bubble bursts and many of the investors (both private and state-backed) lose big time.  Only time will tell.

What the yet to be completed Inter-Continental will look like;
as of now the beach on that part of the island is only a few meters wide.

Here's a market in An Thoi, a secondary town but the main port on Phu Quoc

And this is supposedly what An Thoi will look like...when is beyond me.
Here's the site if you want to see for yourself.  I'm still not sure what
the planners are smoking.

While on Phu Quoc Mike and I stayed at a brand new hotel a few blocks from the beach.  It was less than $10 a person per night, and the place only had a dozen rooms so it was quiet.  David, Laura, and Grace, the backpackers we met in Nha Trang, were staying closer to the beach and less than a 10 minute walk from our place.  There was a restaurant right on the beach which we made our meeting place; the prices there were actually better than the seafood stalls at the market, and Mike must have averaged a pound of shrimp a day.  He was on what I like to call the shrimp and beer diet.

On two days we took organized tours, one being a general island tour and the second an afternoon / evening boat ride with dinner included.  The day tour took us to a pearl farm, the one winery on the island, a factory that produces fish sauce (Phu Quoc is famous for the stuff), and an old South Vietnamese prison where Communists were detained and tortured.  The pearl farm turned out to be showrooms where you are encouraged to buy jewelry; it had a small exhibit but it wasn't hard to see the reason why they wanted us to visit.  Our "tour" of the winery also had nothing informative about the production process, and basically all we saw was a store where we could buy souvenirs.

Oh how interesting!  Want to buy pearls?

At the fish sauce stop we actually did get to see giant vats where they produced and bottled it (in case anyone was interested there was a shop of course).  The prison was an interesting stop; as far as I could figure out not much remained of the old buildings and it was largely a re-creation.  It was hard to tell with the dearth of information about its history.  The exhibit did, however, spend much time discussing methods by which the evil American-backed regime (their words) tortured the heroic Communist prisoners, complete with illustrations and models of guards pulling out teeth, beating prisoners, and inflicting various other painful techniques.

part of the prison display; guards beating the prisoners

Fortunately most of the Vietnamese don't seem to take it so seriously 
(if you can't tell that's a real guy posing on top!)

The boat trip was a good way to relax and forget about the prison.  We set off in time to watch the sunset over the harbor, then went fishing for squid.  Those few squid that we did catch - I shouldn't say we, since I caught nothing - we cooked as part of our dinner.

Nightlife isn't so wild on Phu Quoc, but I guess with the small island scene you'd be in the mood more for a chill tropical bar.  We did go with Grace, Laura, and David to a place called Lion Garden Beer Club, which had just opened in February.  The Vietnamese tourists seemed to like it, but we quickly tired of the overpriced drinks and found a good spot across the road called Gecko Bar.  The bartender let Grace and Laura make drinks behind the bar and we chose the music.  Since we were over half the customers in the place I guess we got VIP treatment!

Drinking overpriced beers at Lion Garden

Twice we finished the night at a placed called the Pirate Cave, which was a basement bar / club that was supposed to resemble the inside of an old ship.  The place couldn't have held more than 50 people, which was a good thing considering there were only 20 to 25 when we went.  The first time, after Gecko Bar, Mike was just a bit intoxicated when he went to put his hand on a chair to steady himself.  The chair flew out from under him and he fell to the floor.  We picked him up, taking the cue that it was a good time to leave.

The Pirate Cave is in the basement of this unassuming building;
if you're driving fast you'll miss it!

People looked quite concerned and asked if he was okay.  I was surprised at their reactions - he got back up quickly and we were helping him up the stairs - until I saw the blood coming from his head.  Apparently Mike had nicked the corner of the table base and cut a solid gash in his head.  As it turns out Laura is a nurse back in England and she brought a first aid kit with her on the trip.  David ran back to the hotel to grab it and Laura used surgical glue to patch Mike up.  Mike was a bit disoriented, and we caused a minor scene outside the Pirates Cave, but Laura did a fine job and after a couple days' rest he was good as new - and I think he learned a good lesson!