1st to 4th of November 2015
The island is located West from HCMC and positioned in front of Cambodia. Maybe one of the most famous beach island destination of Vietnam.
There were two solutions to reach it: boat which takes several hours or plane for less than an hour. We chose the second one as the price of the tickets was quite affordable and it also allowed us to do our flight connection back to China.
Here we go:
We arrived at Phu Quoc airport from where a car was waiting to drop us at the hotel. As soon as we checked in, the first thoughts were beach, swimming pool, beer... so we did.
The island is not a famous party destination, not at all actually. There are only few bars and some restaurants. It is mostly a vacation destination to relax on the beach or near the swimming pool for locals but also for Russians (... Russians are everywhere... :) ).
Before arriving I have checked if there were diving spots on the island and BINGO! there were some! Unfortunately the boombing during Vietnam war has destroyed a lot of the underwater corals and beauty, and the comments on Internet were not exceptional. Well as I am in love with this activity, this wouldn't stopped me to dive and this time I had a second reason: a Chinese colleague of mine (who is a bigger fan of diving than me) gave me his almost professional diving camera so there was no way I was not diving and not taking pictures :). My challenge in the afternoon was to find a diving shop so I can go for my favorite activity. Quite easy actually: I found one and booked the trip for the next day :)
In the night, we went for a dinner at the night market which was maybe 10-15min walking away from our hotel. It is a famous market on the island (and the main one of the city) where you can eat fresh sea food. It looked actually like a huge cantine where a lot of people or maybe 90% of the tourists were eating.
To be honest even if I am not the biggest fan of this kind of food (even not at all) I ate and it was really delicious! It is mainly a grilled sea food. The Vietnamese cuisine uses a lot sauces which are really good and quite famous because we can even find in the big supermarkets abroad. On Phu Quoc every grilled food was served with something very simple but which was giving to the food an amazing taste: a small plate of salt, paper, some spices mixed with lime juice, in which you needed to drop every piece of food you were getting in your mouth...
There were two solutions to reach it: boat which takes several hours or plane for less than an hour. We chose the second one as the price of the tickets was quite affordable and it also allowed us to do our flight connection back to China.
Here we go:
We arrived at Phu Quoc airport from where a car was waiting to drop us at the hotel. As soon as we checked in, the first thoughts were beach, swimming pool, beer... so we did.
The island is not a famous party destination, not at all actually. There are only few bars and some restaurants. It is mostly a vacation destination to relax on the beach or near the swimming pool for locals but also for Russians (... Russians are everywhere... :) ).
Before arriving I have checked if there were diving spots on the island and BINGO! there were some! Unfortunately the boombing during Vietnam war has destroyed a lot of the underwater corals and beauty, and the comments on Internet were not exceptional. Well as I am in love with this activity, this wouldn't stopped me to dive and this time I had a second reason: a Chinese colleague of mine (who is a bigger fan of diving than me) gave me his almost professional diving camera so there was no way I was not diving and not taking pictures :). My challenge in the afternoon was to find a diving shop so I can go for my favorite activity. Quite easy actually: I found one and booked the trip for the next day :)
In the night, we went for a dinner at the night market which was maybe 10-15min walking away from our hotel. It is a famous market on the island (and the main one of the city) where you can eat fresh sea food. It looked actually like a huge cantine where a lot of people or maybe 90% of the tourists were eating.
To be honest even if I am not the biggest fan of this kind of food (even not at all) I ate and it was really delicious! It is mainly a grilled sea food. The Vietnamese cuisine uses a lot sauces which are really good and quite famous because we can even find in the big supermarkets abroad. On Phu Quoc every grilled food was served with something very simple but which was giving to the food an amazing taste: a small plate of salt, paper, some spices mixed with lime juice, in which you needed to drop every piece of food you were getting in your mouth...
2nd of November:
Diving Day has arrived ! :) It has not been such a long time I have been diving lately but every time the excitement to go underwater and swim next to the fishes is huge. We were a small group of divers so basically everyone has one diving master to go underwater. I had a British guy who was also an underwater photo amateur and he told me that we can go together slowly and take our time to take pictures: this is what I was looking for ! :)
Well indeed, the underwater world was not as diverses as I used to see it in other parts in Asia but it was still a nice dive.
In the night while looking for something different from the night market, we realized that we didn't have a lot of options and we finished again there... which wasn't such a bad thing :).
3rd of November:
The last full day we had on the island. The four of us have booked a boat trip around the island where we could go for snorkeling and see some nice spots. Well here again we have lost an hour before reaching the boat as the company had again agreements with local shops ... the only bad points. What it is funny is that now companies like those have understood that tourist don't want to go for shopping but enjoy the activity they have paid for... so there are special offers, more expensive, which precise that there are not shopping stops (again a good way to make money :) ).
The tour we had was including a lunch, several snorkeling stops and 100% of Russian tourists :).
Thanks to this trip I managed to see that there is still some preserved places. However, I didn't see corals which is a bit sad.
In the late afternoon, we came back to the hotel and spend the rest of the day on the beach playing volley ball and swimming.
The next morning with my ex we left to the airport à went back to China.
Diving Day has arrived ! :) It has not been such a long time I have been diving lately but every time the excitement to go underwater and swim next to the fishes is huge. We were a small group of divers so basically everyone has one diving master to go underwater. I had a British guy who was also an underwater photo amateur and he told me that we can go together slowly and take our time to take pictures: this is what I was looking for ! :)
Well indeed, the underwater world was not as diverses as I used to see it in other parts in Asia but it was still a nice dive.
In the night while looking for something different from the night market, we realized that we didn't have a lot of options and we finished again there... which wasn't such a bad thing :).
3rd of November:
The last full day we had on the island. The four of us have booked a boat trip around the island where we could go for snorkeling and see some nice spots. Well here again we have lost an hour before reaching the boat as the company had again agreements with local shops ... the only bad points. What it is funny is that now companies like those have understood that tourist don't want to go for shopping but enjoy the activity they have paid for... so there are special offers, more expensive, which precise that there are not shopping stops (again a good way to make money :) ).
The tour we had was including a lunch, several snorkeling stops and 100% of Russian tourists :).
Thanks to this trip I managed to see that there is still some preserved places. However, I didn't see corals which is a bit sad.
In the late afternoon, we came back to the hotel and spend the rest of the day on the beach playing volley ball and swimming.
The next morning with my ex we left to the airport à went back to China.
In conclusion, I loved this small trip to Vietnam, their food and I know I will be back. It was also lovely meeting Velizar and Bianca.
My only regret was not visiting the war tunnels which allowed to the Vietnamese army to win the war agains the Americans.
My only regret was not visiting the war tunnels which allowed to the Vietnamese army to win the war agains the Americans.