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Day 35 - Phu Quoc island
Entry 36 of 243 | show all | print this entry |
Again we woke early (about 5 hrs earlier than we would get up on a Sunday back home !), had the buffet breakfast, which was better today as some pancakes & maple sauce materialised, mmmmm....
As was rather predictable I'm getting a bit bored of sitting down doing nothing all day, so I'm going on a walk up the beach to the other resorts later, while Katie tops up her tan. Again ;)
We had a couple of strong rainfalls yesterday, and both came in really quickly. One minute we were on the beach with sun shining, the next the wind really started blowing, which always seems to signal rain here. Sure enough as soon as we got inside it started chucking it down, and an hour later the sun was out again.
Same thing last night, we're eating sushi on the balcony of the restaurant when suddenly in rushes a waiter to say "rain coming, move please" and practically pushing us inside carrying our food ! Sure enough, a few seconds later it was tipping it down, and we had a nice wet walk/run back to the room.
No sign of rain yet today, so I'll probably go off to amuse myself, there are some golf driving nets here (only 7 iron, 9 iron & PW though, bit lame), some chipping baskets, some pool tables, a petanque pit, should be enough to keep me occupied anyway.
The afternoon produced one of the finest pool table performances of recent times.
The Islington Ice Man (this time wearing contact lenses) took on the Pride of Phu Quoc, who was desparate to avenge his narrow loss the day before...
The slightly porky Suffolk Legend took the initiative, roaring into a 4-0 lead, before the young hustler pulled one back. Fey san then produced some shots of great beauty to take an unassailable 8-1 lead. The watching ants could only wave their tiny limbs to applaud some a majestic performance, and the young pretender left the room a broken man.
Unfortunately he obviously went straight to the best pool player on the staff and told him to come and play me, because another challenger soon appeared, intent on reversing my fortunes.
(As you can see not much happened today, but I'm enjoying writing about pool, so I'll continue !)
This new guy was a bit tasty, taking a shock 2-0 lead against our ginger & grey haired hero... But back came the Bury Bruiser to level it at 2-2. This best of 9 match was going right to the wire.
The Vietnam Viper edged the fifth, spawned the sixth, and stood on the presipice of a sweet victory with 4-2 lead...
Somehow the (ex) Tie Rack Tornado fought back again, re-focussing and taking the match to it's inevitable sudden-death decider at 4-4.
The ants held their breath, the sun shone in a distracted manner, the wind stopped to watch the outcome of this titanic struggle. The East against the West. Vietnam against England. The 20s against the 30s. Lean against Fat. An epic battle on so many levels, who would be the champion ?!
Fey the Fearless broke off, his balabushka break sending balls flying everywhere, apart from in the pockets...
The Viper took advantage, knocking in a 4 ball break, but leaving a loose safety to let the Londoner in.
To and fro the battle raged, until a missed stripe gave Suffolk's finest his chance.
No mercy, bang bang, he shot him down, bang bang, he hit the ground, bang bang, that awful sound, bang bang....
So my domination of the pool table continued, but no doubt I'll be back tomorrow as this sitting-on-the-beach lark is doing my head in !
After my pool table exertions (Katie was somehow indifferent to my tales of glory on the green beize ?!), I talked my beautiful wife into playing me at chess.
They have this huge chess set by the beach, the pieces are all about 2 ft high ! It was a rather painful game (Katie hasn't played since school and had forgotten all the rules), but it was another tense thriller. I'll spare you the details this time ;)
We then went for a wander up the beach, to see the other resorts and maybe to find somewhere new for dinner tonight.
This island is officially one of the weirdest places I've ever been in my life.
As we walked up the beach we passed a number of resorts & hotels which were in a state of total disrepair. Roofs had been blown off (presumably), walls had fallen over, beach chairs were chipped or rusting... yet we're only 3 weeks away from peak season, and all of the resorts have doubled their prices from 1st October ?!
Maybe all the owners repair all the problems before the high (dry) season, and then just leave them to rot in the off/rainy season ?! It's very weird.
Phu Quoc is neither a 'resort' island, or a 'natural' island. It somehow manages to be both, and neither. The crumbling buildings are interspersed with wood & metal shacks inhabited with very poor islanders, which are literally next door to 4 star resorts.
The beaches have no-one on them, yet they're lovely. The water is warm and the waves are good, yet there's no-one to swim or surf. People have clearly spent money here in the past, yet as the rest of the country goes into Tourist Overdrive, Phu Quoc does nothing, not even repairing the damage from the season before ?
There are signs of re-building, but the workers are more likely to sit around smoking and talking than actually working, it's bizarre.
After a 2 hr walk and a fantastically brief but strong shower, we got back to our resort, thoroughly confused at what we'd seen. It was like a ghost town, as if the locals had deserted the place years ago, leaving full bottles of spirits in a beach bar that had no roof ?! Leaving uncovered pool tables which were getting covered in rain due to the holes above them ?!
Very, very strange.
So we got back to our resort, happy that we appeared to be in the nicest (but also cheapest ?!) location, and settled into some beach chairs to kill some time before dinner.
We watched another stunning sunset, and grabbed a bit of well-deserved sleep after all our exertions.
I REALLY wanted to watch the Premier league football games, and Katie was tired, so we decided to order room service for the first time.
Sadly none of the channels had the football, so we watched a TERRIBLE Keanu/Bullock movie called The Lake House, which is probably the worst waste of celluloid that it's ever been my misfortune to watch. Of course Katie wouldn't let me find anything else, but even she admitted it was awful, she just didn't want to miss the end !
The only other thing on was South Africa v Fiji rugby on the French channel (has it come to this ?!), which I watched sporadically before the film started. The Springboks flirted with embarrassment but ultimately squeezed past the pacific islanders, who probably only have about 30 people who play rugby anyway ?!
South Africa appear to have a nice easy route to the final, against Argentina, that rugby collusus... See you in the final Rui ! ;)
England v France should be an incredible game, I can't wait. I just have a HORRIBLE feeling that it's being played on the day of Milly's wedding... as is our Euro football qualifier against Estonia I think ?! Grrrrrrrrrrreat.
It was great to have another nice chilled day after our recent journeys, so we have one last full day tomorrow before flying back to HCMC and then on to Hong Kong, for our low-cost flight back to London, and Milly's wedding.
Great to see that the Mighty Reds managed to scrape a late equaliser in injury time at home against Spurs, what the hell is going on Rafa ?! Gooners & Mancs & Chelski all winning, as expected, so we need to sort our lives out, like H in the Fantasy League ;)
lots of love,
Al & Katie xx
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