Phu Quoc Island

Trip Start Nov 16, 2007
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Trip End Jan 14, 2008


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Friday, November 30, 2007

Phu Quoc is an island off the SW corner of  Viet Nam, not far from the Cambodian coast, in the gulf of Thailand. Not much to do, but unspoiled, uncrowded, and supposed to be good diving. It was nice to chill for a few days. Turned out to be a little cooler than expected - we didn't swim a lot, but hung out on the beach and enjoyed the sun. We had fun exploring some local restaurants and the market in the small town, walked up and down the beach at night, sat barefoot in the sand at beachfront restaurants, etc. We went diving once - not great by our relatively high standards, water was pretty murky and somewhat overfished. We enjoyed it nevertheless, boat ride was very smooth and we did see some nice, healthy, colorful corals, nudibranch, and anemonies in shallow water.
We rented a scooter and spent one day exploring the island with its very dusty, red roads (wore our masks from Japan), small fishing villages, some of which see few tourists, cute kids, and big baskets they use for boats Relaxing on the beach
Relaxing on the beach
 . Unfortunately on our 2nd day we had a mishap in the small town, an accident with our scooter. Traffic wasn't bad by Viet Nam standards, but somehow two motorbikes ahead of us stopped, which they almost never seem to do in that country, and we didn't see it in time. Bernd squeezed the hand brakes hard (probably braked too hard with the right hand which controled the front brake), and ended up sliding and crashing the bike onto the left side. Fortunately it could have been a lot worse ... nothing major, no broken bones, but we got badly scraped up in quite a few places and bruised, including Bernd's ego. Interestingly / fortunately every major hotel in Viet Nam seems to keep a nurse and sometimes even a doctor on staff. The nurse in Phu Quoc and later those in subsequent hotels cleaned us up and badaged the wounds - all at no charge to us. We were pretty lucky, all things considered.
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