Leaving Phu Quoc

Trip Start Dec 25, 2008
1
18
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Trip End Feb 06, 2009


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Where I stayed
Viet Thanh
(Kep hotels)

Flag of Vietnam  ,
Saturday, January 24, 2009

Diving yesterday with Rainbow Divers up near the north end of Phu Quoc was pretty good. Visibility on the first dive and part of the second wasn't so great, but there was plenty to see. Like in Koh Chang and (so we've been told) in Sihanoukville, the diving here is mostly about seeing corals and lots of small fish. The second dive (at Nudibranch Gardens) was definitely the better of the two with huge boulder formations scattering the sea floor, and everything covered in corals. Plenty of nudibranches to be seen (photos to come) as well as a plethora of worms, small fish and other critters.

Today we've had our last beach day, as tomorrow we're off to Can Tho. Monday is the first day of the Chinese New Year, and evidently nothing runs, so we can't leave then. We've decided that seeing more of the Mekong delta is more interesting than two more island days, so that's that.

Our guesthouse has fixed boat (Superdong, 2 1/2 hours, 250000 VND) and minibus (Malinh Express, 3 hours, 55000VND) tickets for us, so we're sorted to go straight from here to Can Tho. We should be there by 8pm (boat leaves at 1, bus leaves at 5), so hopefully it won't be too hard to find somewhere to stay. We're getting a moto from here to the docks for 50000 VND each, so it turns out that we actually got a good deal for transport when we arrived here, which is a surprise.

Phu Quoc is a strange little island. In some ways it's like Koh Samui, Koh Phangan or Koh Tao in Thailand - there are lots of resorts and they are 'expensive' (everything is relative), all the services exist (diving, snorkelling, fishing, treking trips), the sunsets are gorgeous, dinner at a beach restaurant is great and the locals are really friendly. But in other ways they are bit behind - the bungalows are expensive for the standard (for the same price you can live better in Thailand), and the infrastructure is still very undeveloped (the main road here is dirt for the last 2km from town, there are only 2 ways that we could see to get from the dock to here etc...). I'm sure that a lot of the pricing at the moment is because of Tet, we don't really know how much it normally costs. It feels like we've arrived after the first, adventurous travellers have discovered it and moved on, but before it is fully developed as a destination. Little strange and quite hard to put into words, but it doesn't really feel like any other place we've been.

Still, it is a lovely island, and this is definitely the best balcony we've ever had :)

We'll load up some pictures when we get somewhere with a faster connection (hopefully Can Tho).
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