Phu Quoc Island

Taking a tip from an American we met up the coast in Nha Trang, we booked some cheap flights with Vietnam Airlines to Phu Quoc Island, which is in the Gulf of Thailand, off the west coast of the Mekong Delta.

It's a stunning place, and we managed to get a hut with the view below...



Not bad for $15 a night eh? And the building you can see just on the left is the bar!

It's a stunning island and even I enjoyed spending time on the beach. There were some other Brits, Tom, Andrea and Choung staying in the huts either side of us, who we spent a lot of time hanging out with, sitting in the bar and playing pool. They even convinced us into hiring a 100 cc Honda scooter, which after 5 minutes instruction by the guy hiring it (throttle, gears, brakes, ok off you go!) we got to the other side of the island and an even more secluded beach. I actually enjoyed running around on the scooter, although at times the 'roads' were in such a state I can sympathise with what Ewan McGregor had to deal with in 'Long Way Round'. We did get a sickly scooter though, that left us stranded on the top of a hill, whilst the other three zoomed off into the distance! Luckily Vietnamese people are really friendly and a passing scooter came to our rescue.

I'm really sad that we had to leave. We tried to extend our stay, but we'd already booked a tour into the Mekong Delta and then a speedboat into Cambodia and the booking office wouldn't let us change it over the phone... So it's hello HCMC again for one night and then we're off deep into the Delta and 75 clicks above the Du Lung Bridge*

*Quote from Apocalypse Now - it's Cambodia...

Some Stats

Number of Km's on the Scooter - 60 (approx)
Number of times broke down - 4