Sweet and Sour Phu Quoc

In Rach Gia (not to be confused with the pic of Phu Quoc to the left)I was introduced to my first taste of delicious Pho’. Pho’ is the popular soup in Vietnam that is little more than some rice noodles, bits of beef and greens, water and oil… but, they must spice it right with something because 9 times out of 10 it’s delicious. The woman at my guesthouse in Vietnam was exceptionally helpful and pleasant, telling me what is the proper amount to pay for a moto around town (versus the ridiculously inflated prices tourist hounds try to get away with) and where to find internet access. I was on my own, but I was expecting a friend soon and the guesthouse staff was friendly, so I felt relatively good. On my late night walk home though from the inet café to my guesthouse though, I got lost. I asked several people how to get to the street listed on the business card I had and they all pointed vaguely in various directions. Okay…. Finally some women seemed to know where I needed to go. They insisted on taking me on their moto… gesturing that it was dangerous to be walking around that late by myself. I paid them about the equivalent of 63 cents for a moto ride and I arrived safely at my guesthouse. I slept easy knowing Massimo would be coming the next day and I would again have a travel partner.

The next morning I was late getting to the bus station to meet Massimo. But, that didn’t matter. Apparently, his bus arrived 3 hours ahead of time (at 4 am instead of 7 am). So he had been waiting since the wee hours of the morning. I felt so bad! He even got kicked out of a café when he started dozing off… how rude! (I’ve come to find the Vietnamese – on the tourist trail anyways – are often rude.) Some moto drivers said they remembered him arriving and helped me look for Massimo. When he returned to the bus station they brought him to my guesthouse… what an ordeal! (I’ve since come to find that most things are a big ordeal in Vietnam). So, Massimo had a nice doze in my room while I went out for breakfast and to use the internet. When I came back it was time rouse Massimo and head to the dock so we could board our boat that would be heading to Phu Quoc Island. Or so I thought… The way I understood it, we supposed to be on board by noon. Turns out, we didn’t depart until 1:30 pm.

We arrived on Phu Quoc late in the afternoon… and of course, we were flooded with offers for private taxis, minibuses and motos to the most popular beach on the island – Long Beach. Massimo and I opted for a moto taxi for just under $2 each. The moto drivers helped us find a nice, cheap, but clean bungalow to share at the very end of Long Beach. I would say it was beachfront, you could look out and see the ocean from our bungalow, but there was about 50 yards of sand that was piled up in most places for construction and an unfinished wooden dock bridge. So, to get to the beach, we had to walk along this skinny concrete wall of sorts that wound around the construction site and through some tropical, swampy marshes. Then we reached a dirt gravel road. Just a few yards to the end of the road and we were on the white sand beach with postcard-perfect palm trees giving way to a dark tropical blue ocean. There was a fancy resort just behind this part of the beach with a pond full of big, bright green lily pads sprouting brilliant pink blossoms. Breathtaking and gorgeous. A woman in a neighboring bungalow had clued us in to some cheap, but delicious places to eat, so we wandered down the beach in search of one of these places for dinner. While we were wandering we came across some really kitschy and tacky sculpture things just kind of haphazardly strewn on the beach in front of one resort… pacchiano… as Massimo would say. But, then, around another bend, we discovered a random collection of boulders just as haphazardly strewn about the beach and the shallow waters. These were rugged and beautiful… not kitschy or tacky. We found one of the recommended places for dinner right along the beach and marveled at how lucky/blessed we were to be in such a beautiful place.

The next morning we slept in late, had a late breakfast where we discovered the strong, slightly bitter, but addictive Vietnamese coffee, walked the beach, hopped online for a bit, explored further down the beach and into town… and eventually booked a snorkeling trip for the next day. We realized Phu Quoc is less of a backpacker destination and more of a wealthy Europeaner destination. Things were geared more toward the high end. Internet access on the beach was outrageously expensive. In town, you could get internet for free at an ice cream shop. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Buy ice cream, get ice cream and internet. Yeah! Even though the place seemed a bit “La Ti Da” it wasn’t too hard finding the cheaper alternatives. It was hard finding an working ATM though. Of course, the big resort waaaaaay at the other end of the looooong Long Beach had a working one. On the walk back to our bungalow in the evening, I was such the little child. I kept chasing the crabs with my flashlight, sending them in a skittering frenzy, yelping and giggling every time they skittered near, even on, my feet. I couldn’t stop giggling. I loved the little crab game!

(That little froggy hung out in our bungalow - is he a frog or actually some other amphibian?- once he even surprised me when he was underneath the toilet seat!) The next day we had to get up early for our snorkeling adventure. We grabbed a quick breakfast then headed to the beachside booking hut. They took us to a minibus from there, which drove us to the docks at the southern tip of the Island. Then we boarded our boat for our snorkeling adventure! This was a first for me! I have snorkeled at Discovery Cove (an offshoot of Sea World in Orlando, FL)… but, I had never snorkeled in the ocean. I was excited! The guides on our boat were neither rude or friendly… just there to do a job and go home it seemed. Massimo has been snorkeling in the Maldives and said the snorkeling off Phu Quoc couldn’t compare to the Maldives but it was good enough. For me, a first-timer… it was magical! It is such an entirely different world underwater! So many colors. Pinks, purples, greens, mauves, yellows, oranges, lava reds! So much coral, so many fish! All kinds of different shapes and patterns… everything moving with a gentle sway… a subtle echo of the stronger waves rolling above the surface. I loved holding my breath so I could plunge down and twist and glide between the gullies of coral-covered rocks underwater, so that the coral seemed to loom above me from all angles. The fish always stayed just out of reach… every part of their body sensing your movements. If you “waved” at the coral… disturbing the water closest to it… it would quickly retreat into its… well, I don’t know what you call it… shell tube thing? We dove at three spots off three of the smaller islands that trail off the tip of Phu Quoc Island. We also had lunch on the boat, which included some delicious fish and not so delicious Dalat wine. Dalat is a city in the mountainous central highlands of Vietnam. The city is beautiful… the wine is terrible. More on the city later.

Our guides rounded out our snorkeling trip with a visit to one of the smaller beaches on Phu Quoc with darker sand and rougher waters. I took a nice long swim into those dark waters. That evening I trailed behind Massimo on the walk home down the beach. I sat on a lounge chair for a while just taking in the mysterious ocean that stretched before me in the darkness. I watched the stars slowly emerge from their hiding places. I recognized the stars this time. Same ones as in the Cambodian sky. Huh… go figure (hope you caught the sarcasm there – I’m not that dumb. But then again, when I think of how the early travelers navigated by the stars, it makes me feel really dumb.)

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the sound of waves breaking on the shore and the feel of digging your toes into cool sand. When I finally started making my way slowly back I paused at the bend with the boulders. The sound of the waves lapping up, and sometimes crashing, against them was different than the sound of waves breaking on shore. I just closed my eyes and listened. Then I opened and watched. The boulders looked like sleek, black marble in the moonlight. The water looked like melted silver mixed with melted onyx. Finally, I tore myself away and continued on toward the bungalow. As I approached the narrow concrete walkway, I could hear the chorus: bullfrogs, crickets, cicadas and all sorts of other amphibians and insects breaking out in concert. It was so loud. You couldn’t even hear yourself breathing. It was incredible. Again, I just stopped… and listened. Now, that is natural surround sound. I can’t describe how incredible it was… and surprising. Massimo and I had walked through that swampy marsh at least four or five times before… and not once had there been such a chorus. When I got back to the bungalow I asked Massimo if he had heard the concerto. He had and he was as delighted as I was. The day was a true treasure.

Massimo and I planned to leave the island the next day. We tried to hire moto drivers to take us to the boats… but they wanted to charge us insanely inflated prices because they knew we wanted to rush to make it to the boat on time. We’re not really talking that much money… a little less than $10 each. But, we knew we came for less than $2 each, so they were wanting to charge us 5 times the already touristy price. We were in a rush, but we were appalled by their greediness, so we opted to set off walking in search of other moto drivers. It took us a while before we flagged down a local woman who then flagged down another young man who took us both on his moto (so yes, that means three people balancing on one moto… not uncommon… especially in Cambodia, though Vietnam has laws against it.) Neither of them understood “boats” though, so I looked in the trusty Lonely Planet for the name of the town of the port… and pointed it out to our moto driver. He nodded that he understood and we settled for paying him a little more than $3 for both of us on his one bike. Well into the ride, I began wondering if we were going to the right place. The trip seemed quite a bit longer than last time. Then, just outside of our destination a friend of our driver met up to take one of us on his bike. He spoke English well enough and asked why we were headed to the south. We explained that we were hoping to catch a boat back to the mainland, but that we realized we were now too late. He informed us, that not only were we late, but we were miles away from where we should be… apparently, the port where the boats arrived had changed a few years ago. It wouldn’t be the first time the “trusty” Lonely Planet would steer me wrong. We had no option left but to grab a guesthouse in the wrong part of the island for the night (with no beautiful postcard-perfect beaches mind you) and try again the next day. The guesthouse the moto driver took us to gave us an overpriced, shady room. But whatev, it was one night. He also told us that the all the boats leaving the next day were full… but, if we paid him extra, he could use his “connections” and get us tickets. Geez, these people never cease to try to scam! We said “yeah sure fine”… but as soon as he left we went in search of a travel agency to find our own boat ticket. The first one we went to also said the boats were full, but the second one had open seats for the right price. We finally had our tickets! Now if we could just get to the boat…

In the meantime, we wandered around the dirty port town in search of dinner. Two girls came rushing toward us asking us, no telling us rather, that we wanted to eat. We actually did… so we let them lead us to some random tables and chairs and seat us. They then promptly supplied us with a menu. The odd thing was… there were no prices listed (hello, that should have been a red flag). Naturally, we chose something we were interested in and asked for the prices. They quoted 15,000 dong (about $1, the standard and reasonable price for Vietnam) so we said, “Yeah, that sounds right. Okay. Sure.” So, the next weird thing: we order and they walk off out of site to get our food. It took them a while… in the meantime, their friend chatted us up all friendly… and finally they returned with our food. It looked good. It tasted good. All was good… until they demanded 50,000 dong (about $4.50). Okay, $4.50 is not a lot… but it’s still 4 ½ times the standard price, which they quoted. They claimed we misunderstood them. At this point I was getting rather angry. Every freaking person wanted to swindle us. I don’t care if we’re Westerners and we have more money (which, hello, backpackers like us DON’T have a lot of money. It’s why we travel in SE Asia… cause it’s cheap and we can only afford cheap!) . I don’t care if it’s 4 freaking dollars. When people are constantly trying to fool you, trick you, rob you… it puts a real sour taste in your mouth. And when everyone does it… it adds up fast. Right in front of us too, the girls paid for the food and pocketed their kickback. To be honest, I was beginning to like Asian culture less and less. The people seemed untrustworthy and their method of business turned you into a stingy scrooge even when you aren’t one by nature… but in any case… Welcome to Vietnam. Phu Quoc Island has its magic, but the locals we dealt with seemed to have a way of making us forget that at times. As it turns out, most of Vietnam is that way…. very bitter sweet.

The next morning Massimo and I made it to our boat…