The island of Phu Quoc

I have just returned from a week spent on an enchanting island with sunshine filled days, great people, and scrumptious squid. After leaving Saigon, I boarded a plane headed for the island of Phu Quoc located in the Gulf of Thailand, to the west of the Vietnamese mainland. I left bright and early and so arrived with a full day ahead of me. After looking around, I found a perfect bungalow placed right on the beach with a hammock-filled balcony and a mosquito-netted bed overlooking the waves. I promptly found myself a beach chair and barely moved from there the entire day. Throughout that first day I was constantly being stalked by a group of well meaning massage ladies, "You want massage? You want manicure, pedicure, threading?". It was a veritable spa on the beach and with prices all under $4 it was hard to say no. I assented to getting a massage and having my legs threaded. For those of you unfamiliar with threading it is one of the more painful ways of having hair removed. Similar to waxing in the sense that it removes hair from the roots, the hair is removed by the use of string wrapped tightly around and then dragged across your hair to be pulled out. Not a pleasant sensation by any stretch of the imagination. At the appointed time, I was met on the beach by a gaggle of women, instructed to lay down on my stomach, and then before I knew it 4 women were in very close contact with my body: 2 were threading either leg, one was massaging my back, and the other my legs. Frankly, any more than one person doing anything to your body is too much so I halted all movement and said only 2 people were allowed: one threader and one masseuse. However, halfway through the threading of one leg I made her stop because it was too damn painful and I thought to myself, "Here I am on this beautiful beach enduring torture to remove some stupid leg hair when I would rather be enjoying my massage." so now I have a half threaded leg and a much nicer feeling body. The woman threading replied, "No ow-ow no beautiful, but ow-ow beautiful" and as much as this may be true I still didn't continue. For dinner I had freshly grilled whole snapper and fresh shrimp spring rolls while watching the sun go down on the beach.

The following day, after meeting several other like-minded travelers, I went on a boat trip to explore the islands and do some fishing and snorkeling. The water was way too cloudy to see much and I caught no fish (the last time I fished I was still sucking my thumb), but the company was great and the crew caught enough fish to cook up a huge meal and, really, what could be lovelier than sitting on a boat in the middle of the ocean eating and chatting with great people? We then docked at Bai Sao which is one of the nicest beaches I have ever seen. Set in a cove with green hills surrounding it, the water is crystal clear and the beach is filled with super-fine sparkling white sand. Very few tourists go there since it is hard to find and there is only one beach shack serving up good seafood so it provided a great spot to stop and have a swim and a few beers.

On Tuesday, after meeting an American (only the second one I've met here) named Kyle who had rented out a moto for the week, we decided to go visit some local natural wonders. We started with the waterfall which proved to be spectacular: set amid lush, dense, tropical forests through which one has to hike about 15 minutes to reach the waterfall which was perfect for swimming. The water formed a small crystal clear pool delightfully cool to our sweaty bodies. Unfortunately, upon our arrival we were met with a group of Vietnamese tourists with a megaphone drinking cans of beer and snacking on crabs. They left soon after our arrival, yet in their wake they left several cans of beer, plastic glasses, numerous crab shells, among other things. The mentality in Vietnam seems to be that someone else will do it and so this situation happens often. And yes, someone else did do it: Kyle and I. Having grown up good American citizens, (hah!) we cleaned up after them in order to preserve the serene beauty of the place and better enjoyed ourselves after having done so. We had planned on having a beach side BBQ with the others so we headed to the local market and bartered for 2 kilos of prawns, 2 kilos of squid, 2 cases of Tiger beer, and numerous veggies for about $5 a person (we were 6 people total). Feeling pretty good about this we met up with the others and through the great help of the lady at the hotel managed to have an excellent meal of prawn and squid skewers watching the sunset.

I had planned to leave on Wednesday, but soon decided to extend my time there as it was just so perfect. The next couple of days were spent on the back of Kyle's motorbike exploring the island from the many beaches to the protected jungle to completely washed out roads and less than safe bamboo bridges to lots of squid lunches and general friendliness of the locals.

On Friday, the day of my departure to the mainland via ferry boat, I woke up early to an ever darkening sky which soon turned into a monsoonal storm with 25 mph winds, lightening, thunder, and lots of rain. It was with trepidation that I headed for the port on a local bus with a driver who literally honked his horn for the entire 30 minute journey and completely filled with less than content locals. Happy to get off that bus I was relieved to see the sky had cleared for my 3 hour karaoke crazy ferry journey across the water. I spent the night in a vast port town and caught a very local bus to the Cambodian border. Tomorrow I will be headed via an 11 hour slow boat to Phnom Penh, a journey which I am sure will be filled with numerous mini adventures.

Some interesting facts and anecdotes on Vietnam:

1) Similar to the Chinese, the Vietnamese are only allowed 2 children per family

2) The Vietnamese will generally try to rip you off if they can, but there is no need to feel upset about this as they do it their own people as well.

3) On the island of Phu Quoc I saw a man driving a motorbike with 2 little kids smashed between him towing a baby walker behind him with a 10 month old baby inside. I have seen some crazy motorbike action here but that has got to top them all!

4) Local buses are guaranteed to be packed to the gills with more people than there are seats and enough stinky food for an army before they will depart from the station

5) If a car, bus, truck, or motorbike has a horn the Vietnamese will use it excessively until it breaks.

6) The predominate fashion here in Vietnam for women is that of matching pyjama sets. These are worn day or night in a variety of styles and colors. I have seen this fashion throughout Vietnam (even in the metropolis that is Saigon)and have yet to feel inclined to copy it.

5) Vietnam is a lovely place to visit and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in visiting!