Saturday, October 10, 2009

2nd to 5th October - Phu Quoc

What a haven Phu Quoc island was. After the turmoil of the last few days, we so needed to escape. I travelled there with Tal, Lena, Dennis and Nadia. Again the usual hawkers were willing us into their beach resorts as we left the airport.

We grabbed flyers and compared notes before deciding to go to the Tropicana Resort on Long Beach. I couldn't and still can't get the song Club Tropicana by Wham out of my head.... Unfortunately at this Tropicana, the drinks weren't free although there was fun for everyone...

The bonus was that the hotel had a pool as well as a beach front. It was ideal for what we wanted. I shared a beach bungalow with Tal and Lena. The first day we pretty much chilled by the hotel and went for a swim. We met an interesting dutch guy called Leslie who was full of opinions and claimed to be a professional showjumper...

He also recommended a place for dinner and as he'd been on the island for a few months we thought we trust his advice. We got ready and Lena got the fright of her life when she almost put her hand on a huge Gecko that had positioned itself on our curtains....

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


The restaurant was a little out of the way and stank of fish sauce but in fairness to Leslie, the food was very good. It got a little worrying when it started raining so we went inside. The inside was similar to a school disco except there were flea bitten dogs running around.

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


When they tried to open a bottle or white wine but pushing the cork into the bottle we realised they weren't expert waiting staff.... Then, when we complained about the fact that the wine had the cork in it, they went off and tried to fool us by pouring the wine into another bottle.... Only problem was they poured white wine into a red wine bottle... Idiots...

We got another bottle which they opened at the table but it made for an entertaining experience. Ha ha ha....

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


We then had a few drinks on our terrace back at the hotel.

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


The next day we headed to a beautiful beach called Sao Bai. It took about 40 mins to get there along a very bumpy dirt road but it was worth it. The beach was golden, the water was aqua, still and warm. It was perfect.

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


We spent the day there and Dennis and Tal even took the time to build a Buddha out of Sand....

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


That night we met Andries and Jayne from South Africa and went to the night market which was err.... small and compact... Still good fun though. We had dinner in an Australian themed restaurant where they spelt Australia 'Uustralia' Very authentic. The waitress was good fun though and I was joking around with her by claiming I was Vietnamese. She said that my accent was good and I'd learnt a few Vietnamese words. She gave me the name Hung which is a traditional Vietnamese name and the other guys joked around by claiming that she was a little keen on me...

The next day we lazed around by the beach at our hotel. The water was calmer than the day before but there were still some good waves. I spent a lot of time in the water body surfing the waves and the turmoil of Hoi An truly felt a million miles away.

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


I pursuaded the gang to go to a Karaoke bar that night. As many of you who have known me for a while will be aware, I have a singing voice that's perfectly imperfect... In fact, we found a place which had no windows which was ideal as it meant I wouldn't break any glass while I was murdering classic songs... We went to the 'Uustralian' restaurant again because the food was excellent. The same waitress came in and was waiting for her boyfriend. The guys were saying to her that I was single and she was trying to set me up with some of the girls she worked at the spa with. It was all in good fun but there was no way I was going anywhere near the spa after that night in case she didn't get that we were joking. :)

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


At the Karaoke place, I was giving it a good turn on the microphone. The place was really seedy but good fun. What it lacked in tasteful decor it more than made up for in sheer tackiness... The Karaoke machine gives you a mark out of 100 when you complete a song so it was good fun to see the scores that people got. We were jumping for joy when we got a score anywhere in the 90's. It was great fun. The only problem was we picked a song that no one sang along too as we were all having a drink. At the end of the song the Karaoke machine scored the non-singing that took place at 96 out of 100.... we realised is was just a random number it puts up and has no relation to how well you actually sang...

From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


From Phu Quoc and Mekong Delta


I completely stole the microphone all night and belted out some torturous Karaoke until the other guys could take no more. We called for a taxi and headed home. The taxi ride was entertaining to say the least. The car pulled up at about 5 km/h and the driver got out looking err... vacant to say the least... We then got driven back in a pace as slow as I have ever been in a car... He must have been on drugs or something. I don't think he made it out of first gear.... It was so sketchy. Lucky there was no one else on the road...

The next day we were all feeling a little worse for wear. We hung around by the pool and didn't do much else. We planned our trip back to the mainland and decided to head to the Mekong Delta for a day before going to Ho Chi Minh City.

Our last night on Phu Quoc was spent at a pizza and grill restaurant where I had the best steak i'd eaten for a long time. Result.... The next day we flew to Mekong Delta.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The most transformational generation?

When i think about my generation I can't help feeling that we've gone through more transformational change them any since the indu...