Vietnam's Phu Quoc Island

Where is Phu Quoc?

Here's a map with a red circle around the island of Phu Quoc:

Phu Quoc - emulating the development of the Thai island of Phuket

Last year tourism in the Thai island of Phuket continued to boom with over 6 million visitors:

We loved Phu Quoc Airport - it was gleamingly clean and cavernously empty.  The government is planning for it to rival Phuket with its ultimate capacity to reach 7 million passengers a year.

It is not clear whether Phu Quoc will ever enjoy as many visitors from Mainland China as Phuket does.  Relations between Vietnam and China have soured.  For instance, there seems to be a slight difference of opinion as to how much of the China Sea belongs to China.  China claims it all, whereas Vietnam begs to differ.

Phu Quoc's Night Market

For my taste, Phu Quoc has reached the "goldilocks" level of development, far enough along to make it very liveable, but not so far as to lose all its character.

Our visit to the Night Market was a great example.  When we ate, the service was authentically local - the boiled rice that we ordered, never did make an appearance.

We got to see a different perspective on what constitutes food:

Apparently snake tastes like chicken. 

Talking of snakes, I have spared you a picture of the busker's act.  Health and Safety was not one of his priorities, as evidenced by the amount of smoke coming off his fire eating torches.  However fire eating was just the warm up of his whole Nose and Mouth Act.  For the highlight, we had to wait for the appearance of a long, thinnish, green snake.  Animal lovers may want to jump to the next paragraph.  I have a horrible feeling that the snake was not consulted on what happened next.  The poor wriggling snake was unceremoniously shoved up one nostril, only for it to be dragged a few minutes later, out of the fire eater's mouth.

Build your biceps - make ice cream

A more palatable spectacle was watching how they make ice cream.  The process is a bit like making a crepe, except in reverse.  A mix resembling crepe batter is dropped onto a freezing steel plate.
  
Michele's video (link) shows just how much strength is required to then transform the liquid delicious ice cream.

The dogs of Phu Quoc

Our resort boasted two of the nicest dogs you could wish to see.  Here is one of them:

Just as Guernsey has its name sake cow, so Phu Quoc has its own breed of dog named after the island.  The dogs are friendly, fit, playful and tenacious - much like their owners.  The islanders race these dogs.  The races are a much more laid back affair (link) compared to our poor greyhounds and their frantic, futile chase for the white rabbit.

Bamboo Cottages:  One family's journey from Boat People agony to a Zen Resort via the American Dream

It is difficult to argue with the rave reviews that this small beach resort gets on its Trip Advisor page (link).  

It was as close to perfect as you can possibly get for the price (US$100 a night for BnB).  Quibbles include that on some days the water was quite rough and windy.  On one day the sea was full of supposedly benign jellyfish.  Late at night, the beach was dominated by the rumble and green floodlights of the local squid fishing fleet, strung out in a line like some amphibious invasion force.

The good news was that the food was lovely and the service even better.  The resort is off the grid, drawing all its power from solar panels.  Good things happen when you go off grid.  The cottages are designed to capture the breezes off the beach so that they do not need air conditioning.  There is no television, just a full sized pool table, and an assortment of board games.

The highlight of the visit was hearing the story of her family from the lovely hostess Feliz.

  





Feliz radiates serenity.  She tells the story without rancor or arrogance.  Her parents, who had been successful lawyers in South Vietnam arrived as refugees in Texas in 1975.  They survived on minimum wage jobs and food stamps, while they took up scholarships to qualify as professional accountants.  Eventually the father was confident enough of his English that he re qualified as a lawyer in his new country.

Feliz lived up to her parents' high expectations, attending an Ivy League school (Barnard College), before studying Law at the University of Chicago.  After qualifying, she went on to be a Wall Street lawyer working as in house counsel for Bank of New York Mellon.

By 2005, her parents had accumulated enough money to purchase their own patch of paradise at what was then the remote northern tip of the island.  Later, the way the regulations worked, they were confronted with a choice between selling up their beloved cottage or expanding it into a hotel.  They chose to make it into a hotel with Feliz running it.

It is Feliz's competence on the one hand, and her kindness on the other, that makes this resort such a special place to visit.

Vietnam: Why did the Chicken Not Cross the Road?

Two reasons: well, he was in fact a chicken, and second he happened to be in Ho Chi Minh City.  Actually that chicken is me.  Michele tells me that I am going to have to cross the street at some point during our visit.  I disagree.  The air conditioning at our modest hotel (by the name of  Madame Cuc 127 ) works well, and we have a flight out of here in two days' time.  Admittedly things might get a skinny on the food side.  As far as I can tell, this is the menu:

Luckily man does not live on food alone.  There is always the view from the bedroom window to nourish the soul:

Most people here travel by scooter, but what cars there are, are all weirdly new, and weirdly (given the traffic) undented.  The Chaos Theory of Road Safety holds that the more chaotic driving conditions are, the better people drive and the safer it is for everybody.  Judging by the pristine condition of the cars in this city, motorists and scooter riders alike, must all be really skilled.  A 2016 contributor to Forbes magazine attributes the newness of the cars to the spending power of Vietnam's rising middle class.  The article also notes that all these new cars do nothing for the country's pollution problems, citing one survey that ranked Vietnam 170th out of 178 countries in terms of air quality. 

Later: How the Chicken finally Crossed the Road

I never did find a gap in the traffic.  In the end I latched onto a pregnant woman in the hope that the traffic would veer around her.

They even put out a welcome sign for me:

  So I have not, after all, been forced to survive in our hotel room on a diet of boiled water and pot noodles.

Củ Chi tunnels: Who needs a chiropractor?

Spinal Traction courtesy of Viet Cong tunnels

The  Củ Chi tunnels constitute Ho Chi Minh City's prime sight of historical interest.  I took a pass on them, because I had already had my fill of Communist propaganda during our visit to Cuba in 2015.  Michele however was excited to take the tour which involved a speed boat trip down the Saigon River.

The tunnels are a shrine to the Viet Cong.  Before visitors are allowed to see any of the sights, they are required to sit through a strident propaganda movie, focusing on some Viet Cong "aces" who excelled as "American killers".

Next was a visit to one of the thousands of secret tunnel entrances.  They were very small and Michele soon discovered that these tunnels are a lot easier to get into than to get out of:

Acknowledgement:
Photos courtesy of the obliging guide who supplied a lot of amusement to the rest of the group at Michele's expense.

New Netflix Series: OMG I have been type cast

There is a new Netflix series by Jack Whitehall which strikes close to home.  It features two people travelling South East Asia for the first time.  The younger one is cool, hip and up for anything.  The other traveller, educated many years ago in a Benedictine monastery, is a stuffed shirt, who is out of his comfort zone long before he even reaches the airport.  Just looking at foreign food sends him checking out where the nearest usable toilet is. 

Guess which one is like Michele?  Ok,  I will give you a clue - Michele did not go to a Benedictine monastery.

Luggage Catch 22 at Ho Chi Minh City Airport

Rule # 1:
Get through Immigration as fast as you can, so that you are on hand to pick your bags off the carousel.  If you don't, your luggage will end up following you around the country costing you a fortune in courier expenses.

Rule # 2:
Allow for three hours to clear Immigration

In our case we had actually given up hope, but decided to conduct one last half-hearted search of the baggage area.  We found our bags abandoned in a remote empty corner of the concourse.

Making a difference: Self Directed is Best Directed?

I live in Victoria on Vancouver Island.  It is a retirement destination for the rest of Canada - so much so that it has earned the title, "Home of the Newly Wed and the Nearly Dead".  Actually that title is no longer accurate.   With house prices the way they are, the only people who can afford to buy in Victoria, are retirees selling up from Toronto or Vancouver.  Nowadays, when the lights go up at the intermission of a play, all you see is a Sea of Silver hair.

It is only human for people to gravitate towards the Aristocracy of Youth.  The young are excited, attractive and vibrant.  However, making lemonade out of lemons, I am attempting to become a "Silver Miner".  In the process, I have come to appreciate one of the paradoxes of aging - those with the most remarkable stories to tell, often appear unremarkable.  I have come to appreciate that beauty is in fact, more than skin deep.

Breakfasting today at Madame Cuc's, I bumped into Bill and Dorothy from Burnie, Tasmania:

Bill retired from working as a paramedic at 50 in order to work for Dorothy in two successive, successful, businesses: first a hotel then a restaurant.  To be still so devoted after 51 years of marriage, is enough of an achievement.  But what made them really remarkable, in my eyes, was how they have gone about making a difference for other people.

For most of us truly making a difference, is in the same category as losing weight, something we aspire to, but something which may never happen.

Eleven years ago, Dorothy and Bill were enjoying a treat that they had looked forward to for many years.  They had just sold the restaurant and were backpacking around Asia staying, somewhat incongruously, at 5 star hotels.  One day on the way back to their hotel, their tuk- tuk driver told them that a night at that hotel, cost as much as he earned in two months.  They started to do the math.  They realized that, back home, they were spending $140 a week at their favorite coffee shop.  They were aware that by contrast, the average Vietnamese family got by on about $60 a month.  A little later they were approached in a park here in Ho Chi Minh City, by some playful kids who wanted to practise their English.  Bill and Dorothy wanted to practice making a difference, so it was a good match.  Over time they sponsored seven children in Vietnam and two families in Cambodia.  With their help, all seven Vietnamese students have graduated higher education.  In Cambodia, they built a house for one family at a cost of $2,300.  It is the best house in the village.  They set the same family up with a tuk-tuk business.

I thought maybe that their motivation was religious.  I was wrong.  It was simply that it was "fun" to be able to help.

It is humbling to listen to Dorothy and Bill,  but on a lighter note, it also reminds me to keep Silver Mining - I never know what I might find!