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.