Here Be Elephants

From Rach Gia we caught the ‘hydrofoil’ to Phu Quoc island, a trip of about 2 and a half hours. The dock is on the east of the island, and all the hotels on the west, but the distance is only about 15 km. Phu Quoc turned out to be a very pleasant place to spend a few days. As a site for a beach holiday, we would recommend it to anybody. Certainly there were people there who were staying for two whole weeks – again, mostly Europeans.

It was quite busy when we were there, in the sense that most of the resorts were full, but it never felt crowded. Half-decent bungalows on the beach go for $50 and up, so we contented ourselves with a cheap room connected (a little too closely) to a bar and only about 5 mins walk from the ocean. Luckily the island isn’t party-time central, and the music was off and the lights out by 10.30pm. We had initially intended to spend only two nights there, but the temptation to lounge on the beach reading proved too great, and we extended our stay. The sea was wonderful – very clear and with only very gentle waves, which makes it perfect for swimming and snorkelling. Most of the hotels and restaurants are concentrated on Long Beach, but most of the other beaches are deserted, and very pleasant.

On our second day there we rented a motorbike to explore the rest of the island. The whole northern section is forested and hilly, and in fact is designated a national park. We had a great day bouncing over pot-holes to deserted beaches, riding through the national park and going for a stroll in the forest. Unfortunately we didn’t see any of the monkeys that supposedly live there. The motorbike trip started out on a very ominous note. We had lost the main road due to a bad map, and our road north soon petered out into a difficult sandy path. An old lady assured us we could continue north to find the road, but some children passing on bicycles insisted we should in fact go south. The lady and the children seemed quite annoyed with each other, and as we weighed our options the lady pulled out a poorly laminated piece of paper, on which was written in red pen: “do not follow the Children, they will take you to the police, prison, very bad” Despite the horror film scenario, we trusted the little old lady and with some trepidation continued down the sandy path into the forest. The going was tough, but we did eventually hit the main highway. Really not sure what it was all about though.

The main beach had a number of restaurants with tables in the sand all the way to the high tide mark. During the evening, tasteful lanterns light up the beach and the barbeques come out to do fresh seafood. Two nights we enjoyed a whole fish grilled on the beach (even splurging for some prawns one night) and both times it was delicious. After a great three days, we took the boat back to Ha Tien on the mainland, a town Northwest of Rach Gia, and only five kilometres from the Cambodian border.

Photos of Phu Quoc can be found here

Broke the 2000 mile and 100 bowls of noodles marks in this leg of the journey also!

Pages updated: Stats, Photos, Maps

~ by Elephants on January 18, 2011.

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