The Island of Phu Quoc

December 12^th-15^th, 2024

Phu Quoc (pronounced “foo-wok”…we think) is the largest island in Vietnam with about 180,000 inhabitants.  Since Naomi’s vacation is winding down, she also wanted to wind down with some “beach time”.  It was a short 35-40 minute flight west from Ho Chi Minh City to the Bay of Thailand, where the island sits about 40 kilometers from the mainland of Vietnam, but only 10 kilometers from Cambodia.  Although our flight was delayed, we lucked out and the shuttle driver from our resort waited for us and a couple of Israeli ladies who were on the same flight.

Arriving at the airport.

We were booked at the Ocean Bay Resort for three nights and Naomi only had three main things that she wanted to do while on the island, so there would be some chill time.  In fact, that was the order of our first day.  We had lunch while waiting for our room to be ready, explored the resort and then hung out on the beach in the late afternoon and went for a swim in the ocean, which was incredibly calm for our whole stay.  The water was a lovely temperature and it was a lovely sandy beach.

The pool at the Ocean Bay Resort.

Our room was pretty sweet.

The beach was lovely too...the water was a nice temperature.

Naomi enjoying the sunset.

Out for dinner at a restaurant across the street.

The next morning, we rented a scooter from a couple who had a small shop and guesthouse across the road from our resort.  I befriended the man, Tray, the day before with the help of Google Translate at times.  The number one item of our “to do” list was to go on the cable cars at the south end of the island that take you to an amusement park and resort.

Nice location for breakfast at the resort.

Getting ready to ride...

It was about 45 kilometres from our resort to the small, strange development called An Thoi and we were on a bit of a clock as we found out that morning that the cable car ran until 11:30, stopped and then started up again at 1:30.  It seemed very weird to us.  Thankfully the roads were fine and there wasn’t much traffic.

The reason I said that An Thoi was strange is that it was built in 2019 and it’s a replica of a European village, mainly an Italian motif it seemed complete with an imitation of the clock tower in Venice.  From her prior research before the trip, Naomi told me that the place was mostly vacant.  It was definitely the opposite of “If you build it, they will come”.   This was another development by Sun World Group, the same company that built Ba Na Hills, the strange amusement park up on a mountain near Danang that we visited.

I stole this picture for a website about the construction of An Hoi...it's massive, yet empty.

They definitely tried to get the European look right.

With ten minutes to spare, we hopped on the cable car, which holds the record for the longest 3-wire cable car in the world at 7899.9 meters (you’d think they could have squeezed another 10 centimeters out of the project).  It was a fifteen-minute ride over a couple of islands to arrive at our destination.  The concrete support poles on the islands must have been around 200 meters tall.  I couldn’t help but marvel at the effort and logistics that must have been involved in the construction.

The start of the cable car ride.

It was an impressive cable car.

A whole lot of fishing boats.

Looking back from where we came.  The concrete post supports were huge.

We're headed to the second island in the distance.

We had a bird’s eye view of the amusement park as we neared the end of our ride, but once we were on the ground, walking around, the signage was pretty poor, and we didn’t really know where we were going.  We had spotted a wooden roller coaster that I wanted to check out, but it took us a little while to find it.  After a ten-minute walk, we finally found the “Roaring Timbers Roller Coaster”.  I thought I would have to buy a ticket to ride it as there was a ticket counter at the roller coaster, but another tourist told us that our cable car ticket allowed us to go on any ride in the park that we wanted to.  Sweet!  However, it turns out that that wasn’t the greatest offer as like Ba Na Hills, there weren’t actually that many rides.

Some new construction at the resort.

The waterpark at the resort.

Our green screen photo.

With our bespeckled buddies.

You'll have to zoom in to see my attempt at a tiki face.

Since roller coasters aren’t Naomi’s thing, she watched as I hopped on.  The woman sitting next to me was part of a Russian trio of ladies and she hardly spoke any English.  From my time in India, where there are a lot of Russian tourists, I at least knew “previat” which is hello in Russian, which garnered a smile from her.  The ride was better than expected and I forgot how “clickety-clackety” a wooden roller coaster is.

The start of the Roaring Timbers roller coaster ride.

It was a decent ride.

Finishing the ride.

Exiting the ride, we were greeted by rain, and we were ill prepared.  I had my tiny umbrella and a long, cheap rain jacket but Naomi didn’t have anything.  Not too far from the roller coaster was another ride that was more of an observation deck kind of thing, a circular pod that rose up about 50 meters and then rotated around.  We thought it would be a great way to avoid the rain as it was enclosed, but after waiting in the line-up for 10 minutes, they shut down the ride since…it was raining!

That's a lot of koi.

Yup, another fine resort by the Sun Group, like Ba Na Hills where we also got soaked in the rain.

After finding a store to buy a cheap rain poncho for Naomi, we looked around for a place to get some lunch but didn’t have any luck.  We decided to wait until our next stop after this strange amusement park, which was a beach on the southeast coast of the island which was supposed to be pristine and beautiful.  Making our way back to the cable car station, it was only 1:15 pm but after waiting five minutes, they started up the cable car then minutes early and we were on the first car to head back to the main island.

On our way back.

A densely populated fishing village.

What a strange place...a deserted Italian village in Vietnam.

Nicely posed Naomi.

Our mixed reactions of the place.

Yes, my sword is an umbrella...

Driving through the strange village that seems to have hardly any occupants.

The nice beach we were headed to next was called Sao Beach.  It was about 15 minutes away on the scooter and it was a lovely spot.  After a few “Insta” photos, we shared some fish and chips (fish not bad, chips cold…) and then rode back to the resort.  It had been a long day already.

Sao Beach, it was gorgeous.

Back at our patio at the resort after a good, but long day.

That evening we took a Grab to another nearby resort called Camia, as they had good reviews online.  The staff at Camia were friendly and attentive and the food was yummy.

On our second full day on Phu Quoc, we still had the rented scooter, so the plan was to check out the north part of the island, with the primary goal being to visit “Starfish Beach”.  As you would assume, we hoped to see starfish there, which like the squirrels and chipmunks in Ho Chi Minh City, Naomi’s never seen starfish in the wild so that was her motivation to go there.

"Insta-time" at our resort after breakfast.

We didn't realize that we are couple of swingers...

It wasn’t as far to ride on the bike as yesterday’s journey, and we weren’t on a schedule, so I rode relatively slowly and we both enjoyed the countryside.  We stopped briefly at a pepper farm where Naomi talked to the local farmer to learn the nuances of growing this spice.  They only harvest once per year, in January.  I asked him how big the place was.  They had 1000 plants, which would take 3-4 people a few months to pick all of the pepper and they would produce 1-2 thousands kilograms of pepper…enough to make the effort worthwhile!

The pepper farm.

Passing a flower seller on his bike.

As we got closer to Starfish Beach, the pavement disappeared and we bumped along a sandy road.  Passing a small group of houses, a guy on a motorbike caught up to us and asked if we were headed to Starfish Beach.  He led us there, and I couldn’t help but wonder what his ulterior motive was.

The bumpy road to Starfish Beach.

Still swingin'..

Turns out it wasn’t anything to worry about.  What I didn’t realize was that you had to take boat, or walk about 2 kilometres along the beach, to get to “Starfish Beach”, where there were starfish in the water.  The guy on the bike explained that it was 200,000 each ($11-12 CAD) to get a boat ride to and from the beach.  Seemed like an okay deal, and after that bumpy road, we were definitely going.  He must have been earning a commission on bringing customers.

Walking to the boat to take us to Starfish Beach.

Cute duckies.

On our way to Starfish Beach...perhaps I didn't hear the "selfie" call...

These ladies were posing on the dock as we arrived at Starfish Beach.

After the short ride on the long, skinny boat, we arrived at a gorgeous sandy beach with a wooden pier jutting out into the clear blue water.   Almost immediately we could see that there were starfish in the shallow waters.  Naomi was over the moon…I guess she should have been over the stars!

Yup, we found them.

The beach was “Instagram Heaven”, with a few swings in and by the water, a built-up staircase on the pier, some wooden pieces strung together that looked like horses, and of course the starfish.  Both Naomi and I, probably more so Naomi, did get a perturbed by how the “Instagrammers” were picking up starfish, placing them where they need them for their photo or even holding them out of the water.  They must not have realized that this stresses a starfish out, starves them of oxygen, and can possibly kill them.  Oh humans, we have a lot to learn to live in harmony with other species on this planet.

After a bit more than an hour, with me having a nap in a rented beach chair, it was time to leave.  Our original plan had us heading to another part of the northwest coast of the island to peer out at the islands of Cambodia, but we were already a bit tired, and more importantly hungry.  So screw that, we continued on to Camia Resort for a late lunch.

On our way back.

Time to ride back to our resort.

Back at the Camia resort, where we had dinner last night for a late lunch.

And it was yummy pizza.

I made a new friend, the smallest praying mantis I've ever seen.

He kept wanting to jump on me.

Back at our resort, we relaxed and dined at the same restaurant across from our resort from two nights prior.  Can’t say that the food was that great, but we went for convenient.

 

The next day we flew back to Ho Chi Minh City, where we will stay for a couple of nights and then Naomi will fly to Bangkok before heading home as her vacation is winding down.  Still, we have one more site to see while she’s here which we were both excited about, the Cu Chi Tunnels from the Vietnam War.