We spent Tet on Phu Quoc, a Vietnamese island off the coast of Cambodia.

Phu Quoc is a bit like Langkawi, but better. It doesn’t feel quite as much like a Med resort, although it is still very touristy. During the Vietnam war it was used to detain prisoners. However, we’ll write more about this in another post.

On the night of Tet we went to the most mental fireworks I’ve ever seen. They were on an abandoned airstrip and the risk assessment must have been stamped “whatever”.

Accommodation

We stayed in a budget hostel and you get what you pay for. There is not a lot of mid-range accommodation, so it’s either fancy resorts or budget backpackers.

There were lots of mosquitoes, so we had to rig our nets above our bunk beds. The room was cold as there was no control for the air-conditioning apart from on or off, but at least it was there.

It was also quite dark and gloomy. Even more so when there was a voltage spike and the LED bulb exploded, leaving only one other. We also got a few more shocks off of the charger, but not as bad as in Laos.

The water supply was briefly interrupted but this wasn’t a big deal. You can’t drink it anyway and have to pay for drinking water.

There were lots of chickens (this was even the WiFi password) and some rats too. It turns out that cockerels don’t just make noise at dawn, it’s all the time.

Sun World

We went on the cable car at the southern tip of the main island to another smaller island and it was, okay. The queue was awful and there was nothing interesting at the other end. There are better beaches and if you’ve been on a ski lift before then it’s nothing special. Some people headed straight back or didn’t even leave the cabin. There are also more flexible boat options to the smaller islands, with multiple / more destinations.

Phu Quoc has lots of Russian and Chinese tourists and many signs are in the respective languages. It’s quite odd to see cyrillic script in this part of the world.

These are very different cultures and it’s jarring to witness a complete absence of queue etiquette or putting litter in bins. For example, plastic drinking water bottles are often sealed with plastic film here to prove they haven’t been tampered with. This is typically dropped straight on the floor.

However, culture clashes do have funnier moments, such as the different ways people take pictures. From doing stupid poses on a beach to taking shots with a massive iPad Pro, which reminds me of the classic Trigger Happy TV Nokia sketch.

Pylons and Islands

Our scooter ride around the north of the island was more chill, even if the scooters were not what we were used to (e.g. speedometers that actually work). The road was very quiet with multiple lanes and a pleasure to ride along (although not as good as Bokor).

We picked up a local SIM at a newsagents and then had to ride to a Viettel shop to make it work. More on that in a later post.

There was signal for most of the ferry journey back to the mainland. This is probably because there are many small islands, which appear to be connected to the grid by lines of pylons stretching through the shallow sea.