Well, that’s not quite true, there are rather a lot – but there are no flies on the local’s, they have come up with an ingenious way of stopping them. When I arrived in the restaurant here at the Seastar (lovely, open air and overlooking the beach) there were plastic bags filled with water on most of the tables. Obviously not an attractive table centre, but I had no idea what they were for – perhaps some odd way of showing the table’s reserved or something. The answer is that they are fly deterrents – the unsuspecting fly lands on the bag, and because it’s full of water making it slightly curved, it sees its reflection as bigger than it is, frightens itself and flies off…. All very well, but all that does it make them congregate around your head instead…..
I have settled in here at the Seastar and have also sorted somewhere down the beach for next week as I only have this room till Friday, they were booked up after that. The hotel is nice, simple, minimalist (just not a lot in there rather than a fashion statement…) but it does have hot water which a lot don’t. All the places to stay are on one stretch on the Western side of the island, Long Beach. It appears that this is the only area on the island so far with any hotels. It’s beautiful. Clean white sand, clear turquoise sea, the odd beach massage and fruit seller but that’s it. Really underdeveloped and very “simple” – but it can’t stay that way for long.
I took the 20 minute walk into town today – not something you can do often as it really is roasting and on the “road” there is no shade at all. And no tuk tuks, only motorbike taxis which I don’t really fancy… But there aren’t too many roads for tuk tuks to ride on anyway. For airport transfers each hotel appears to have its own mini bus and there are a couple of taxis. From where I am for about half a kilometre towards town there is no road, just a stretch of red dust, which becomes a dust storm as anything bigger than a bike goes by. They are working on this though and it is gradually being tarmac’d. Most people hire a motorbike to use to get around, but even with little traffic, looking at the roads I have decided this isn’t a good plan. Legally, you need a local license, but no one bothers - apparently as long as you stick to less than 40mph and wear a crash helmet the police don't bother.... but I don't fancy a stint in a Vietnamese prison, even though that would make a good contribution to the blog! Over the next few days I will take a couple of car tours – a bit more expensive but it seems the best way to see the island.
The town (the island capital, Duong Dong) itself is small – with no shops as such just the usual shop/houses where people live and also sell a few things, dusty cans of coke and bottles of water. I was hopeful of a Highland Coffee (Vietnam’s answer to Starbucks that Ant and I enjoyed so much last year). But no luck – I found a place called Buddie’s which from the flags looked like a Vietnam/Australian Enterprise and it was the nearest I could find to a coffee shop with a menu that had Latte’s – but no – Latte’s were off! The coffee everywhere here is dire – an aluminium filter filled with a spoonful of the strongest coffee beans ever, placed over a glass. After you pour the hot water over it, the filtered coffee lands on the inch of sweetened condensed milk that is sitting in the bottom of the glass. The alternative, tea, is a pint mug (as in pint of beer type mug) with a Lipton’s teabag floating about. At least I sorted this on day one and using my language skills, asked for “ho mee” (hot milk…) - finally they understood, so every morning I now get asked do I want “same, same?”! The breakfast menu also needed a bit of translation. “Bread stuffed with half cooked eggs” I discover is the ubiquitous fluffy baguette with two fried eggs, sunny side up – makes sense when you think about it, especially if you substitute “served” instead of “stuffed”!
In terms of sights, the town just has the “famous Phu Quoc Rock” at the harbour. This a temple and a lighthouse combined and a family complete with babies everwhere seem to live in squalour on the top. Just below the rock local boys are fishing, even here at the harbour where you would expect the water to be a bit grubby, it is still startlingly clear. There are pristine schoolchildren in the Vietnamese school uniform. The boys in their blue short trousers and white shirt with the red neckerchief (reminiscent in style of the Hitler youth....) and the girls in their Daz white ao dai's sitting so upright on their bikes as they pedal around. And the usual pictorial posters exhorting the local population to behave in a good Socialist style. On the rest of the island, apart from the beaches and scenery, there is the coconut prison which sounds intriguing, as well as the fish sauce factory which produces millions of gallons a year, and pepper plantations. But I won’t be bringing any fish sauce back as a souvenir – that, along with Durian fruit, is banned from Vietnamese Airline’s planes – I guess it must be pungent stuff. If the smell all over the town today was anything to do with fish sauce then I can see why – but I think that odour was more to do with inadequate drains than anything else – not a smell I could live with….
The harbour is small, with a few fishing boats and a small cargo boat unloading sacks of rice by hand – the island is mountainous and not suitable for rice cultivation, so it’s all brought over from the mainland. The tourist boat harbour where the “Superdong” ferry goes from is sensibly on the eastern side, nearer to the mainland.
So fewer blogs from here as less is happening – but as and when I have visited coconut prison etc., I will report back. But for now, I am enjoying the gorgeous sunsets and reading lots, fab!
I have settled in here at the Seastar and have also sorted somewhere down the beach for next week as I only have this room till Friday, they were booked up after that. The hotel is nice, simple, minimalist (just not a lot in there rather than a fashion statement…) but it does have hot water which a lot don’t. All the places to stay are on one stretch on the Western side of the island, Long Beach. It appears that this is the only area on the island so far with any hotels. It’s beautiful. Clean white sand, clear turquoise sea, the odd beach massage and fruit seller but that’s it. Really underdeveloped and very “simple” – but it can’t stay that way for long.
I took the 20 minute walk into town today – not something you can do often as it really is roasting and on the “road” there is no shade at all. And no tuk tuks, only motorbike taxis which I don’t really fancy… But there aren’t too many roads for tuk tuks to ride on anyway. For airport transfers each hotel appears to have its own mini bus and there are a couple of taxis. From where I am for about half a kilometre towards town there is no road, just a stretch of red dust, which becomes a dust storm as anything bigger than a bike goes by. They are working on this though and it is gradually being tarmac’d. Most people hire a motorbike to use to get around, but even with little traffic, looking at the roads I have decided this isn’t a good plan. Legally, you need a local license, but no one bothers - apparently as long as you stick to less than 40mph and wear a crash helmet the police don't bother.... but I don't fancy a stint in a Vietnamese prison, even though that would make a good contribution to the blog! Over the next few days I will take a couple of car tours – a bit more expensive but it seems the best way to see the island.
The town (the island capital, Duong Dong) itself is small – with no shops as such just the usual shop/houses where people live and also sell a few things, dusty cans of coke and bottles of water. I was hopeful of a Highland Coffee (Vietnam’s answer to Starbucks that Ant and I enjoyed so much last year). But no luck – I found a place called Buddie’s which from the flags looked like a Vietnam/Australian Enterprise and it was the nearest I could find to a coffee shop with a menu that had Latte’s – but no – Latte’s were off! The coffee everywhere here is dire – an aluminium filter filled with a spoonful of the strongest coffee beans ever, placed over a glass. After you pour the hot water over it, the filtered coffee lands on the inch of sweetened condensed milk that is sitting in the bottom of the glass. The alternative, tea, is a pint mug (as in pint of beer type mug) with a Lipton’s teabag floating about. At least I sorted this on day one and using my language skills, asked for “ho mee” (hot milk…) - finally they understood, so every morning I now get asked do I want “same, same?”! The breakfast menu also needed a bit of translation. “Bread stuffed with half cooked eggs” I discover is the ubiquitous fluffy baguette with two fried eggs, sunny side up – makes sense when you think about it, especially if you substitute “served” instead of “stuffed”!
In terms of sights, the town just has the “famous Phu Quoc Rock” at the harbour. This a temple and a lighthouse combined and a family complete with babies everwhere seem to live in squalour on the top. Just below the rock local boys are fishing, even here at the harbour where you would expect the water to be a bit grubby, it is still startlingly clear. There are pristine schoolchildren in the Vietnamese school uniform. The boys in their blue short trousers and white shirt with the red neckerchief (reminiscent in style of the Hitler youth....) and the girls in their Daz white ao dai's sitting so upright on their bikes as they pedal around. And the usual pictorial posters exhorting the local population to behave in a good Socialist style. On the rest of the island, apart from the beaches and scenery, there is the coconut prison which sounds intriguing, as well as the fish sauce factory which produces millions of gallons a year, and pepper plantations. But I won’t be bringing any fish sauce back as a souvenir – that, along with Durian fruit, is banned from Vietnamese Airline’s planes – I guess it must be pungent stuff. If the smell all over the town today was anything to do with fish sauce then I can see why – but I think that odour was more to do with inadequate drains than anything else – not a smell I could live with….
The harbour is small, with a few fishing boats and a small cargo boat unloading sacks of rice by hand – the island is mountainous and not suitable for rice cultivation, so it’s all brought over from the mainland. The tourist boat harbour where the “Superdong” ferry goes from is sensibly on the eastern side, nearer to the mainland.
So fewer blogs from here as less is happening – but as and when I have visited coconut prison etc., I will report back. But for now, I am enjoying the gorgeous sunsets and reading lots, fab!
