Phu Quoc, Vietnam – April 2017

(with Partial Post on Nha Trang, Vietnam)

Following our stay in Hoi An, we flew to Nha Trang where we stayed for 8 nights. Our original plans in Nha Trang were to take day trips to several nice beaches roughly an hour from our place in either direction. But, bad weather on our first 3 days and then being slightly under the weather the next several days, we never made it more than several miles walking distance from our flat. Luckily, our rental was more of a studio apartment which was positioned high on a hill with a view of the ocean and beach located down the road from us. Even though we didn’t make it to some of the surrounding destinations we had planned, we did snap a few photos and shared a funny story below about one of our meals while in Nha Trang.

Following our stay in Nha Trang, we headed back to the airport for two short flights to our next destination on the island of Phu Quoc. Our first flight was 45 minutes from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) followed by a 35 minute flight to Phu Quoc. We arrived on the island of Phu Quoc, Vietnam on Sunday, April 9th.

The weather in Phu Quoc was perfect, hot and sunny most days. The ocean temperature was like warm bath water which made for very pleasant swims any time of the day or evening. Our accommodation was located right on Long Beach and was one of the only places we found with rooms right on the sand (our bungalow was one of them 🙂 ) We spent many of our days relaxing in the shade, breathing in the ocean air, listening to waves, and simply watching the interesting scenery strolling by… One of the benefits of staying on Long Beach is having the ability to walk several miles in either direction to restaurants, beach bars, or other resorts. In between our swims in the ocean and relaxing in our lounge chairs our main form of entertainment was watching the many people simply walking up and down the waters edge. Let’s just say people from all over the world come in all shapes and sizes and so did their idea of swim wear – not sure what some folks are thinking when it’s obvious they’re wearing something clearly several sizes too small for their body. Good entertainment!!

Overall our time in Phu Quoc was very relaxing and rejuvenating and was a perfect last destination for us in Vietnam before heading to Malaysia.

See video and photos below highlighting our 10 days in Phu Quoc, Vietnam. To see all images of this location click the link at the bottom of this post or go to our gallery.

Nha Trang, Vietnam

This was the view from the rooftop patio at our place in Nha Trang. We had a similar view from our actual apartment window.

Hon Chong beach, a 5 minute walk from our place. This was the less touristy side of town and had considerably less people.

Nha Trang Dinner Adventure

Our rental was located right outside the main part of town near the University. The location was good because it had very few tourists with lots of friendly locals, but not so good because lots of locals meant very little English was spoken or otherwise. The markets were fairly easy because we could point to eggs or bananas and hold up fingers to show how many we wanted to buy. But, restaurants were a whole different story in this part of town. The term restaurant is also being used very loosely, they are more like semi-permanent street stalls…the places near us were all small, open air (usually covered), with the usual kid-sized tables and chairs, and an all local staff and clientele (none speaking or understanding any english). On our previous walks past the stalls the food always smelled fantastic. One evening, after having rained all day with no signs of stopping, we decided to try one of the local stalls close to our place since we would be walking and it was very wet outside. Naively, we both thought “how hard could it be to order some dinner at one of these local stalls”… We left on our adventure already very hungry and ready for dinner and strolled past each place looking at menu after menu. After trying to recognize any kind of menu item, we quickly realized there were NO recognizable names (or pictures) of any of the dishes we’d become accustomed to in the previous 6 weeks in Vietnam. One of the young workers from a stall we had stopped at already came over to us and pointed at the food. We must have looked very hungry as we both nodded our heads “yes” because he then used his phone and “google translate” to help us understand what they had to eat. We were super excited to have a little help and decided to try it.

We sat down and used “google translate” on our own, and the young local continued translating menu items to try and help us as well. It was obvious he and all the other locals seemed to be getting a kick out of us as we don’t think they get many foreigners wanting to eat at their place. They were all smiles and we figured we were their entertainment for the night. “Google translate” told us we ordered Seafood Fried Rice, Grilled Prawn Tray, and Beef with Peppers (beef is not usually our meat of choice, but it was supposed to be very good here so we went with it). We also ordered 2 local beers. One of the two beers came out warm. The local then said “cold” and pointed at the beer. We both nodded “yes”. At this point everything started to happen fast all around us…they picked up our beers, poured them into mugs, and immediately plopped several large chunks of ice taken from an open bucket which was sitting under our table. As we sipped our beer with ice, we both realized the ice in our beers was from large ice blocks delivered every morning right onto the street. On previous walks, we’d seen these large blocks of ice sitting right on the pavement while one of the crew used a hand saw to cut it into ice chunks (their version of ice cubes). Oh well, by this time it was too late and we had a good laugh and just went with it and continued to drink from our mugs. A few minutes past and a single propane style burner was brought over, set on our small plastic table, and was ignited. The burner took up most of the small table so they moved another table beside ours to fit all the food as it started to come out. Funny thing is, we had no idea which one of our dishes required us to cook on the burner at our table which made us both laugh again. Soon enough we thought we knew, a large platter of prawns was set on top of the burner and we were on our own to cook as the staff continued to bring large platters of uncooked beef and veggies along with some sort of soup stock. Again, we weren’t sure what we ordered with soup (we must have looked confused as one of the local ladies came over and pointed at the beef, the veggies, the soup, then to the burner). Too cook the beef dish, you throw everything in the stock and then eat it like a soup. The dish was SPICY hot from all the fresh red chili peppers included, and it wasn’t at all what we thought it would be, but it was still super good… All dishes except the fried rice we cooked on the burner at the table and it was all delicious. The whole experience was very educational, fun and funny, and also a bit messy (they didn’t have anything resembling napkins only small square pieces of paper which they used as napkins and if used in a stack doubled as pot holders for the hot pans). Even though the food was on the atomic end of spicy and was spicier then we would ever order, it was still one of the best meals we had in Vietnam. Since we had so much fun and our food was so good, we went back the next night, but we brought with us a few real napkins and also opted to pick out as many of the red hot chili peppers we could prior to cooking and eating 😉

Our small kid-sized plastic table(s) after our meal. There was so much going on around us as they brought everything out, we forgot to take photos of our food before we ate 😉 So, this is what we ended up with… Also, our dishes are already stacked here, but believe us…we used every square inch of both tables. And, take note of the square “paper” napkins in the red caddy in the back right of the photo.

Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Video – Phu Quoc, Vietnam

Rick relaxing in a lounge chair on our patio taking in the view.

From right: Alisa, Rick, Rob and Teresa – friends we met at Viet Thanh Bungalows. When we booked our beachfront accommodation, we requested one of two recommended room #’s from a description on one of our favorite travel websites (travelfish.org). Rob and Teresa had done the same. So, we ended up as neighbors in these 2 beachfront bungalows. We arrived one hour before they did and after chit chatting quickly discovered we had several things in common. Oddly, Rick and Rob are the same age and Alisa and Teresa likewise, and all have been married over 20 years. We all had a good time and spent several dinners together and also spent a full day riding motorcycles around the entire island.

The nightly fresh seafood BBQ at our resort. The fish was so fresh some of them were still flopping around as they set everything up. It was very reasonably priced – A mixed seafood plate with rice and small salad was 120K Dong (less then $6 US) and it also came with one free beer too. You simply pick out your fish, prawns, squid, or clams and they throw it on the BBQ.

This group of people all worked for a Phu Quoc business which was having a company party at our resort. They entertained us for most of an afternoon. There was an announcer with a microphone and loud speaker talking them through many crazy events and games. This was one of the last games they did where everyone went in the ocean – many of them were fully clothed. It appeared to be some version of water polo. You could tell they were having a great time from all the hooting and hollering and laughing going on.

Thom Beach in the northern part of the island. We stopped here at this small beach cafe on our very long motorcycle ride around the island. We rode nearly 85 km around the entire island, but not on purpose. We planned to ride 40 or 50 km, but one turn where we should have continued straight took us to the southern most tip of the island instead of across it and back to our resort. Funny thing is before we all headed out, Rob, our bungalow neighbor, commented “you can’t get lost on an island”…As we all stopped after riding for way too long to see where we were…we pulled up “map.me” on our phone and discovered we were as far south as we could ride on the island and had a long way back home. We all had a good laugh about getting lost and how you can’t get lost on an island.

View of a small section on Long Beach. The beach is named appropriately as you can walk for miles at the waters edge in both directions from our resort with very few people. This time of year is much more quiet than during their peak season in Dec and Jan which we were told was extremely crowded. We were both glad we picked Long Beach for our stay as it was relatively quiet with enough amenities within walking distance along the beach. You could go to town if you wanted, but it’s very crazy like many other cities in Vietnam. Other parts of the island are also becoming very built up with tons of new high end construction. Our ride around the island made us really appreciate our choice in accommodations.

We had some amazing sunsets during our 10 days on Phu Quoc…So, we’ll end this post with a Sunset Finale!!!