December 25, 2014 – Phu Quoc Around The Town
Well, here we are on Phu Quoc Island. It’s a pretty big sucker out in the Gulf of Thailand, only three or four kilometres from Cambodia, but a 1.5-hour fast-ferry ride from Vietnam. Sensible people, including the Cambodians, would deduce that it should belong to Cambodia. Other people, including the Vietnamese and their very large army base, beg to differ. The northeast quarter of the island is a military reserve, and there are lots of olive-drab helicopters flying around. Since these disagreements are usually settled in favor of the person with the largest army, I am going with the Vietnamese…
But for us foreigners, that’s all pretty invisible. We have the other 3/4 of the island to ourselves, and it’s pretty nice. Deb and I are on the western side of the island, which is the good side during the dry season, in a little town called Duong Dong. It’s a perfectly okay little town of perhaps 5,000 people centered on the local commercial fishing fleet. We tourists don’t use the town that much other than a few restaurants and the Night Market (more on that later). We focus on a five-kilometre strip of road and beach south of town that contains 50-100 hotels and restaurants. There are a surprising number of Russian tourists here, probably 50% (more by volume, they’re big boogers), and they are of course their usual cheerful and outgoing selves (not). All the menus are trilingual, which in practice means they are equally incoherent in all three languages. Not that that matters, as no matter what you order, no matter how many times you repeat it, no matter how much you tapdance and wave your arms, something else shows up. But it’s all good, so that’s just part of the adventure! Who knew that beef noodle soup with a beer made a wholesome and nutritious breakfast? We managed to nail down six or so pretty good restaurants (East Indian, German bakery, schnitzel/pizza, French breakfast place, and a couple of uptown-ish Vietnamese cuisine), and after that, life was pretty good. It’s hard to spend more than $30/day on food and drinks combined here; breakfast and lunch are ca. $3-4/plate, dinner is $4-6, and beer is $0.50-$0.75. There are only a few minor disappointments; whoever taught these people to make coffee should be taken out and shot, and it’s difficult but not impossible to get a decent bottle of wine for a reasonable price. Life is hard. Then you die.
Deb: Ok, Phu Quoc (Foo Awk) is one of those vacation islands that is rapidly becoming a mecca for all kinds of countries. Particularly the Russians. The locals hate them, “they have big noses, angry eyes, and are loud and demanding, they don’t smile & don’t want to have a conversation with you”..a quote from a local. They are liked about as much as the Mexicans like the French Canadians. There are lots of Europeans here and lots with their little children, which surprises me, but maybe this is their only destination. Lots of Aussies (half of Melbourne is here, I think) & New Zealanders.
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Here is some local fauna:
The beach in town.
Rory’s Beach Bar. Australian spoken here.
Restaurant ‘Phu Quoc’, one of our favorites.
Our first hotel turned out to be a bust. Nice place, but the people running it were unfriendly and couldn’t organize a pissup in a brewery (or chose not to, hard to say). So we went hotel-hunting and, as usual, Deb found us a little jewel for an excellent price. We are in a semi-detached bungalow, absolutely brand new, big, sparkling clean, right beside a great pool, for $40/night. A bit pricy for us, but we’re going to decompress here until New Year’s Day before heading over to Ho Chi Minh City. There’s only one drawback; like the previous three hotels we’ve stayed in, this place has super-firm mattresses. You know that commercial where they bounce the bowling ball on the bed, and the bowling pins on the other side don’t fall? Well, if you bounced a bowling ball on these beds, the ball would break. I am determined to get used to them, but Debbi’s back is getting completely boogered, so after a couple of days, I decided to do something about it. Following a rumour that I could buy a mattress topper at the local market, which is across a bridge in the very-not-touristy part of town, I set off into the unknown. No problem, I’ll taxi there and back, and everything will be good. When we arrived at the bridge, the taxi pulled over, and the driver pantomimed that I was to get out and walk across. It turns out that taxis aren’t allowed to cross the bridge. I have a number of theories for why that is, but nobody cares. So off I went on foot across the bridge, which is, of course, under construction but still being used by the locals. They are just putting in the sidewalks, which means you can’t use them, which means you walk in the traffic lanes with the traffic. But it’s all good as these folks are used to dealing with this kind of disruption. To make a long story short, I didn’t find the mattress pad I was looking for, but I did find the REAL market. It’s absolutely seething, sells everything, and the motorcycles pull up to the stalls like a Timmies drive-through. After you get your foot run over a couple of times and get yelled at by some lady for standing in front of her stall and not buying anything, it all starts to make sense.
The Day Market
Drive-through service!
Deb: We went to the day market, and what a zoo. Picture this: the street is about 50’ wide, with stalls on each side, leaving about 12’ to walk. That is, if you CAN walk for all the motor bikes.. approx. 200. They definitely have the right of way. The stalls all have drive-up windows…now add about 500 people, 30+C and there’s your zoo. Oh, I can’t forget the umbrellas that are up and all points are eyeball level. Even with all the chaos, I did manage a good photo or two.
Handsome little devils.
The Night Market, on the other hand, IS a tourist place. Motorcycles are banned, the lane is wide, and no low umbrellas are waiting to stab you in the eyeball. Everything is organized, and the prices are double what you pay anywhere else. The front half is all seafood restaurants featuring live things in tanks, and they have everything that swims, sinks, lurks, croaks, or hisses. You gotta see it. When you buy something out of the tank, they just heave it onto the grill, conveniently leaving out the part where you’re supposed to kill it first. There’s a thing called a mantis shrimp that looks 25% prawn, 25% lobster, and 50% alien space monster. It still gives me the willies when I think about it. As usual, there’s another way. We found a convenient little alley that leads down 100 feet to a walkway on the beach where the locals eat. The walkway is about 10 feet wide, which appears to be the ideal width for a seaside restaurant complete with tables, chairs, and a kitchen, while still leaving ample room for people to stroll through. They serve everything the night market does, but it’s cooked better, and you get to watch the kids swimming and the lights of the squid fishing fleet just offshore. It was good
Hmm. Which helpless arthropod gets it tonight?
Oh Kay.
Deb: We went to the night market.
I was particularly interested in what snake tasted like, so I asked the fellow. He said it was much like chicken; when I asked about bones, he said they are very small & would be made softer by cooking, not to worry. No problem, he said. But I had my eye on the frogs, so I had frog..2 of them. They were excellent! The only problem was, for the next 2 days, I was not far from a toilet, especially for more than 15 mins. Yes, those frogs had me hoppin’. lol!
Señor and señorita Froggy.
Scallops on a follow-up visit.
I can’t say that Christmas is a non-event here, as they put up lots of lights and trees and things, which definitely gives the place a festive atmosphere. And people like to put on Santa hats or elf hats, especially on their kids. But they don’t seem to take it as seriously as we do. It’s just a fun thing to do while waiting for Tet.
The pool in our new digs. Still shoving the palm trees into the ground…
Our Christmas Elf!