Phu Quoc.

Before we venture into the bliss that is Phu Quoc, a note on the trip from Can Tho.

The road that leads from Can Tho to Rach Gia, the port of departure for Phu Quoc, apart from being the only paved road between the two major centres, is a narrow two lane strip of asphalt with no paved verge. Lining the entire 120 km are houses and store frontages. It is, in effect, a very long main drag as would be seen in any busy town in Vietnam with about 20' separating the opposing frontages. Populating this strip are pedestrians, bicycles, motos, cars and SUVs, trucks of every utility and, the king of the road, our massive Hyundai passenger coach. It is BUSY. As our coach boomed down the middle of this narrow, crowded lane, all other travellers were forced to get the hell out of the way, with the obvious, shit running down hill effect - as other larger vehicles move to the verge as we pass, smaller vehicles are forced to follow suit.

I felt badly at one point as we over took a fellow on his moto. The strategy employed by our driver was to get the nose of the bus just ahead of whatever vehicle we were about to pass and then move sharply back into the right hand lane, forcing the over-taken vehicle to either brake or bounce off the side of the much bigger bus. This fellow was having difficulty with the manoeuvre because, as he was driving his moto down this insanely busy road, HE WAS TEXTING! What could go wrong.

We were, however, able to reach Rach Gia without carnage.

We boated to Phu Quoc via the Super Dong III.

Phu Quoc has, for the bulk of the last 150 years, been a penal colony, first under the French colonial forces, later operated by the South Vietnam government and the US military, and finally (currently) by the reunified Vietnamese government. A large island, most of its coast is fringed with white sand beaches. Poor land for agriculture as a result of a very arid climate, over the last couple of decades a tourist industy has evolved. There are several stand alone resorts sited around the island, though the main action is a 5 km strip running south from the main town of Duong Dong. This, however, is about to change. The entire west coast of the island (about 40 km in length) is plastered with billboards announcing massive beach side resorts. At this point the island still pastoral, but if you are coming, get here soon.

We stayed at the Moon Resort, a scruffy collection of thatched cottages just off the beach, open at the gables (better for the rats to get in) with cold water (OK, air temperature water, which is pretty warm) for the shower and a lovely little front porch from which we could catch a glimpse of the ocean. Our hosts were warm, the air temperature was 30 + and the water temperature a constant 29 degrees. We wandered the town, visited the markets, I had three dives, we swam often, read on the beach and we found the cure for all infectious diseases. OK, almost all of those things.