The Siem Reap airport was quite far out of the city…we met a Tuk Tuk driver a few days prior that was desperate for our business so we told him he could drive us to the airport. Maybe not the best decision based on speed, temperature, wind, dust, etc…you get the picture. The 50-ish minute drive took almost 1.25 hours. We left early enough it wasn’t a big deal for time, but man our butts were sore! The airport is brand new, built by China….there is ALOT of Chinese money in Cambodia. They obviously built the airport for future capacity as there were hardly any people or planes!
This time we took an AirAsia flight to the next destination of Phu Quoc. The plane was definitely a well used one…reminded us of Westjet in it’s OG days. These Pilots liked to bank hard, and flew it rough!
It was a short GRAB drive from the airport to our airbnb and lets just say the guy was sketch and the pictures online were from a long time ago when maybe the place was newer. We were put on the 4th floor (walk up) right next to construction. Todd was not happy and complained to the guy that this was not the room we booked….the guy back peddled and told us he would have something figured out tomorrow. He ended up moving us down to the 1st floor, which was better but still not the room we booked.
Regardless of all that WE WERE FINALLY IN VIETNAM! The next couple of days were spent walking to the beach, around the hood and checking out the local flavours. Phu Quoc is one of the top 3 beach destinations in the world, and apparently it’s Vietnams Hawaii. The majority of tourists are Russian and every restaurant has 3 languages on the menu: Vietnamese, English and Russian. The closest beach to us is 1/2 km and we walked there almost every day.
The next night, we took the bus to the night market and that was insane…so many people and stalls in the skinny streets! We had a great dinner at a nice restaurant near the market. Todd had his first Banh Mi sandwich and he said it was very good!
A few days later we headed down to Sunset town…..it was a long day and an adventure to get to Sunset Town after we found out the Sun World shuttle bus stopped operating on Dec 15. We ended up taking a different bus and then a GRAB to get there. The entire area in the south end of Phu Quoc has been transformed into little Europe. Tiered streets linked by escalators and stairs ….the streets were France, Italy, Spain, etc. Being a top beach destination in the world, the amount of construction is insane. There as so many cranes building towers on these high tourist beaches.
We were very hot when we finally arrived in Sunset Town, so headed for some AC at the French coffee shop, we had an egg coffee and salted coffee ☕…we both agreed that the salted coffee was probably the best coffee we have ever had in our lives. Todd also tried a baked item and said hands down the best cookie ever!
We then walked over to the famous kissing bridge for a few pics and then found a place for a drink and to watch sunset. (Note: if you dont get sound on this video, move your mouse around or touch the screen and a volume button should come up on the top left of the screen – Kiss bridge ). All this before we went to the water, light, and sound show called Kiss of the Sea, which ended in a fantastic fireworks show. Here is a sample:Kiss-the-sea.html
The stadium held 5000 people and when the show let out the streets were insanely flooded and a live DJ was playing dance music…it was crazy!
Although we had been down to our local beach many times, we hadn’t spent a lot of time there. So our last day at this location we opted to rent chairs and hung at the beach for the majority of the day. The water was clear, the temperature was warm and not wavy at all! It was a perfect beach day! Pics-week-1.html
The first 5 days went by pretty fast and then we moved to another hotel location that was north of centre (Emerald Garden, here is a tour:
Emerald garden.html) We also decided to rent a scooter for the week to give us a bit more freedom. Of course…we had to send our first scooter back for lack of front brakes…we got another scooter with better brakes and seat for the passenger. Scootering-downtown.html
The first destination was farther north up the island to see what there was to see…drove past VinPearl and Grand World which are complexes similar to Sunset town where everything looks like fake Europe. Sunset Town
We went to a fishing town and saw some real dirty garbage filled ocean water and a pier with some sketchy boats. Then found an off shoot “road”that led us 500 metres down a sand and dirt path to Secret beach that was nice. Ong-lang-beach.html Then a lunch spot for traditional lunch (rice, fried egg on top, pork chop,pork sausage, cucumbers and soup with a side of sweet and salty eggplant 🍆) the meal with 2 bottles of water was $7.
The next day we headed down to Khem beach and then Sao beach…both heavily tourist populated but nice beaches. Although if you went outside the tourist beach boundary there was alot of garbage pollution. Sao-beach-and-garbage.html
The rest of the week was spent beach hopping (Hyperlapse-walk-to-south-beach.html), driving around and figuring out where we were going to eat. (One of my fave meals so far: Rice wrappering)
I did learn the hard way that yes…they do have jellyfish here. Pics week-2.html
We were relaxed after 12 days and ready to move on to mainland Vietnam.