Day 21 – October 8 – Hoi An – Phu Quoc Island

We got picked up bright and early to go to the airport in Da Nang. We got there in plenty of time to get checked in for our flights from Da Nang to Saigon and then Saigon to Phu Quoc Island. We ate breakfast at the Da Nang airport, a baguette with melted cheese and cucumbers. It was no superb culinary dish, but it did its job, we’ll just leave it at that. Saigon airport was lackluster. We sat around reading or writing until our flight to Phu Quoc. Part of traveling this much is time spent waiting for planes, trains and automobiles, so we have mastered the art of waiting. (1) Stare at people around you. Typically, small children are amazed at seeing Westerners like us. We make funny faces or wave, and they smile or laugh. Sometimes, they freak out, which is even more fun. (2) Watch an episode on your iPod, but make sure that people can see it. 30 Rock has been a hit for me, with people looking at it funny. I doubt the humor would translate, but the bright colors, shots of the NY skyline and funny costumes seem to impress people in Asia. (3) Count your remaining passport pages and estimate remaining visas and stamps. I’m sure there will be a posting one day about passport stamps and visas in Stuff White People Like. It’s true, but I just want to make sure I don’t have to have additional pages added when there is no US consulate around. (4) Find the foreigners. Go talk to other foreigners, whether it is the weird Italian stalker lady or the overly ebullient Canadian wondering where your next stop is. They can give good advice about places they have visited. You might also spot my favorite type of foreigner, the Matching Couple. These people are typically from Germany, Austria or elsewhere in Central Europe and have on matching shirts, jackets or shoes. Sometimes you are really lucky and they have the same shirt and matching shorts/skirts. It is quite something to see. (5) Start translating the weird characters in front of you. I now know the characters for Beijing and Nanjing (Bei means “North,” Nan means “South” and Jing means “Capital”). This will help in the future.

Once we arrived in Phu Quoc we were met by many people hawking their hotels. We had a hotel in mind, Mango Bay, but were slightly put off by the price of $70 a night. That was a bit north of our budgets. So we went with one of the guys pushing their hotel and saw the rooms. Pretty bleak if you ask me. Most of the larger hotels are on a strip of beach making it relatively simple to check out several in one go. The price for a “beach view” room was about $40 a night. There really was no beach view and the place looked like it had been closed for the season. We asked the front desk to call us a taxi and we went to Mango Bay. As the cab pulled up, Robin noticed he didn’t have his pipe and painting, he had left it in the shuttle van from the airport which had just left to go back to the airport. We got the phone number of the hotel and told them to please look for it.

A 25 minute drive down a muddy, bumpy road brought us to Mango Bay. It was not in the same area as the rest of the hotels. Mango Bay is an eco-resort which uses recycled materials or reclaimed wood for construction materials. Most of the rooms are stand-alone structures, either made from wood or compacted earth. It was a beautiful place. We got a room that looked out to the ocean, a real view. It was what they called a Fisherman’s Room, a stand-alone hut with four wooden steps up to a deck and the room. The room was great, with an outdoor bathroom and shower. As for outdoor bathroom and shower, I didn’t know what to think about it, but I did really like it in the end. We had a deck with two lounge chairs so we could crash there if the weather was not cooperating. We dropped our stuff, changed into board shorts, and quickly booked our return flight to Saigon at the computer in the restaurant. We walked down the beach to a nice area with lounge chairs spaced generously apart. There was one other person within eyesight, and a couple of workers who were fixing up the outdoor bar which was going to open soon. The sky was beginning to darken as ominous clouds moved in and threatened to inundate us with rain, so we lay on the lounge chairs to enjoy the rapidly darkening sun. After about two hours, I jumped into the water. It was as warm as a bathtub. There were some small waves, about two to three feet, and the water was crystal clear. After about 15 minutes it started to rain, so we packed it up for the day.

Dinner was at their restaurant on the patio. We sat just to the edge of the overhang so we could get the best view of the water. There are maybe 18 rooms on the resort, so there were very few people there, and we were two of only 7 at the restaurant. There was a hippie French couple, the sisters from the UK and an American guy who I will discuss later. The view from the restaurant was spectacular. The waves crashed on the rocks below us, but the waves were just out of reach of spraying us. Kind of like the outdoor area at Moonshadows in Malibu, except there was no glass. Out across the dark sea, a series of purple lights dotted the horizon creating a surreal vision. We didn’t know if that was light coming from mainland Cambodia or Vietnam, so we asked a waitress. She looked at us a little funny, cocking her head to the side and saying, “The lights over there?” pointing to the horizon. Yes, we said, Vietnam or Cambodia? No, she replied, those are the fishing ships. It is incredible to think that there are hundreds of fishing boats out there creating what was almost an Aurora Borealis above the sea. We saw some go in and some go out, thinking that they had been factories, but instead, they were boats coming or going over the horizon. Dinner was fantastic, all of the food served is organic, and the fish was amazing. I had fish skewers and was very happy with it. The drinks weren’t half bad, either.

After dinner we sat at the bar for a while, speaking with the bartender and the American guy. The American guy had been working with a Vietnamese factory in Saigon to design and built furniture for hotel chains. He was quite interesting, working with one partner to develop beds, desks, entertainment centers, etc, for large hotel chains who have to buy bulk furniture for renovations and new builds. Since Robin and I had worked on hotels for the past few years, we had a good conversation with the guy. After being in Saigon for almost three weeks, he decided to fly to Phu Quoc for the weekend to relax before heading back to the States. I would definitely support that decision.

We got back to the room and fell asleep right away. It was a long day of travel and hotel searching, but we knew we had made the right call with Mango Bay.