Welcome back
As I sit and Write this I feel it’s only fair you know where I am. I am currently on a night bus on the way to Mui Ne. Mui Ne is a small beach town on the southeast coast around 6hours from HCMC. One thing about this bus is that it has beds! There are 3 rows of beds running the full length of the bus, the best bit, there bunk beds! In all honesty I am a little bit too tall to find these truly comfortable but hopefully any sleep I get will be better that the sleep afforded by a standard bus seat. Another major plus point about this bus trip is the cost. To get a sleeping bus for 6 hours is costing £6 or $7. So long as this goes well I believe it is how we will travel the majority of Vietnam. By taking night buses you don’t require any accommodation that evening thus saving you money and time.
We have just returned from Phu Quoc island. This is a small island just off the south coast of Vietnam. We were not sure about going here. We decided that we would have a week “holiday” where we would allow our selves time to relax and recharge, But was Phu Quoc the place? There was only one way to find out.
Pineapple crown washed up on Ong Lang Beach
We booked into accommodation in Ong Lang. It’s a small hamlet basicly made up of a few shops and small resorts, it has it’s own beach and a few small sandy coves. We chose Ong Lang because it was going to be quiet and we were not disappointed. The first night we were the only tourists staying in our hotel. The beaches were relatively small and at some points there was only maybe 2m of sand from wave to grass but still definitely a beach! Generally we’re active people. We never seem to have spare time and that is our decision. So naturally we got bored after a couple of days. We decided the best thing to do would be to rent a moped. At around £8 a day we decided that if we didn’t feel safe we could return it and pay with out feeling ripped off.
It was amazing. We spent the whole day puttering about on it. We explored the whole northern end of the island. The old port is on the north east coasts which meant the majority of the roads around there are well made and sealed. Of course we managed to head down one little road that wasn’t!! We spent two hours bumping and scraping our way down this muddy wet and rocky “road” but it was definitely worth every jolt and jar. We came across this beautiful fishing village that was full of boats and long jetties. I am not sure that western tourists were particularly welcome. I may be wrong and we just caught them at a bad time but we got some very odd looks and scowls thrown our way. After another 45 minuets of That same road we finally found tarmac! What a blessing it was. To say I was a little tender in the nether regions would be a small understatement. We stopped a little while later on the north western most tip of the island. We found a nice restaurant elevated above the shore. This was a family run business and the cook of our meal was about 12. He even had a classic plastic step in front of the oven! He totally put my cooking to shame. It was delicious. It was around this time we found a walk way bolted to the side of a cliff. We did the ‘classic put your foot on the first board and push down hard to see if it’s all safe’ test, it passed with flying colours. We followed until it turned a corner and revealed a small cove. Not a beautiful spot that would win any awards but a very peaceful place. Then we heard the thunder!
One of the many jetties at Rach Vem
It was time for a very quick dash back to our rusty steed and home, before we got wet. It was time I really tested what that baby could do. We got on the open road and I wound the throttle wide, it was a race between us and the weather. As the sky started to turn, light gray at first then, darker. I could feel the wind on my face, tugging at my shirt. Started to lean low on the bars, lowering our wind resistance. My god we were flying now. I hit the horn as we passed anyone and everyone be it a child on a pushbike or a farmer walking his goods to market. It was only fair that I warned them about us, the yellow pocket rocket playing at being the pied piper to the weather. The humming drone of our engine being the tune the heavy grey clouds seemed to be attracted to. My gods we really making good time how fast are we going I thought as I looked down at the Speedo I got a hell of a shock. We were doing 58kph. That’s 38mph. That was when the horrendous truth hit me, we were going to get wet, very very wet. The heavens opened and the world vanished in a blur of rain. We made it back safely but soggy. And in true British style we went out the next day as well!
This time we went south. It was more of the same beautiful scenery and huge fairly empty roads. There is a new international airport on the island, which allowed us to ride hell for leather down the old runway. With all the resourcefulness of the Vietnamese they have repurposed this as a road with a small market at one end and a small funfair at the other. We managed to get ourselves lost again and by pure chance we stumbled across a local waterfall, we paid our 68p and entered the park. After what should have been about a 15 minuet walk (I find myself stopping to take photos every few steps. This makes nearly all our walks take a lot longer than perhaps they should) we found the waterfall and it was serine and secluded. Then we heard the thunder! Again!
With all my english optimism I put a white t-shirt on that morning and true to form it went very see-through. After the walk back we took cover in the cafe and waited for the rain to pass. We spent a portion of this watching a snake make its way across the park to higher ground it’s the only snake i have seen in Vietnam so far. When we finally decided to move on the rain had lessened but not stopped. We noticed that the river had risen a lot in the intervening 45 minuets and this got us thinking. Has the waterfall changed much?
the waterfall before the storm. unfortunately I didn't get an after the storm shot.
It was now raging and any of its sereneness had been washed down stream at quite a pace. I was left a little shocked at the change and in such a small amount of time.
The ride back to Ong Lang was a damp slow one. The rain did stop but by then my soaked white t-shirt successfully shrink wrapped itself around me and in doing so managed to leave all my modesty behind. We took a small detour down a sand and tarmac track that turned out to be a building site access road. We learned a long while back that if you pretend your meant to be there, no one ever asks what you are doing. We applied this tactic and were left alone on a beautiful strip of beach. The place was deserted and with the partly constructed hotel just behind the beach it felt like we were the sole survivors of some sort of apocalypse. The journey Home proved us very wrong! We hit the main town on the island at rush hour and it was pandemonium! The combined effort of the rain, the traffic and the state of my white t shirt couldn’t take anything away from this beautiful tropical paradise. My only concern is the rate at which they are building hotels and infrastructure. Will this small island just off the coast of Vietnam and Cambodia end up ruined? My advice is to go soon.