Wayne Kerr’s Phu Quoc Expeditions - Vietnam

[Wayne Kerr]

Originally Posted by mend

Would this island paradise be a good place to visit, if you have never been to Vietnam, or speak any vietnamese? Also, do you need to take your own "sand" to this beach.....???

Yes to the first question, no to the second.

Anyway, back to the road …

Lunch on Ha Tien Beach

After the dog meat dinner the night before, I was in need of a good seafood lunch and a few beers to wake me up. Unfortunately they only had Heineken but it was cold and alcoholic – sitting on a beach in southern Vietnam any bloody cold beer tastes good. Here’s a few pics of my first lunch.


^ Ha Tien Beach – since there are hundreds of islands offshore the coast along here is shallow and muddy. The tip of the headland at the end of the beach marks the coastal border between Vietnam and Cambodia. We were one of three small groups there.


^ First up we had some delicious swimming crabs and cold beer


^ Then some steamed grouper and battered squid rings


^ View from our table towards the beach


^ The beer wench. A funny thing I’ve noticed is that the Vietnamese and Chinese men love to make waitresses scull beer with them. This poor Cambodian-Vietnamese lass just about passed out by the time we left .


^ The road snakes along the coast for tens of kilometres here. This pic is looking back towards the headland marking the Cambodia-Vietnam border – the Vietnamese are investing loads of money into this sea side drive .

[Wayne Kerr]

Phu Tu Limestone Karsts

Next stop on the way back to Rach Gia was to see the Phu Tu limestone karsts. There was always two, one they called the father, the other the son, but in May 2006 the father broke in half and fell into the sea. First things first of course, and it seems you can’t get to anywhere decent in Vietnam without going through a temple and a cave.


^ Entrance to the Phu Tu temple


^ Loads of statues at the Phu Tu temple


^ A scene from inside the cave located out the back of the Phu Tu temple


^ The other side of the temple cave 1


^ The other side of the temple cave 2


^ This is what the pointy rocks used to look like before the one on the left fell into the sea last year.

The local government have held loads of meetings over recent months to try and work out how to pick the now broken bit up from the sea floor and stick it back on. I reckon they should leave it as is and promote it as a dive destination.


^ Dried critters caught in the temple and nearby sea – geckos, seahorses, sea stars etc. Vietnamese “Vitamin V” .


^ Toys for the kiddies – the big ones could shoot the plastic shot through a tarpaulin. Wanted to get one for Wayne Jnr but had no room in the suitcase and didn’t know how it’d look in the hand luggage.

After this we bought a load of beer for the drive back to Rach Gia and we were all passed out by the time we got there .

[Wayne Kerr]

This all led to a pretty quiet night in downtown Rach Gia - if only it wasn't for all the bloody motorcycles disturbing the peace.

[Wayne Kerr]

The day before flying out to Phu Quoc Island

The next day was all meetings but it was all worth it knowing that the next day we’d be getting off the mainland and onto Phu Quoc Island. We had a very pissy dinner followed by a visit to the local massage parlour – the rate in the joint we visited was VND 50,000/hour (about US$3-4). Not many pics of this day but the video reminds me a lot of us drinking too many bottles of Vietnamese Vodka “Nep Moi” and getting stuck into a great hot pot of shrimp and squid .


^ Scene out the window of the meeting room I was holed up in all day


^ Start of dinner watching the sun set looking towards the Gulf of Thailand


^ Mud crab and sashimi grouper for starters

This video pretty much sums up the rest of the night before hitting the massage joint .

[MeMock]

This thread keeps getting better and better.

Also that bloke in the above video almost lost all the hairs on his hands when he reached across the burning fish to 'chon geow'

[William]

Brilliant thread - once again I'm being spoilt reading the tales of another kind enough to share

[Anonymous Coward]

I delayed reading this thread until I had time to do it justice and I'm glad I did. Wonderful work. The way you've integrated the fine photos and videos make it one of the best travel pieces ever.

Well done.

[Wayne Kerr]

Glad to see you enjoy the pics and video clips – they aren’t the best quality since I take them all on my mobile phone. I really wished I had a better camera for some of the places I visited next.

Anyway, back to the road …

Phu Quoc Island

After the big night before I was a little shaky at 6.00am for the flight to the island. First thing I remember about that morning was arriving at Phu Quoc Island airport. Anyway we were rushed off to check into the Kim Hoa Resort as we had a lunch meeting, which no doubt was going to mean more grog. The Vietnamese men love to drink during working hours, well I guess anytime for that matter and I’ve seen one or two heated arguments later in the afternoon when the drinks start to kick in a bit.


^ Arriving at Phu Quoc Island Airport – you forget how the bright the sun can be when you spend most of your time in Asian cities


^ Entrance to the Kim Hoa Resort on Phu Quoc Island – I had no idea at this time how friggin magnificent this joint was gunna be


^ After checking in I was taken down to my beach front bungalow – this was the first view I got looking southwest off the front deck


^ Then I looked northwest – bloody no-one there except the hired help picking up any trash that may wash ashore – I thought it was okay for US$30 a night


^ The pool wasn’t bad – check out all the tourists lazing around the place


^ Some small bungalows – these are set off the beach a bit and I think US$15-20 a night


^ Some other rooms in the resort for about $15 a night – everything is say 20-30 metres from the sand

After this we had about an hour to kill and we were rushed up a dirt track behind the beach to check out a souvenir centre. Apparently the island has a strict policy on the selling of tourist shit, and it can only be sold in centres such as this away from the beach. In fact this is about the only place you can get anything to take back home – far cry from the Andaman or Chang Islands these days and it was a real pleasure not being bugged every 2 minutes to buy something. The place sold local handicrafts, and the owner had incorporated a museum and dog farm into the place – no not for eating - for producing the famous Phu Quoc hunting dog.


^ Magnificent country up at the old handicraft centre


^ Most of this hill side land is uninhabited – apparently it is quite easy for foreigners to buy land there too


^ Handicraft store – all very nice and cheap but old Wayne Kerr kept his wallet in his pocket


^ The Phu Quoc Island hunting dogs. They are native to the island and the owner breeds them and sells most to mainland buyers – they have a big ridge running down their backs


^ Dolphin skeleton – certain communes on the island used to eat these


^ This is a dugong skeleton – these are still eaten on some of the small islands off the south of Phu Quoc


^ These marine turtles are for sale everywhere on the island – I’d buy one but it would be a huge fine should you be caught bringing it back into Thailand

[Wayne Kerr]

The first afternoon I was tied up in a meeting for a few hours – this was quite good as the hosts wanted me to have a few too many glasses of vodka with them and we ended up making good friends rather than much progress on the work we were doing – having spent some time with Vietnamese I realise that often one must come before the other. My friend regaled them with stories of me eating dog in Saigon and after that things really lightened up - it was Vietnamese vodka shots all round for a good hour at the end of the meeting .

I have to go back to the island again soon so after the meeting I took some time to check out another hotel. I may take Mrs. Kerr and Wayne Jnr so was looking for somewhere good for Mrs. Kerr’s running and tennis. This was the joint I checked out. The rooms go for $US22 a night, brand new joint looking over the sea with aircon and a good breakfast menu – although I think we’ll be heading back to the beachfront bungalows at Kim Hoa.


^ New hotel on Phu Quoc Island


^ Nice pool once again


^ Different take on the pool


^ Good tennis court with a massage joint down the back

After sussing this joint out we headed back to Kim Hoa Resort for some beer on the beach before hitting a local karoake joint. There are only two things that Vietnamese men love more than their local vodka and beer - massage joints and karaoke. We planned to leave the massage to the next night .


^ View of the roof of my bungalow looking down onto the beach


^ Bloody near impossible to find a spot on the beach to drink in the late afternoon


^ Even more people up that way


^ My bungalow was the one on the left

[MeMock]

Well I know where our next beach holiday is and it aint hua hin

Is there a lot of places to eat at or only at the hotels?

[Wayne Kerr]

Lots of places to eat, noodle stalls, little seafood joints on the beach, street side bread roll sellers etc. I will admit I pretty much only remember eating breakfast as lunches and dinners were mostly liquids. The breakfast at the Kim Hoa is great, can order as much as you want until full and it aint none of that buffet crap - Vietnamese bread, cheeses, noodles and stuff.

Transport is okay too - the hotels run buses into the market and other places every half hour or so. I don't know if these rates on the rent-a-bikes are reasonable or not - never rented one.


^ Rates for renting a bike on Phu Quoc

[Wayne Kerr]

Karaoke on Phu Quoc Island

Karoake joints in Vietnam go off. I really think places like Soi Yodsak are lame in comparison. Plus the girls you find working in them are far more attractive than similar style karaoke places in Thailand. I work with quite a few Vietnamese and most agree that there are more attractive girls per capita in Thailand, but they are ALL of the strong opinion that good looking Vietnamese sheilas are far more attractive than the good looking Thai ones – I tend to agree with them, especially when it comes to after hours entertainment places. Jesus "one night in Phu Quoc ... ".

Anyway first night on the island we planned a bit of singing. For those of you who have never frequented such a place, you are typically set up with 1-2 hotties that sing and are expected to get drunk with you, i.e., they drink from your glass and participate in any group “bottoms up” if you are singing at the time. You can also direct them to "bottoms up" with anyone at anytime and they'll do it. Most of them could drink your average Yank under the table, but as you can imagine they are usually quite small and end up getting a bit promiscuous later in the night .

One of my Vietnamese colleagues and I agreed to share the cost of the night for 5 of us, which included beer and about 10 girls/hostesses. Anyway we drank about 4 crates of beer, just about all the guys disappeared with their birds for a bit, and we ended up paying a total of 700,000 baht (sorry Dong) (say US$45) for the night. I tipped the two girls looking after me US$5 just before we left and one of them dragged me into one of the private rooms and started getting her gear off – I was had it by this stage so did a runner .

I know some of my friends back home reading this will think this all sounds a bit suss, but it is a pretty normal night out for southeast Asian blokes and it is pretty hard to work with them without getting involved. Lame excuse I know - shit why don’t I just say it is ALWAYS a shitload more feckin fun than dropping $50 on beer alone while trying to shag some fat, pimply arsed mole at the Woolloomooloo Hotel. Anyway, here’s a bit of video I salvaged that night - one of the hostesses got hold of my camera whilst I was singing and deleted all the good photos. She probably did me a favour as Mrs. Kerr is pretty good at sniffing this stuff out these days.


Lame video clip of one of the girls showing me how good she could dance with the beer delivery man:

[William]

700,000 baht (say US$45)

I really hope that Dong (or whatever its called) as I'm not in the best of shapes as it is

WK - I'm really enjoying this thread and it is making really fee like going. As a budget, how much would you say the round trip cost - couple of thousand US$?

[Wayne Kerr]

Oops, sorry the beer is kicking in. Yep 700,000 Vietnamese Dong, not baht. I spent $US330 for my room (5 nights), beer, a few alcoholic dinners for 6+ people, plus about 3 massages. Airfare to Phu Quoc from Bangkok is about $300. So say $600. $1000 you'd wear the skin off it . I'm pretty sure it is cheaper to holiday on Phu Quoc than a beach in Thailand.

[Wayne Kerr]

One of my friends said he just posted his videos from the Karaoke session on You Tube - might be a bit hard to search since he used some Vietnamese words as titles and stuff .