A Jewel of Turquoise Beauty
BY KATIE KENNEDY
There’s a jewel of turquoise beauty that lies South West of Vietnam and Cambodia, and it goes by the name of Phu Quoc Island. It’s one of those places you don’t really want people to find out about and it’s what I had been longing for since I’d left my homely comforts of South Manchester. If beaches and paradise are your thing, then move fast and get over there while it’s still low-key.
Emerald waters, solitude, lush mountains and white, squeaky sand (there, I said it) drape the landscape of Vietnam’s finest scene. The best way to make the most of this paradise is to hire a motorbike and brave the red dirt tracks of the island. Once you see the locals fly past you with the most ridiculously awkward objects hanging off the sides of their bikes, – hello fridges, pineapples, crates upon crates of beer and a family of four, all at once – you won’t worry too much about hitting the deck, so to speak. Learn to use the horn for anything and everything imaginable, and go exploring. Long Beach has the biggest range of budget to high-end accommodation. We stayed at Viet Thanh and as it was off-season we managed to get a double room with a fan and private bathroom for $7/n. However if you can, I would stay on or near Bai Sao. Long Beach itself is beautiful, but believe me when I say that getting on your bike and discovering Bai Sao beach is well worth it. It’s not as easy to find as you’d imagine and we weren’t alone in realising that we’d missed the unsuspecting dirt track several times. We finally managed to narrow it down and find it though after asking the locals when filling up for gas.
On arriving you get hit with an overwhelming sense of self-satisfaction. Why it isn’t over-run with tourists, backpackers and the like, I really don’t know. It holds an essence of mystery and solitude, yet is not so isolated that you feel you might to have to build a raft and row back to Vietnam’s mainland in desperate need of some Uncle Ho pictures of Pho Bo. The main town of Duong Dong holds some of the best Ho Chi Minh memorabilia you can lay your hands on. And as for the food? Walk down to the night market and after haggling for some Uncle Ho tat, delve into some of the finest and freshest seafood that will ever be served to you, and plentiful.
We lay there content in knowing we had made it to arguably one of the world’s finest beaches. My advice to you is to go as soon as you can. Vietnam is expanding; it’s a plethora of old and new, it’s developing fast and you can feel it booming. The Vietnamese know how to make business and they want to make that buck. Off the stretch of Long Beach, early development for lavish golf courses and overpowering hotels is already looming. Often on my jaunts around Southeast Asia I spoke with others about whether these ‘off the beaten track’ beaches and places still exist. Well, they do, you just need to put down your guide, do some talking, and you’ll find that when you stumble across that beach, everyone else there has come across it by word of mouth and is equally as relieved that these places are still out there, right under your nose. Contrary to popular belief, they even still exist in Thailand, but we’ll come to this later. Places which hold the ultimate balance of blissful relaxation and beers until you can’t see straight. Beaches that haven’t been ruined by full-moon revellers, over-development or Alex Garland’s omnipresence. Don’t feel bad if you get that pang of selfishness in not wanting it to get over-commercialised or discovered by too many others, but accept that maybe one day that will be the case, and for now relish in its immense beauty and your luckiness.
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