Off the Southwest coast of Vietnam lies the beautiful island of Phu Quoc. Its 574 m2 are for the most part uninhabited, which makes the island quite special. There are plans to build and develop in the future, which seem to be moving quite slowly, however for now it is still pretty virgin and not highly touristic, with a large amount of dirt roads and just plain nature.

Already in the plane that was flying us there, we met Jackie; yes, again Jackie, like our guide in HCMC, they seem to like that name! She is a wonderful and charismatic lady who grew up in Phu Quoc but as soon as the war began in the 70s she fled to Thailand and then Canada, were she has since lived for 30 years. She travels back every year to see her family and relatives who live on the island.

Jackie was extremely generous from the very beginning. To start with, she invited us to join her in the minivan that came to pick her up at the airport, driven by her nephew, and took us to our guesthouse. Moreover, a couple of hours later she came back to our place and we went for a walk at the beach as the sun was setting. The same night she took us around and showed us some places to go to, and finally she invited us to dinner in a very authentic local place. There we were also introduced to some of her lovely friends, with whom we had such a great time. Actually we ended up staying at Hiep Thanh Resort – highly recommended-, which was owned by a friend of Jackie’s, who had the amiability to offer us a fair discount on the rooms. We were so lucky to have met Jackie that we almost couldn’t believe it. She definitely took good care of us, thus earning the position of our “Vietnamese Mother”. We will miss you Jackie!

The rest of our days at Phu Quoc island we drove around with a motorbike discovering the white sand beaches in the South as well as the immense jungle in the North, simply soaking up the sun and the warm ocean. Our favorite beaches were Bai Dao in the Northwest with almost nobody else there, and Bai Sao in the Southeast, slightly more touristic due to its pearl white sand.

Despite being a very quite beach, we experienced quite a hilarious scene at Bai Dao with a Chinese tour group. They were swimming and suddenly hard-core techno music started rattling the beach.  All 30 of them, almost as if they were in the army, took their positions and began to follow a guided intense dance routine. Yes, at first it was funny, but after 30 minutes of having our ears blown out, we were grateful when their tour continued and the beach became again a peaceful place. Wherever we have gone so far, be it locals or Asian tourists, there’s no doubt that they love heavy techno music…

We also had the occasion to go snorkeling and see the coral reef in the Southern islands off of Phu Quoc, which was very spectacular, especially since neither of us had done this before. Since this moment, our curiosity about marine life and our eagerness to further discover the underwater world started to grow considerably.

The variety of food in Phu Quoc, especially seafood, is something we can’t forget to mention. Above all, the night market had an endless selection of ocean creatures to chose from, in fact we had never seen some of them before. And yes, even though we didn’t try them all, the delicious seafood we ate, at a very reasonable price, was such a nice treat. Sorry, we didn’t get to taste the giant frogs or the sea snakes, but who knows, the moment may come later on… !

After a week of enjoying the island came to its end, and pushed by the fact that our visa was expiring, we left Vietnam to reach our next country: Cambodia.