Phu Quoc Island

This place is amazing. I think we came at the right time. It's slowly being developed, but still has a rugged traditional Vietnamese feel. Our hotel, called the paris beach resort, is a french colonial type boutique hotel, with a romantic restaurant/cafe right on the ocean. It also has several friendly little dogs that greet us every time we walk by. This is the island many of the Vietnamese come to for holidays. We came over on a ferry where we met a guy named Ben (from Britain, currently living in Shanghai) and hit it off. Ben met some friends back at his hotel and all five of us met for dinner. Thai (who's Vietnamese and lives here), Theo (from Germany who's couch surfing at Thai's place), Ben, Eddie and I. Thai suggested the night market since it has fresh seafood. It was an amazing dinner. Thai did all the ordering and showed us how to eat everything. Then Thai had to go to work and the four of us had some drinks with the locals at a pub stall outside the night market. The local Vietnamese owners treated us so well. They made us a bunch off food and keep saying "we friends, all free". We stayed until 1:30am visiting with the locals. They even brought us into their home to use the washroom. Last night we went to say "hello", but it was closed. The second day on the island we rented scooters with Theo & Ben & toured the island. Went to a pepper farm, beaches, a forest walk, fuelled up at two interesting gas stations, met a bunch of kids at a local school who helped direct us the proper way, entered our first un friendly village & went with our guts and left. It could have been a language break down, but it was the only non smiling village any of us have been too. The forest walk was beautiful the trees were like vines some were like ropes wrapped like a braid. I swung from them & pulled all the ones I saw along the path then later learned that in Thailand this is a normal spot for the snakes to hide! yikes. We also saw some cat eyes & ears in a dark cave which were assuming was wild. We got back to our hotel in the dark. It was a long day. Yesterday the four of us went on a boat tour. We went to a pearl farm, fish farm, boating on the ocean, snorkelling, to a beautiful beach (Soa beach) and had a nice fresh fish lunch on the boat. We met another couple Tom & Laura from London and they joined us for dinner along with Thai, Theo and Ben. We ate at the night market again and Thai picked the dish. We had a full fish and made vegetable basil/mint fish rice wraps. It was delicious and healthy. After that we said our goodbyes and headed back to our hotel to apply after sun lotion onto our badly burned backs. Eddies is a little worse, even though he put a shirt on well before he felt any heat, he wasn't even pink yet. Only an hour and a half of sun in total. I wore a dress snorkelling which saved a bit of my skin. It's amazing how fast you get burned here even with protection. Well off to relax out if the sun. We have two more days here so we'll add the rest of our pictures later.