Phu Quoc Vacation February 2018
It was February again, and it was time to take our annual winter escape to get some sun, and this time the choice fell onto exotic and unknown Phú Quốc island in Vietnam.
We already knew we wanted to go to Vietnam, but there was no good flights available anywhere except Phú Quốc, plus it was a direct flight from Copenhagen so it was a clear winner.
The Long Beach area is great.
Plenty of cheap and nice accommodation. Jungle everywhere. The Phu Quoc town is nearby.
Transportation may be a challenge, unless you rent a motorbike. More on that below.
If you want fancy and more expensive, you probably want something like Anja resort, which seemed to be the best beach-front hotel of the area. They have a super nice beach, pool, bars etc.
If you want something more private and cozy, with ability to cook yourself and be able to party outside, look for some bungalow. I can personally recommend Nang Bali Bungalow — an awesome place, probably the best in the area. Grab some fish, shrimps, and whatever else you like on local market (30 min motorbike roundtrip), and BBQ it yourself with your family and friends or neighbours! You will need to buy some bbq coal, it's sold in plastic bags in shops, but are pretty hard to come by. It’s also quite easy to gather some wood nearby.
One common trick is to pre-book something decent looking for 1-2 days, then find the best deal locally. You can save 50-70% on accommodation this way, and get the best deal possible.This of course works only if you have a motorbike — you would have to ride around quite a bit to find the best place for you. Try your best to get a bungalow with a pool — it’s very useful :)
Just remember: don't leave your shoes/sneakers/flip-flops outside. There are those cute local dogs everywhere, and these little bastards LOVE to steal tourist's shoes. Can be a challenge to get them back if this happens.
Motorbike rental is from 100K to 200K VND per day, and the rentals are everywhere, including most hotels/bungalows/shops. Most bikes I've seen are 125cc scooters. Some with manual shifter — so when renting make sure you’re getting an automatic one. Check that the tires and brakes are good, and that everything works, including indicators, lights, seat lock etc. If you’re lucky, you might be able to find something newer than 25K km mileage. Mine was over 100K, but worked fine, and had new tires. Caution: it’s VERY dangerous to drive a bike there. There are no traffic rules, no cops, everything is very chaotic. The roads can have potholes, random junk anywhere, sand, dirt, etc. And many people are driving drunk or high (or both at the same time).
But where's the fun if there's no risk?
Despite all that, most/all rental people don’t care whether you have license, and whether you know how to ride a bike. Some will ask if you have an A-category license, but they don’t even ask to see it.
Renting a car is quite useless IMO, and is much harder to drive on Phú Quốc. All roads except the main ones are very narrow and bad, and you can easily get stuck, or simply not even be able to drive where you want.
The hotel owners seem to be ok when people come from outside, and use their beach, pool etc. We have been going to Anja and Amarin resort beaches, and their pools and bars several times, as well as some other places. Most hotels didn't charge money for using their beach beds either. It’s very nice of them to do that, but I can see how this may change in a year or two, and become more private and non-free.
We did not buy local SIM cards, and it worked out fine, because free wifi is almost everywhere in the populated areas. But when riding out of town and trying to find some hidden forest path in the jungle, having internet and navigation could be very useful.
If you decide to buy SIM cards — there are plenty of places in the town, and they are available at the airport, but not so much in the “countryside”.
Some of our favorite dining/drinking places:
Z Coffee — was our favorite place to eat in general. Great value for money, and it was near our hotel at the time.
Pineapple bar and Red Snapper — if you want some pizza or a burger, these would be the go to places.
Linda restaurant — nice breakfest place, they even have coffee with real milk (most other places only have condensed sweet milk)
May restaurant — a nice dinner place
Buddha bar — popular dance / drink place
Rory’s beach bar — popular dance / drink place on the beach, with a camp fire every night
Honorable mention: Skye bar -- a rooftoop bar with a great view.
The greatest road trip we took was to the Starfish Beach (Rach Vem). We went by bikes in a group of 8 people (with our bungalow neighbors), and rode through a very hidden jungle path, which is very offload and bumpy ride, but also very fun if that’s your thing, but it seems that most people take a taxi and ask the driver to come and pick them up later.
We already knew we wanted to go to Vietnam, but there was no good flights available anywhere except Phú Quốc, plus it was a direct flight from Copenhagen so it was a clear winner.
The Long Beach area is great.
Plenty of cheap and nice accommodation. Jungle everywhere. The Phu Quoc town is nearby.
Transportation may be a challenge, unless you rent a motorbike. More on that below.
If you want fancy and more expensive, you probably want something like Anja resort, which seemed to be the best beach-front hotel of the area. They have a super nice beach, pool, bars etc.
If you want something more private and cozy, with ability to cook yourself and be able to party outside, look for some bungalow. I can personally recommend Nang Bali Bungalow — an awesome place, probably the best in the area. Grab some fish, shrimps, and whatever else you like on local market (30 min motorbike roundtrip), and BBQ it yourself with your family and friends or neighbours! You will need to buy some bbq coal, it's sold in plastic bags in shops, but are pretty hard to come by. It’s also quite easy to gather some wood nearby.
One common trick is to pre-book something decent looking for 1-2 days, then find the best deal locally. You can save 50-70% on accommodation this way, and get the best deal possible.This of course works only if you have a motorbike — you would have to ride around quite a bit to find the best place for you. Try your best to get a bungalow with a pool — it’s very useful :) Just remember: don't leave your shoes/sneakers/flip-flops outside. There are those cute local dogs everywhere, and these little bastards LOVE to steal tourist's shoes. Can be a challenge to get them back if this happens.
Motorbike rental is from 100K to 200K VND per day, and the rentals are everywhere, including most hotels/bungalows/shops. Most bikes I've seen are 125cc scooters. Some with manual shifter — so when renting make sure you’re getting an automatic one. Check that the tires and brakes are good, and that everything works, including indicators, lights, seat lock etc. If you’re lucky, you might be able to find something newer than 25K km mileage. Mine was over 100K, but worked fine, and had new tires. Caution: it’s VERY dangerous to drive a bike there. There are no traffic rules, no cops, everything is very chaotic. The roads can have potholes, random junk anywhere, sand, dirt, etc. And many people are driving drunk or high (or both at the same time).But where's the fun if there's no risk?
Despite all that, most/all rental people don’t care whether you have license, and whether you know how to ride a bike. Some will ask if you have an A-category license, but they don’t even ask to see it.
Renting a car is quite useless IMO, and is much harder to drive on Phú Quốc. All roads except the main ones are very narrow and bad, and you can easily get stuck, or simply not even be able to drive where you want.
The hotel owners seem to be ok when people come from outside, and use their beach, pool etc. We have been going to Anja and Amarin resort beaches, and their pools and bars several times, as well as some other places. Most hotels didn't charge money for using their beach beds either. It’s very nice of them to do that, but I can see how this may change in a year or two, and become more private and non-free.
We did not buy local SIM cards, and it worked out fine, because free wifi is almost everywhere in the populated areas. But when riding out of town and trying to find some hidden forest path in the jungle, having internet and navigation could be very useful.
If you decide to buy SIM cards — there are plenty of places in the town, and they are available at the airport, but not so much in the “countryside”.
Some of our favorite dining/drinking places: Z Coffee — was our favorite place to eat in general. Great value for money, and it was near our hotel at the time.
Pineapple bar and Red Snapper — if you want some pizza or a burger, these would be the go to places.
Linda restaurant — nice breakfest place, they even have coffee with real milk (most other places only have condensed sweet milk)
May restaurant — a nice dinner place
Buddha bar — popular dance / drink placeRory’s beach bar — popular dance / drink place on the beach, with a camp fire every night
Honorable mention: Skye bar -- a rooftoop bar with a great view.
For us it took about 30 min to get from the "main" road the the beach, where we were welcomed by some friendly locals, and a great beach view.
We hanged out there for a few hours, and then rode back by the same road. This time it took much less time.
Another popular destination is Sao beach (or Bai Sao), which looks very nice on google maps and other people’s photos, but when we went there it was literally covered in trash, and looked very nasty. And crowded too. The locals charge 400K VND for 2 beach beds there, which was very unexpected too, so we were lucky to bring our beach towels with us. Nevertheless, I hope it was just a coincidence. I hope they will clean the trash and make the beach beautiful again.
Epizode beach - that's the place where Kazantip festival took place. Nice clean beach, nice decorations, worth visiting.
One thing that didn’t work out is our attempt to go to the Phú Quốc National Park. It seems to be completely closed for tourists. No entry signs everywhere. Some people said that there’s one hiking route available somewhere, but they didn’t like it.
When you go to town, the main thing is to visit the night market. I wasn’t a fan of it, but it’s worth to visit at least once. Quite spectacular. That’s where you can go to a more fancy seafood restaurant, or just enjoy some street food and buy souvenirs.
The local market is worth visiting for 2 main reasons: to see the local "not really for tourists" market, where local fishermen sell their catch, and to get some of this catch for BBQ party! It's across the bridge from the Night market, on the left side. Expect strong smells and dirt.
Make sure that what you're buying is still alive! The prices were around 80-100K per kilo fish, and I think 300K for kilo of shrimps. The traders will gut/clean the fish for you, ready for grill. Very convenient.
We hanged out there for a few hours, and then rode back by the same road. This time it took much less time.
Many starfish creatures in the water!
This location is accessible by car, from the bigger road. We went there later.
Another popular destination is Sao beach (or Bai Sao), which looks very nice on google maps and other people’s photos, but when we went there it was literally covered in trash, and looked very nasty. And crowded too. The locals charge 400K VND for 2 beach beds there, which was very unexpected too, so we were lucky to bring our beach towels with us. Nevertheless, I hope it was just a coincidence. I hope they will clean the trash and make the beach beautiful again.
Epizode beach - that's the place where Kazantip festival took place. Nice clean beach, nice decorations, worth visiting.
One thing that didn’t work out is our attempt to go to the Phú Quốc National Park. It seems to be completely closed for tourists. No entry signs everywhere. Some people said that there’s one hiking route available somewhere, but they didn’t like it.
When you go to town, the main thing is to visit the night market. I wasn’t a fan of it, but it’s worth to visit at least once. Quite spectacular. That’s where you can go to a more fancy seafood restaurant, or just enjoy some street food and buy souvenirs.
The local market is worth visiting for 2 main reasons: to see the local "not really for tourists" market, where local fishermen sell their catch, and to get some of this catch for BBQ party! It's across the bridge from the Night market, on the left side. Expect strong smells and dirt.
Make sure that what you're buying is still alive! The prices were around 80-100K per kilo fish, and I think 300K for kilo of shrimps. The traders will gut/clean the fish for you, ready for grill. Very convenient.
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