If you ever wondered what Thailand was like in the late 1980s, take a look at Phu Quoc Island over southwest coast of Vietnam, the brand new hop for the Gulf of Siam's circuit that embraces Koh Samui, Koh Chang and Koh Kong.
Phu Quoc is quickly becoming Vietnam's hottest new island destination. But it also maintains -- at the very least for now -- a character unlike anything in Thailand.
Market traders in conical hats hawk baguettes, ducks, flying lizards as well as other items rarely seen about the Thai side from the Gulf, while motorcycles ply red dirt roads to pearl farms and old-style fishing ports.
Villagers, who water the roads and erect thatch fences to protect their homes from dust, gather up seaweed and haul in squid nets by pedaling homemade winches.
Protected forest reserves on Phu Quoc are splashed with waterfalls where brave Vietnamese youths enjoy cooling off alongside foreign travelers.
The industriousness in the islanders has boosted the neighborhood economy -- and prices -- by around ten percent per year. Protected forest reserves on Phu Quoc teem with waterfalls where brave Vietnamese youths enjoy cooling off alongside foreign travelers.
Two million tourists by 2020
Amid government intends to expand Duong Dong airport to take care of international flights, Phu Quoc -- the biggest of Vietnam's islands at 574 square kilometers -- takes off fast.
The government offers to boost annual tourist arrivals from 77,000 in 2010 to 2 million by 2020, and many investors from Europe, Thailand, Malaysia and mainland Vietnam are buying up land and opening restaurants and dive shops.
Many veterans of Thailand are actually comparing it to Koh Samui inside the 1980s, or Koh Chang within the 1990s.
“The island has a very nice preserved forest and the size is also nice,” says Jean-Marie Helleputte, a judge from Belgium who bought land a few years ago near Phu Quoc's Long Beach with his wife Thanh, a Vietnamese exile who's returned to her native country.
“You have a huge assortment of plants and trees and the beaches are very nice. The colors of nature listed here are splendid, all different greens because it rains a great deal.”
He says new roads are earning travel easier, especially inside the muddy rainy season, and new taxi companies, whose drivers wear shirts and ties, are driving down transport costs to more modest levels.
But like others on the island, Mr Helleputte worries that the growing influx of tourists and construction will disturb the region's tranquility. “The Vietnamese government could make this a little Singapore," according to him. "The inhabitants of phu quoc resorts Quoc are making a good deal of money by selling their land to foreigners for construction of hotels.”
Sanne Rasmussen, a teacher with Rainbow Divers, that is operating dive trips off Phu Quoc for 10 years, says increasing numbers of tourists, big hotels and asphalt roads will require away “the charm of unspoilt Vietnam” and turn the area into “another city all over the world.”
Using local coconut wood and thatch, construction workers and their families are working fast to help you Vietnam's tourism industry meet up with Thailand.
Dive spots and delicacies
“My viewpoint is that this tropical isle is not ready in any way for this -- it is possible to power cuts alternate day in high season and a few places lack hot water.”
The water inside the ocean, a minimum of, is obviously a nice temperature for diving and snorkeling.
Rasmussen says that shallow waters around smaller islands are ideal for entry-level divers, and expert divers can also look for nudibranchs, cowrie shells, bamboo sharks and turtles.
She says that Rainbow Divers phuquoc island resort have just resorts in phuquoc island resort lately discovered a lot grass site with sea dragons and spotted dugongs, some in the rarest creatures in southeast Asia.
While the colorful fish resemble their neighbors inside the Gulf of Siam, Phu Quoc's cuisine is a lot more influenced by French touches, and also the phuquoc island resort also produces delicious pepper and nuoc mam fish sauce.
Among the myriad stalls of the bustling night market, Rasmussen says her favorites include breakfast or tapas at Mondo, belonging to a Swedish couple; German food at German B; Peppers Pizza; for restaurants in front from the Viet Thanh hotel; and coffee at the wonderfully-named Mister Dung.
For upmarket resorts, she recommends Eden, Mango Bay especially Chen La for honeymooners, even though many divers stay on the Viet Thanh hotel.
Half-way along the long beach from Duong Dong town, the family-run Thai Tan Tien resort offers spacious new bungalows for US$20 per night inside a quiet abode using a boardwalk leading over the marsh to a seaside restaurant where enterprising local ladies give traditional massages for the beach.
For now, Phu Quoc is fun in a raw form, still dominated by local families who rent motorcycles for US$5 each day and bungalows for US$20 per night.
Though lacking Thailand's abundance of “Coffee-Mate” pristine, Phu Quoc's golden beaches are deep, soft, and attracting more and more travelers.
The simple life of Thai islands inside 1980s is kept intact on the island of Phu Quoc.
Getting there
Travelers from Saigon utilized to swear by the cheap flights (around US$50-100) on Vietnam Airlines, Mekong Air varieties to avoid long, tiring bus journeys over the Mekong delta's matrix of swamps.
But new bridges and smoother roads mean quicker, cheaper bus trips -- mine took 5 hours -- to Rach Gia port, and therefore the fast hydrofoils, about 2 hours, to Phu Quoc.
Ha Tien, merely one hour ferry from Phu Quoc, is often a jumping off point for Cambodia.