Can Tho to Phu Quoc Island

I leave Can Tho after the floating markets boat tour and head towards Phu Quoc (bus to Rach Gia and then express boat to the island).

On the bus I meet a girl who speaks a little English, we communicate in a mixture of broken English, a Vietnamese word or two and a lot of hand gestures (by the end of this trip, I should be a master at charades). Lanh Tranh is from Rach Gia and agrees to teach me some Vietnamese the next day.

In the morning, she picks me up on her moto and we go down to a cafe by the sea where I begin my Vietnamese lesson. It’s very practical with phrases like:

Lam on cho hoi, khach san re odau? – Excuse me, how do I get to a cheap hotel?

Toi muon an hai san – I want to eat seafood

I take my cheat sheet with me and head down to the ferry, promising to catch up for another ca phe da sua (Iced coffee with milk).

On the boat Vinashin Rose, I practice my Vietnamese on the ticket collector. He’s so impressed that I’m trying to learn the language that he gives me directions to a cheap hotel on the island and gets me the bus ticket I need to get there (turns out the tickets sell out on the boat).

Out on the deck of the boat, my new found confidence has me practicing on everyone who will listen. I meet a guy (Bao) from Hanoi who is also going down to the Island for a couple of days and we hit it off immediately since we like so much of the same things (travelling, not working and photography).

On the island we share a room, change into our swimmers and head to the local beach. The local beach is full of locals and is littered in filth. There is rubbish on the beach and in the water. Children are collecting pieces of washed up Styrofoam to use as floatation devices (I find that most Vietnamese people are not that good swimmers). Bao heads into the water and thinking, when in Phu Quoc, I join him. The water tastes funny and I hope that by sheer dumb luck I do not get sick.

In the evening, while eating dinner in the street markets, we meet a couple of girls on holidays from Singapore and after a drink or two, we decide to rent a couple of moto’s the following day to tour the island. I told Bao that back home I was a professional motor bike rider to save having to hire a driver for the bikes.