Rosie and Ian's Southeast Asia Adventure: Phu Quoc, Vietnam D99-100: Sao Beach, Night Market & Pepper Farm

Phu Quoc is a beautiful Vietnamese Island off the coast of Cambodia. To get to it, you can either fly (we found out later) or take an annoyingly roundabout taxi/bus/ferry trip to get there.

The currency in Vietnam is Vietnamese Dong. The exchange rate is about 21,400 dong to one US dollar. In most transactions, the vendor converts 20,000VD to 1USD to make it easy on everyone... and to make a little extra $$.

The island of Phu Quoc is large but offers little to do other than relax. The topography is similar to the beachtowns in Cambodia, and the bugs are equally huge. At any given hour, dozens of three-inch dragonflies hovered over our hotel pool.

We stayed at the gorgeous, brand-new Cottage Village. We were upgraded to a villa upon arrival (#winning) and had top-notch food and concierge service the whole time. They have a lovely pool and they let you use their bicycles for free. It was expensive- $60/night- but totally worth it.

The closest beach was a five-minute walk away and wasn't spectacular. Our concierge told us that on the southeast part of the island was the "most beautiful beach in Vietnam," Sao Beach. We motorbiked over an hour to this prized beach, passing places called "Phuc Dat" and "Da Phuc" (hehe). We also saw telephone poles that were merely thin stripped trees:

Sao Beach was pretty but unexceptional. We should have known- if there are t-shirts being sold that say "Sao Beach: The Most Beautiful Beach in Vietnam", it's probably a tourist trap. Sao Beach offers a few big restaurants that face the water and the parking accommodates giant tour busses. The restaurants were full and the beach filled up with school kids on a field trip about five seconds after we took the picture below.

The water was warm and the sand was white, but the waves were rough and there were a lot of rocks, so no one was really swimming. We missed our Otres Beach! (So spoiled.)

At night we went to the Dinh Cau Night Market. They had a million pearls for sale, plus the usual night market trinkets. I read about an undercover investigator who got ripped off at various pearl farms on the island. Most of the pearls sold on Phu Quoc are freshwater pearls imported from China but sold as Phu Quoc ocean originals. The vendors show you the pearls are real (not plastic) by scratching them against mirrors or holding them up to a lighter to prove they don't melt (though these tests don't verify fresh vs. saltwater pearls). I liked a pair and negotiated from $15 down to $5. Note: If you buy earrings at this market, make sure the stems are on right and the glue isn't visible. A bunch of earrings had imperfections, but they have back-stock.

The market was very small and the variety of souvenirs wasn't great. The real reason you should visit the night market is for the seafood! There are a ton of restaurants at the back half of the market, and they have just about every kind of animal that lives in the sea. I couldn't recognize half of the crustaceans. Everything was alive, ranking 10 on the freshness meter. We had a delicious tuna steak for $6 and tuna filet for $2.50. I decided to pick out some jumbo shrimp, the only item without a price on the menu, and they charged us a suspicious $20 for five prawns. I think this was a foreigner price. Annoying.

One of Phu Quoc's main exports is pepper. We found a pepper farm not far from our hotel, and when we parked the owner immediately greeted us and gave us a tour. He walked us past rows and rows of giant pepper trees, and picked us fresh peppers to sample. I imagine his name was Peter.

After the tour of the farm, he showed us the drying process. They dry the peppers right on the side of the road, and it only takes three days to get from picked to kitchen-ready. It was a family affair with his wife, mom and baby at work.

They sold black, red and green peppers, and a variety of other pepper blends not from their shop. I truly didn't feel obligated to buy anything, but we ended up buy a lot! The seasonings were incredibly fresh, and as soon as we tasted them they were sold.

The rest of our stay was spent exploring. We went to a coffee shop where we had our first taste of my newest addiction: Vietnamese Coffee. I thought nothing beat Thai Iced Coffee, but it turns out that was just a gateway drug.

We ordered our iced coffees and we were instructed to wait 7 minutes while the coffee dripped through the filter into the cup. Then we added the hot coffee to the cup of ice- a big no-no with coffee at home. It was absolutely amazing! Very strong and very sweet. While we were waiting for our coffee to drip, we noticed the pedestrians looked different here: