Phu Quoc

We spent our last week in Vietnam on a little island called Phu Quoc, we first came across this island in a woman's magazine and thought it sounded nice and it would give David a chance to go scuba diving.  As soon as we booked into our resort we headed off to find a scuba diving office.  This was harder than it seems as the people working at our resort had very little English, so there was a lot of miming and gesturing going on, but bless them, they were so helpful. 

The resort was really nice, small but expanding with new bungalows being built while we were there. 

It was out in the sticks a bit but luckily it had bicycles that you could use for free. These became really handy over the week as they enabled us to explore a lot of the island. The bikes were a bit basic and had no gears but luckily the island is mainly flat. It was really hard work at times, especially in the sun. 

The island had beautiful beaches and wooded areas.  The area we were staying in still has large areas of  woodland around it but just down the road you can see where they have flattened a huge piece of land where they are planning to build a whole load of hotels and tourist related things. Hopefully the charm of the island isn't lost with all this building going on. I felt sorry for some of the islanders as their community is right on the outskirts of this new complex. 

This artwork appeared on one of the new buildings, it reminded me of Banksy's style of  painting. 

David got a geocache at the Soldiers  Memorial. It took us ages to cycle there so I am glad he found it. 

During the holiday I have become very fond of Lipton's Lemon Ice Tea, I have checked and found out that they do sell it at home. Sometimes though things that taste brilliant when you are on holiday are just not the same at home. 

Before we even left Scotland, David wanted to get a Vietnamese conical hat. We dithered about getting one though because it is made of  straw and we knew this might not get through customs at New Zealand, as they are very particular about what gets into the country. I googled it to see what the rules were, this was quite confusing, as some people said it would be alright and others said it wouldn't. They are really cheap so we thought we would try and see what happens. One of the people on Google  said that you should hit the hat off a surface and if dead beasties fall out it will be rejected , if not it will be okay. So before we bought it I subtly smacked  it a few times of the counter, no beasties fell out!