Vietnam - Paradise in Phu Quoc

Hello everyone. Welcome to the fourth and final video in my latest video series, I Love Vietnam. In this video, I take you to the beautiful island of Phu Quoc, the largest island in all of Vietnam. And I'm going to take you and show you some of the top attractions. We'll take a walk through some of the local markets. And of course, I'm going to show you some absolutely fantastic sunsets. So stick around and see what happens. Phu Quoc is an island located in the far south of Vietnam on the west side of the southernmost tip in the Gulf of Thailand. The island is 45 kilometers west from Hà Tiên, the nearest city in Vietnam, but is less than eight kilometers to the Cambodian island Koh Se on its western tip. The island has an area of 574 square kilometers and a local population of 180,000 people. Primarily a fishing village, Phu Quoc has grown to be a major tourist destination for people looking for an ideal beach vacation to what is now known as Pearl Island. After arriving late in the afternoon, I went for a quick stroll around the area before booking an exciting trip for the next morning. Good morning. I thought I'd take you down this little alleyway during the daytime so you can see whereabouts my homestay is. I'm off for a day trip today. It's going to be a nice one, I'm hoping. A few days ago back in Da Nang, I went up to Ba Na Hills. And up there I went on the longest single track gondola in the world. Hold on, my alarm's going off. A few days ago I went up to Ba Na Hills in Da Nang and I was on the longest single track gondola in the world. Today I'm going on another gondola. It is a triple track gondola and it is the longest gondola in the world. Almost eight kilometers if I'm not mistaken. But we'll find out more when we get there. So anyways, hang on, we're going to have a great day today. Stick around, let's see what happens. All right, well we've made it to the tour office. We're just waiting for our bus and we're going to be on our way. From the tour office near Long Beach, a bus took us to the southern tip of the island to a pier where we boarded our boat. Racing to the front of the line, I boarded first, met the captain and got a front row seat with the perfect view. Let the adventure begin. The three island cable car tour starts with a 45 minute boat ride to our first island, Hongam Gi, where we'll do some snorkeling led by our fearless leader, Frank. It's such a beautiful afternoon here on our tour today. The three island cable car tour with John's Tours and our tour guide Frank. I never thought you'd hear those names in Vietnam, but yet here we are to spend some time snorkeling, splash around and see coral reefs. I guess I'm a little bit spoiled snorkeling in Mexico and the Caribbean and Australia and Cook Islands. This is just average today, but it's nice to get out and splash around in the water. Anyway, stick around. Lunch is coming up next and then the world's longest cable car. Lunch was served as we traveled to our second island. We were delighted with deep fried tofu, an omelette, barbecued shrimp, fresh fruit, squid salad, fried fish, steamed rice, morning glory and of course pho soup. Far more than we could all eat. The next island was Mae Rut Trong, a small picturesque island with bars, restaurants and places to relax. It had a small beach, but plenty of places to explore. All right, so we're now on our third island. This one we actually get to go onto the island instead of just circling around. Hopefully we'll do a little bit of exploring, maybe grab a drink, enjoy some beautiful sun here in Vietnam. Gotta love Vietnam. My front row seat didn't provide much for shade, so I made good use of my long sleeve hoodie that I always carry along. It didn't take long to realize the scope of this mega project appearing before me. Sun World, the same company that owns and operates Bana Hills, I'm sure you've seen that in my last video, also building a large resort complex right next to Aquatopia, the water park we'll be visiting next. So the last part of our tour today ends at a water park. So we're going to splash around for an hour and a bit and then we're going to take the cable car back to Phnom Penh. Sun World Corporation is setting a new standard around the world for its outstanding theme parks. As you can see, Aquatopia, a larger than life water park, is just the beginning of great things to come here on Paradise Island. Well, I just spent the last couple of hours playing around in a water park like I was a teenager again. It was a lot of fun. So now we're heading to the cable car. We're heading our way down and the tour is just about over. Let's go. The lineup was small and I strategically made sure I got a front row seat to film the ride only to find the windows were filthy and full of fingerprints. However, at least you'll get an idea of the spectacular view along this eight kilometer journey. And if you listen carefully, you can even feel the excitement of all the people inside the full cable car. During the ride, I met a really nice Vietnamese man who noticed I was a vlogger. He offered to record this time-lapse video and send it to me. So special thanks for this contribution goes to Van Nguyen Bao. Very nice to meet you and your beautiful girl. After the tour ended, we were bussed back to the ticket office area where I decided to go for a walk to the beach and take a few photos of the amazing sunset before I took a stroll down to the Phu Quoc night market. Of course, I couldn't pass up one of my favorite treats, a banana pancake, which was cut into squares with a knife sharper than my plate. And for dessert, I decided to go for some freshly made passion fruit ice cream to hit the spot. Heading back to my homestay proved to be a bit of a journey. It was across the bridge from the night market and then down through the local market where I was dodging baskets of fish and avoiding being hit by a motorcycle. And then down a couple kilometers stretch of a very long and dark road only to detour down an even darker back alley. Well, that's the end of my day one here in Phu Quoc. I had a great day on the beach and I forgot to mention that I got a really, hello buddy, I forgot to mention I got a real smoking deal on my guest house. And the reason is it's about a mile away from everywhere. So you get what you pay for, I guess. But anyways, I'm on my way back and it's all the way through the market, through the local zone. And now I'm down some dark alley on my way home. I'll kind of show you where we're going. Yeah, it's all the way off the main road and it's actually on the beach. And this little alley is the only way to get to those guest houses on the beach. They're really cute and they're nice, but a bit of out of the way. So next time if you're planning a trip to Phu Quoc, find a place with a good beach or a busy area with some resorts. And that way you're going to find yourself a little bit more local. Right here I'm in down some dark alleyway and I kind of like it. There are a couple nice little beach bars along the street and a couple of cute little bungalows along the way here too. Local family having a little gathering there. I'm literally on gravel and dirt path at the moment. Not even sure if you can see me, but lighting is pretty slim down here too. Ah, just another 50 meters to my little guest house where I'll be able to change, charge my batteries. I'll say goodnight now and I'll catch you in the morning. Good morning Vietnam. In this morning's video, I'm going to share with you some of the sights and sounds of a local Vietnamese market. I just love immersing myself in different cultures and this is exactly what I love to see. And I want to share it with you. You're going to see some sights, sounds. You won't get the smells that I'm getting, but you're going to see what goes on early morning in a local Vietnamese market. These bananas are so good. They're super sweet. When you come to Asia, you got to try some mini banana. If you like some pork this morning, we got some nice fresh pork. Oh, there's some ham hocks right there. And there's the tail, pig tail. You can see it is quite congested. All the locals come here every morning to get their food for the day. I'll see if I can squeeze through here without dying. Just about died there, but made it. Super big shrimp. Wow, some shark. It really is truly amazing walking through this place, listening to the sounds, the smells, watching the people barter and watching how people in Vietnam go about their daily life. It's amazing. You got to see it for yourself. All right, let's head back to the street and fight the traffic. After battling the noise and congestion of the local market, it was time to escape the chaos and find a much quieter place to sit back, relax and enjoy some afternoon sunshine. Well, isn't that beautiful? Looks like paradise to me. Hey, I hope you liked this video and I hope you liked all the videos in my recent series, I Love Vietnam. And if you did, please click the like button below and share this video with your friends. If you haven't yet, please subscribe to my channel and click the notification bell so you won't miss my next video. And if you want to support this channel further, you can buy me a coffee. Please click the link in the description below and I'd really appreciate your donation. And that's it for this video, folks. Thanks again for all your support. I just want to remind you wherever you are and wherever you go, go with the flow.