Love, love, love the holiday spirit in Southeast Asia!
In my experience, this is when most travel screw-ups happen – when you are disembarking in a jet lag stupor and excited to have arrived.
In the rush to “stow personal articles for landing” in HKK, I shoved our “pill bag” into the shoe cabinet and forgot it there! (beware of the handy little nooks for storage in biz class) Yes, it had ALL of our vitamins, prescription meds, and first aid supplies that I have carefully assembled over my years of travel. I realized it pretty quickly and ran back to the gate, but it was already gone. That the Cathy Pacific staff did not share my shock that it had disappeared, is what annoyed me the most. And it’s worthless to whomever end up with it, as all the pills are in tiny plastic bags, most unlabeled. Only I know what they are.
Hard to stay upset for long once we arrived at our favorite little bungalow resort!
As with all travel mishaps, good people appear when you need them. I mention my problem to the guy that picked us up at the airport here on Phu Quoc, he says his wife is a doctor, and he will see what he can do. The next day, someone appears at my beach chair, with my prescription medication in hand!! And when I try to pay, he hands me his cell phone, I thank Nghe (sp?) and he says it is a “gift”! He also says if it is the correct medication, (it is) he will get me 20 more, so I will have enough to finish our trip, and again, he won’t let me pay.
The bungalows are basic, but the beach is stellar!
Another example of why we travel – it forces you to be vulnerable, and to accept the kindness of strangers. And now, we have a new adventure – visiting local pharmacies, trying to decipher which pills are what, to restock a new “pill bag”. I’ve already found the Vietnamese version of Claratin, one down!
Looks so beautiful! You are only missing cold and snow here! I love your bungalow…looks like it is right on the beach! Can you really live for $100 per day? Looking forward to more pictures! Don’t be jealous…we are on our way to Copperopolis!
Liv n it
Yeah but it was business class …. on Cathy Pacific ! You only need meds if you’re flying United
Yeah but it was business class …. on Cathy Pacific ! You only need meds if you’re flying United
35 hours, omg! What a great deal and so beautiful! How did you find this secret?
Good blog – Jules – Yes Pho Quoc beach bungalows are a treat & are literallly on the beach. Which resort are you at? Did you go see the Jail? They are doing life like figures of inmates & jailers in all sorts of poses & groups as they would have experienced it in reality. Each one individually modeled & hand painted. When put into their groups whether being tortured (yes – a daily dose of hell for those that survived) they look uncannily lifelike in all that gruesome detail…. quite a feat to be doing hundreds of these figures & you can watch them being sculpted in some sort of resin (fibreglasss perhaps & them being painted – all done from an original small sketch. Quite the artisans to say the least but the life they depicted in this jail run in the 70’s & even into the 80’s but now closed obviously & turned into a museum, by the “imperialist aggressor backed (ie. American) puppet regime is nothing but harrowing & quite depressing. Not on the tourist “fun” list of things to do.
We also loved the sunsets, the warm warm ocean & the massages & cocktails on the beach. The garbage especially the detrius of plastic anything is appalling & exactly as you depicted on the beach, where it just gets swept to the side (if lucky). But it clogs waterways, surrounds their homes & is floating hugely in the ocean.. A huge problem for the Vietnamese especially as I asked some of them what they thought about it & was the government or anyone trying to do anything to make the locals more aware. The response was sadly “no” & what is worse the people I asked did not care or seem or think it was an issue.
We took the ferry across each way – flying would be better & the new airport is nice – will be 3 more years for them to finish the road though!!!
We are almost finished with out Asia section leaving for Sydney tomorrow. Will miss Bali hugely – definitly could stay here even longer. Who couldn’t???