Chapter 98

The PolyU campus equipment retrieval had taken a few hours but since I went on campus relatively early in the day, by the time I arrived at the airport, it was still light out. Then, the flight over to Phu Quoc took a very short period of time and when I landed, it was just around twilight. 

I had never even heard of Phu Quoc a few days prior and with so little planning, I had not accounted for the fact that Phu Quoc, although known for resorts and such, had very weak English proficiency. Despite this I got by with gestures and sometimes google translate if there was WiFi. It helped that the locals also weren’t strangers to tourists. In fact, the island of Phu Quoc was known to be a resort get-away destination. Most people came here for the beaches and beach-side resorts, all of which were very cheaply priced. I kept a journal of the pricing as I honestly didn’t believe it myself when I was planning the trip. 

The round trip from HK to Phu Quoc was around $87 CAD. The hotel I rented was around $46 CAD for 3 nights. While I was there, I also found out that the food, which was basically a trillion variations of pho, was not only some of the best I’ve ever had, but also only around $0.50 CAD a bowl. What a steal!

At the airport, the first thing I decided to do was exchange some currency. I had around $500 HKD on me and that got me around $1.5 million Vietnamese Dong (VKD). Now equipped with some local currency, I called for a taxi and told them the name of the hotel where I was going to be staying. It was called the Halona Hotel and after a lot of back and forth of me just repeating Halona Halona Halona, we eventually communicated the right location and set off. 

To my delight, the hotel owner had a little bit of English understanding. Well…sort of. Despite not speaking English very well, he was quite handy with google translate. This was enough for me though because it meant that we could at least somewhat make conversation. It was then that I found out that I had been scammed on the taxi ride to this hotel. He told me it usually costs around $100,000 VKD from the airport to his hotel. I had paid $50,000 VKD more than I needed. This kind of upset me. I mean…Really? My first purchase on my first vacation by myself and I get scammed? 

Speaking of which…Yeah, you read that right. I was kind of nervous because this vacation was my first solo trip of any kind. I had always gone with people and for the first time in my life, I was alone, on an island where I didn’t speak the language and with no support from any friends nor family anywhere.

The first thing that I realized? In moments of uneasy isolation like this, it was easy to spiral on the small things. That scam at the beginning of this trip really slipped me up. I was tuned strongly into this. Luckily for me, with the help of WiFi, I got over it. Being connected to the world through the internet means I can do the conversion of VKD to CAD. This led me to find out that $50,000 was around $3 CAD. Okay. Scams suck but if it’s just $3 they’re after, it’s not an unforgivable problem. 

The manager of the hotel brought my things to my room for me and was an overall very good host. As I got to unpacking, I looked outside and found out that it was now quite dark. It was around 10 pm now and I needed to eat. With no one accompanying me, I felt relieved that my own needs were the only thing I really needed to keep tabs on. 

After a quick google maps search and a lot of screenshots of every turn I would need to take (I didn’t have data), I made my way to the Phu Quoc night market. The walk wasn’t too far. However, although it was only around 20 minutes, the trek was still unsettling. This is because Phu Quoc was not a rich island. It was a poor island with rich tourists. That is to say, it was commonplace to have streets that are lavished in 5 star hotel standards on one side and a complete third world country living standard on the other. Pollution was hard to see on the fancy side since it was cleaned regularly and very often but walk across to the other side and you’ll find plastic waste littered everywhere. Since I was trying to stick to a small budget here you can probably guess which side of the road I lived on. 

Dark alleys of garbage piles and the stink of rotten fish was on my side of the road. I could also only see that from the far away lights of the hotels. As soon as I got the chance, I crossed and walked under the lights of the hotels. I was trying not to imagine what lurked in the shadows that didn’t get illumination from the hotel lights. A few minutes in, things got sketchier. There was a section of road that was out of the range of the hotel lights and for a good kilometer, it was just complete darkness. This patch looked like a small abandoned residential area that was held together with nails and sheet metal. It was dark and it was impoverished. But what other choice did I have though? I was starving and most places were closed now. 

As frightened as I was, I persisted. Then…Nothing. That patch of road was just that. A regular patch of road. A few minutes through here and I reached the night market. Then, all of my worries went away. The Phu Quoc night market was the common ground of everyone. Rich, poor, local or international, everyone was here. It was vibrant and lively. Furthermore, the fact that some vendors just left things pretty much unattended gave a sense that there was a lot of trust in this locale. 

Starving, I went to the first restaurant I saw and ordered food by pointing to the pictures on the menu. Soon, I got my first meal in Vietnam. It was just some fish and chips. As I ate, I realized that the local population was not the majority here. It wasn’t a hidden fact either. I counted more white people than Asians when walking around. I’m not sure if it was just the timing of my visit or maybe because Hong Kong, a feeder country to this island, was in disarray but somehow, there were tons of tourists. When I finished my food, I paid in cash and then explored the market a bit.

The vendors here sold goods that were similar to street vendors in Hong Kong. You got a lot of Thai ice cream and fruit cups with assortments of apples, bananas, mangos, coconuts and even jackfruit. It was honestly a really fun scene and put me a lot more at ease. Seeing as how I was kind of low on clothing, since most of my stuff was still in a suitcase locker in HK still, I bought a few shirts. The cost of all that? About $5 CAD. Oh and in case you were worried about the quality of it all, I can speak with knowledge of hindsight and say that even today, in 2024, the shirts I bought back then still work fine and have not gotten worn down despite my using them for breakdancing. 

Having seen the night in a different light, the walk home was also a lot less daunting. When I finally got to the hotel, I was getting into the feel of a solo adventurer. The temperature in Phu Quoc was a little warmer than that of HK but still very nice overall. I would say it was comparable to a cold summer day in Canada. My room wasn’t so bad either. It was a king sized bed in a large living room which also had an ensuite washroom. There was hot water and even toiletries provided. Having freshened up, I then quickly knocked out for the night. 

Before sleeping, I thought about how I was as a companion to myself. Am I taking care of myself now that I was all on my own? How am I really doing? Am I okay with being alone with my thoughts? For the next few days, I would have no one I can talk to or converse with. Would I be okay for that? Have I made friends with demons? 

Thinking back, this solo trip to Phu Quoc did act as the epilogue to all that soul searching. It was, in some ways, the final chapter of my internal struggle with my own struggle with accepting my past. While technically speaking, you never really get over all of that. I did feel like in the next few days, my time spent alone really helped me rediscover my identity again. 

If nothing else, it was still a nice vacation on the beach.