We spent the Vietnamese New Year (Tet) on the island of Phu Quoc. Located off the Southern tip of Vietnam (near the Cambodian border), Phu Quoc has really nice beaches, a beautiful forested interior and some decent snorkelling of shore in the An Thoi islands.
Things are relatively undeveloped and there are just a handful of places to stay (though this may change soon as a dive resort was set to open within a few days of our visit). People were really friendly and this is one of the only places we booked a tour and everything went as we were told.
Long Beach.
Most of the accomodation is along Long Beach (a 20 km beach that runs part of the western side of the island). The water is beautiful and you can see fish swimming by while standing on the beach! We snorkelled around a rock outcrop just down from our hotel, but snorkelling was much better in the An Thoi islands located just off the southern tip of Phu Quoc. The coral here is very shallow, and despite loads of fishing boats, it's in great shape!
Rock Outcrop.
We stayed at the Kim Linh Hotel right on Long Beach - one of the only truly budget places left (\$5-7 for a double). This is the place to book motorcycles ($5.00 for a day) to check out more of the island and snorkelling tours ($10.00 + transport to the pier in An Thoi includes fishing, 3 snorkelling spots and a fabulous lunch).
It takes 2 days to reach Phu Quoc from Saigon (bus to Rach Gia one day/ferry to Phu Quoc the next day) though you can do the return trip in one day as a minibus to Saigon meets the ferry in Rach Gia. A faster option is a cheap flight from Saigon.
