The Mekong Delta is great for bike touring as it’s totally flat and offers a chance to experience Vietnam in all its loveliness and weirdness. There are hardly any tourists apart from in certain spots, and a family on wacky transport such as ours are welcomed with open arms. But, in a lot of ways, it’s not totally relaxing for Aran and sometimes a lot was asked from him. So that’s where Superdong comes in.
This hilariously named (for immature idiots like myself) speedboat ferry carried us and our bikes to the island of Phu Quoc, (Superdong and Phu Quoc can be combined in yet more mildly amusing puns, if that’s your thing) where there are paradise beaches, forests (mainland Vietnam has cut all the forests down) and some well spaced towns for kiddy-bike-touring. It also has tourists. More than we had seen anywhere.
What’s wrong with tourists, especially if you are one yourself? Well, the pineapple lady has met tourists who don’t think a pineapple that costs ten times the normal price is expensive, because it’s cheaper than they usually pay at home. This makes the pineapple lady think that tourists are rich idiots and maybe they will actually pay twenty times the normal rate. And she’s often right on all counts. It also makes her jealous and resentful and now the island is getting paved over and made all posh, and pretty soon pineapple sales by unlicensed locals will probably be banned in the resorts’ private beaches, which are, in fact, all the beaches worth going to…
So often on our travels we have come across these phenomena in areas exploited by mass tourism and it’s disappointing to have interactions with locals so different from those in areas with little or no tourism. BUT, like all those other tourists, we want a slice of those paradise beaches and paradise islands are rapidly running out!!
Phu Quoc is in the early stages of a tourism explosion. On the beach where we are, away from the built up main area, are a few local-run bars with homemade signs and eager, enthusiastic young bartenders, glad to see the tourist dollars flooding in. But they are in the shadows of the giant cranes and billboards with pictures of the proposed mega resorts as the lava-flow of concrete creeps up the coast…
It’s easy to feel a bit down about this, but a quick dip in the turquoise sea, and a slurp of coconut milk through a straw that’s destined for a turtles nose cures all ails, and seeing your kids having a ball on the beach is about as good as it gets!
