Phu Quoc was our next and last stop in Vietnam. This large island is situated on the south coast of the country, but it actually nearer to the Cambodia than Vietnam. The island was recommended online and in our guide book as a beautiful place for a beach getaway. The island is about the same size as Singapore, with a national park to the north and one main town called Duong Dong on the west coast. Beaches surround the island, with Long beach being the most popular and the best for sunsets.

The airport we arrived in was new and quite large in relation to the size of the island. The first thing we noticed when leaving the airport in our taxi was the amount of building work taking place. There were new hotels, resort complexes, roads and even a sewage system was bring built while we were there. The research we have read suggest that authorities are wanting an island similar to Phuket in Thailand. There is a lot of time and money going into the island to make it a huge tourist hub. However, there doesn't seem to be anything Vietnamese left, except the pointy hats on the women selling fruit.

We spent our time on the island in two places, one with a bungalow and private beach feel and the other a big standard hotel with a pool in the town. Our bungalow accommodation consisted of a basic brick bungalow with an attached private bathroom and aircon. Although it was seriously basic it covered all our needs and was cleaned everyday. We were also able to put up our mosquito net for the first time (thank you Langshott Ladies!), although it took us a good half and hour to work out the right way to do it as Nicole chucked the instructions! The accommodation had it own section of long beach with deck chairs and sun loungers to use as well as a resturant on the beach. The food was a tad expensive with tiny portions, so by the end of our stay we would walk up the road to a different place. They also tried to scam us, when we arrived, by giving us a grotty twin bed room that wasn't even in a bungalow! Well we got that sorted ASAP, even though we never received a sorry and the excuse was 'our manager put the photos up to make it look nice' i.e. the room we booked online was not the same as the fake photos. Don't worry we got the correct room in the end.

Our next hotel, which was meant to be a relaxing upgrade from the bungalows with a pool, made our basic accommodation look 3 star! Although the room was fine, the staff were seriously lax and with all the noisy building work going on outside it wasn't relaxing at all. We wished we'd just stayed at the bungalow our whole stay. Plus the town itself is a tip, no pavements, rubbish everywhere, suspicious stream of dirty water running down the road and of course building work everywhere. Plus the resturants were seriously overpriced, so we found it hard to get a decent meal and had to go back to supermarket rubbish such as sweet corn and butter flavour crisps?!

The weather was beautiful throughout our stay with the odd shower or thunderstorm late at night. But with this beautiful weather came seriously hot days, so hot that Matt struggled to stay out in it for long in the shade and on one day Nicole nearly fainted in the morning from sunbathing the previous day. With only half a suncream lotion bottle to use we made sure to keep out of the sun a bit. But don't worry Nicoles got a start of tan so she's definitely happy!

We also met a lovely French man called Denis, he was staying at the same hotel as us in Saigon and joined us in our taxi to the airport. He was also flying to Phu Quoc so we met up with him in Phu Quoc airport and he grabbed a taxi with us to the bungalow accommodation. He booked in for two nights and we had a great time talking to him. He had been to so many places we had been or were going to, he gave us so many hints and tips. We sadly weren't able to catch him to say bye as it was when Nicole wasn't well.