20+ Places to visit in Phu Quoc
This post shares a brief of various places we visited in Phu Quoc island of Vietnam during our 2.5 day visit. Some places that command more details will have a dedicated post soon.
Day 01: We landed at 8, while I was the first person to get out of the airport, one team member had a typo in visa document causing delay- we headed to our resort and began our exploration soon.
1 Duong Dong town
Duong Dong is the city center of Phu Quoc. All major shops, restaurants etc are located here. 2-3 indian restaurants are in this area. On day 01, we left from resort at around 11 AM after getting our bikes and stopped at Duong Dong town to drink tender coconuts and have lunch at a Punjabi restaurant. Duong Dong is the area you can visit for bike/car rentals, forex, travel package booking and all other needs.
We tried exchanging forex but the shop was closed and ATM did’t work. Post lunch we had about half day left, we decided to head to north Phu Quoc.
2. KDL Lang Hoa Flower Garden: The place has great ambitions, seen through display pictures, but the ground is not ready yet. Only some flowers could be seen. We spent some time clicking pictures of what were available and moved towards Phu Quoc National Park
3 Pepper Farm
Our plan was to ride till the heart of Phu Quoc National park, but the entry was closed and we were sent back. We headed to next destination in our plan- a pepper farm. A detailed post on Pepper farm is coming separately
There’re multiple pepper farms in the area- you will be given a tour of the pepper farm, (3 USD charge applies) can have some drinks, buy pepper and related products and return. Factor a couple of hours.
4 Star Fish Beach
Starfish beach is a location in northern end of Phu Quoc. We headed there after Pepper farm. But the roads were pathetic for 4-5 kms so it look very long time to reach there.
There are a few restaurants on the sea where you can enjoy your food. Star fishes were caught and shown to tourists by locals. At first I wasn’t even sure if they are alive, as they were not moving at all.
We took a boat ride into a beach and came back
It was a long night ride back to hotel. Stopped at Ganesh Indian Restaurant for dinner. Detailed post on Starfish beach is available here
Day 01 Map below [link]
Day 02
5 Phu Quoc Marina:
6 Sao Beach:
Sao beach is the commercial beach with all beach activities available- jetski ride, parasailing, boat rides, beach side cafe etc. Seats and swings by the beach cost 20000 IDR to use. Everything is commercialized
7 Phu Quoc Prison:
A historic place from colonial times. The campus shows brutalities prisoners had to go through.
No entry fee, can be visited in an hour. Detailed post on Phu Quoc Prison is available here.
8 Suoi Tranh Waterfall: Main waterfall is some 2-3 kms trek away from entrance. Most people give up midway and relax under some stream. The campus is well maintained with many photo spots, attractions. Separate post here
Day 02 Map below [link]
Day 03
09 Buddhist Pagoda and Observation Deck- nice spot to visit in Duong Dong. Should have visited on Day 01 itself. Separate post coming soon.
10 Ben Tau Cao Super Dong ferry point
Went there early morning - ferry services are available to nearby islands from here. If you are staying for several days in Phu Quoc you can try visiting few islands.
11 Trung Tam Bao Dog center
There is a dog shelter in Phu Quoc. But they have an entry fee of 50000 VND (180 INR). If you are an animal lover you can spend some time here. WiFi is available.
This place is very close to Suoi Tranh Waterfall
12 Tien Son Dinh Hiking cafe: Those interested in hiking can visit this cafe and they will guide you further on a hike to nearby hill.
13 Cable car center: There is a cable car service between Phu Quoc and a nearby island. But we can’t just take the cable car ride and come back. We need to pay for entry fee of an amusement park in this island. This makes the Cable car ride a full day program costing 550000 VND (1600 INR). Thus we skipped it.
The starting point of cable car is an attraction itself, with nice viewpoints, European style buildings, free WiFi, restaurants and glamour. We got free bike parking here, spent some time exploring. Didn’t have whole day to plan a cable car ride- if they had just cable car ticket for say 100000 VND we would have taken a return ticket.
14. The no access resort: We tried visiting this part of Phu Quoc but it is a private property. Premier Village Resort Phu Quoc. We were asked to pay 500000 VND entry fee per person (1700 INR)- we didn’t see a point spending so much, so came back. The ride to the property was nice with few viewpoints
15 Khem Beach: A nice beach with good beach side restaurants- not touristy like Sao Beach but the beach side restaurants are expensive as well.
16 Rach Ham fishing village: Village with several restaurants on the ocean.
17 Suoi Tien- Looks like a waterfall- attraction I couldn’t visit: Went all the way to the entry point, but there were further walking required. I was getting late for return flight so had to abandon and return. Saw an under construction Pagoda on the way.
Our day 03 Map [link]
More places to visit in Phu Quoc
Places we didn't visit: Both of these were family destinations and would have taken almost a day each- we didn’t see any reason to pay and prioritize these two other other attractions we had in our list. But you can consider.
18 Grand World Phu Quoc
19 Zoo (Vinpearl Safari)
20 Crocodile Farm
Circular ride: Also wanted to do a drive circling the top part of Phu Quoc- that is also probably for next visit. link here.
Nice post. My nephew (Kartik) was one of your group. I saw some pictures he had posted, Your write-up has given me the reason why you all chose this place to visit and enjoy. Thanks. (TS Kuppuswamy).
ReplyDeleteThanks sir for reading my blog and commenting
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