Sunday 27/8/11: Duong Dong, Phu Quoc

The rain continued throughout the night, with no evidence of it easing. My previous post describes a trip into the town and watching a boat washed up onto the beach.
What has struck me about the place is how few tourists there are. There are plenty of resorts and guest houses and a number of restaurants catering for their needs, but the cafes and restaurants are empty. Often I am the only customer, often I walk by and see only the staff sitting, waiting, hopefully that somebody may drop in. Probably the rain is keeping many tourists inside and they are not venturing beyond their resorts, indeed I was driven in side in the mid afternoon by heavy rain and ended up watching a movie on TV.
While in town I visited Bobby's Ice Cream for a coffee. Not a bad coffee. Only 3 others were in there, all taking advantage of free wifi. At the Swiss Viet coffee where I had a very good hamburger there was only myself until the end of the meal when someone else dropped in. At the Dog Bar where I dropped in to check it out there was one other, although he was joined in time by 3 more. By their talk and actions I reasoned that they were either Expats or possibly sex tourists on a longer term stay, whatever their visas would allow. I ate my evening meal at Chez Carole a restaurant not far from the Dog Bar. Only a dozen customers, the place looked deserted with this few. I had a nice meal of BBQ Prawns on skewers there and listened to a duo on a guitar and banjo crucifying some jazz standards.
During the course of the day I saw two motor accidents both, oddly enough, at the same intersection. The first involved a bike and scooter both travelling side by side in the same direction. I didn't see what caused them to come together but the cyclist ended up on the ground. A low speed crash and no obvious damage done. Later a pillion passenger fell off a scooter and ended up soaked as he landed in a large puddle. I think that he was not holding on and simply slipped off when the scooter unexpectedly leant in one direction. Once again no damage and both rider and pillion burst into laughter.
The Bludger is weathering a storm, boredom is not far away.
Nick Smith
Nick@nicksmith.info
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