We were well aware of Thailand’s famously spectacular beaches prior to traveling to Southeast Asia. The problem is that everyone else in the world is aware of this fact too. After our first experience on Koh Tao, an island that is considered to still be relatively unvisited but which contained some of the worst drunken, obnoxious tourists we’d ever encountered anywhere in the world, we decided that a visit to one of the obviously touristy beaches would be our shared version of hell. We encountered a number of other travelers who told us what horrible places Pataya, Phuket, and Koh Samui were, so we decided to try to find our beautiful, undiscovered beach experience elsewhere. The problem is that this sentiment is also shared by a number of other Southeast Asia travelers.

When one of our fellow tourists on the Vinh Long tour told us she had just come from Phu Quoc and it was heaven and that two days just wouldn’t be enough, we quit debating about whether to go to another place in the Mekong Delta and instead headed to Phu Quoc a day early. It ended up being the exactly right decision. Not only were we exhausted after our whirlwind trip from the very top to very bottom of Vietnam, but Phu Quoc ended up being the (fairly) deserted beach location we had been searching for since Thailand.

Phu Quoc is definitely on the map as a tourist destination and is well-publicized in Lonely Planet, although it is described as being a place where “the Vietnamese government has big plans to turn Phu Quoc into the next Phuket, but so far that plan has not amounted to much. Hurry here before it does!” Even those who do venture all the way the way to Phu Quoc tend not to leave the main beach and town which only make up a very small part of the island. This is because you need to drive to reach other parts of the island and, at an area of 222 square miles, Phu Quoc is surprisingly large. This meant that most of the island felt incredibly undeveloped, untouristy and like we had it all to ourselves–or in one word: perfect! We rented a motorbike and enjoyed exploring the beauty and tranquility of the island. On our first day we headed south to find a beach that we had been told was absolutely stunning.

While the beach from the first day was definitely nice, it wasn’t quite as remote as we had hoped for. Fortunately, there were several other beaches across the island to seek out. On our second day, we rode our bike through a national park until we reached one of the beaches on the map. This beach was not a great swimming beach, but it was definitely empty! Brian and I waded through the water taking pictures of the interesting looking boats and fisherman’s shacks floating there. We walked until we reached a small island that seemed to be a park.

When we walked back to near where we had parked our bike, we decided to stop at the cute little “restaurant” on the beach that we had seen when we first walked past. I say “restaurant” because it was just a few wicker tables and chairs on the beach in front of a very small building that looked like it had a kitchen. The man who looked to be the owner sat us down and handed us menus. There was not another soul around as we sat on the chairs looking out into the ocean. When the man came back after taking our orders, he asked us where we were from in quite good English. When we said we were from America, he got excited and said that he lived in Canada and was back in Vietnam now for a few months to spend time with his wife. He said that he had been a paratrooper during the war, fighting on the South Vietnamese/American side and after the fall of Saigon had become one of the famous boat people who escaped mass exodus on boats from Vietnam. He ended up making his way to Thailand where he stayed until he received permission to emigrate to Canada. At some point he brought his friend over to talk to us who had been in the navy in the South Vietnamese army. This man did not speak much English, but our Canadian friend did the translating. His friend brought out a plastic bag of pictures to show us that had been taken during the early 70s when he was in the navy. For some reason that we couldn’t quite figure out from both of their explanations, he had spent some time during those years in San Francisco while he was with the navy. The pictures were of him in his navy uniform with various American friends in San Francisco.

After showing us the pictures, he pulled out from his bag of obviously treasured mementos a piece of paper that he explained was a letter informing him that he was allowed to emigrate to the United States due to his service during the war. He had, however, chosen to stay in Vietnam, because he loved his country too much to leave. Both men emphasized that Vietnam is now once again a great place to live, because people are now free to run their own businesses and it is more of a capitalist place than it was in the aftermath of the communist takeover. It was wonderful to hear their stories and get their perspective on Vietnam during and after the war.

Although it had been a very interesting and satisfying day, we still hadn’t found our remote beach paradise, so we decided to quickly make our way to yet another beach on our map.  We managed to get there before it got too late. As the sun started to set, we laid on the completely empty beach before taking a quick dip in the warm waters.

All in all, Phu Quoc had been exactly what we had been looking for in Southeast Asia but did not expect to find in Vietnam. It was the perfect way to end our time in an interesting, beautiful country that we as Americans will always have a permanent tie with.