Every morning I made coffee and went straight downstairs to the gym. That was more or less how my days on Phu Quoc began for four weeks.
Pauline and I had an apartment there. Coffee first, gym downstairs, then outside without much of a plan. It was less a holiday routine than simply the routine we had for that month.
Four weeks is long enough for that sequence to stop feeling like travel. You get up, make coffee, find your training clothes, and already know which button to press in the lift. Nothing remarkable about it. That was exactly why I liked it.
Outside, things felt stranger. The part of the island where we stayed looked as if it had been designed all at once for far more people than were actually there. New-looking buildings, large public spaces, Mediterranean-looking streets, and shops arranged into a very polished little world. Some places were busy. Others felt oddly empty.
I could not know why every quiet building was quiet. The disruption after Covid, the amount of new development, the season — there could have been several reasons. I only knew how it felt from the pavement: constructed rather than lived in.
It was not unpleasant all the time. It was clean, modern, and in places quite impressive. I just rarely forgot that the surroundings had been designed to produce an effect. I missed things that did not look planned in advance.
Designed all at once
Even ordinary things sometimes looked as if somebody had polished them for the set. The Bánh mì stand was almost too fancy. Not bad. Just very considered for something I had expected to buy without thinking about the surroundings.
There was also a kebab stand. I never tried it. Not for cultural reasons; it simply did not look good. Some decisions are less complicated than the internet would like them to be.
The whole area mixed Mediterranean architecture, Vietnamese food, Takoyaki, kebab, tropical heat, and carefully staged market spaces. Everything at once. Somehow very little of it felt rooted. That says something about the bubble I stayed in, not about the whole island, and certainly not about Vietnam as a whole.
Every evening at seven
The sunsets came every day and were often very good. Then, at about seven, the fireworks started. The same fireworks. With the same song. Every evening.
The first time, fine. The second time, also fine. After that it became less of an event and more of a very loud clock. You never had to wonder what time it was.
The things that worked
The people I met were very friendly. That matters, because my problem was never with them. It was the environment around us that kept feeling slightly unreal.
I walked through the market and food-stall area regularly. Most of the food was okay. The Takoyaki was better than okay. I went to the same stand almost every day and became something close to a regular. My eating sessions were tolerated with impressive patience.
That quickly felt more familiar than the grand surroundings. I knew where I wanted to go, and the people there had a fair idea of what was coming. Mainly a lot of hunger.
The beaches I visited were okay too. They did not blow me away, and in a few places there was unfortunately quite a lot of rubbish. Still, there was the sea, a cold drink, and a sunset waiting to be interrupted at seven sharp.
Those four weeks probably told me more about us than about Phu Quoc. That is all that really needs to go on the internet.
At the end I left a few days before Pauline. I had found a ridiculously cheap flight. And unfortunately I still have not worked out how to shit money.
The logic lasted until I had actually left. Then I felt terrible. I regretted the decision completely.
Pauline was only staying a few days longer. It was not a catastrophe or a grand drama. It was simply a decision that looked perfectly sensible on a booking screen and felt completely wrong afterwards.
I do not particularly want to go back to Phu Quoc. It was okay. Really.
I still would not give those four weeks back.