Travel dates: 18 - 22 September 2023

After a very busy first half of the year, I realised that we (my hubs and I) need to take a chill pill and to rest. So we started searching for somewhere we could go that we could afford. While discussing this with my friend, Ruth, she suggested a place where she thought we would enjoy as a family. A place with sand, sea & sun! Yes! These are the 3 S that Asher and I love. So with a little knowledge of this mysterious island, we went ahead to buy the flight tickets. 

A little side story, Sean was quite hesitant to go somewhere far at first due to the expenses but he felt that we should just do it (with some blessings we received previously) and then said yes to me to book the flights. 3 weeks after we booked the flights, another person sent us $$ again. See, our God is always so faithful and good to us! 

Now back to our holiday story!

Our flights were considered cheap, about RM1,500 round trip for 3 persons. I don't recommend the way we planned our flights, but to save every penny, I booked them separately. 

I can tell you the Phu Quoc map better than Penang. I spent way too long researching on the island! So we decided to stay 2 nights in the north part of the island and the other 2 nights in the south part. 

DAY 1: GRAND WORLD 

Grand World is like a little town on its own, with many little hotels and shops around. I will not write much about it coz you can also find it online haha! There is a free shuttle bus that takes you to the bus station at Grand World and then you could take a free buggy ride to the nearest buggy stop to your hotel. However, we were too excited to get to our hotel and succumbed to taking a private car instead. That cost us 370,000VND (RM72)!!! This is too much! Don't be like us okay?

It could be that September is rainy season so the area was quite empty. When we first got there, my first 3 words were "Whoa, ghost town". There were barely anyone there except people working in the hotels. We booked Sel De Mer for RM235.50 for 2 nights. I booked this hotel thinking we could have those free replenish-able snacks and drinks like in Hat Yai. Sadly, everything here is chargeable, even the bottled mineral water. The staff here, however was very helpful and would recommend places to eat and things to do. It was easy to communicate as they have a WhatsApp number and we communicated in English. 

This was our room. Photo taken from agoda.com

You could go without a bike to explore the place but we had a toddler who asks to carry every 3 minutes, rent-a-bike it is! 

The lil' one had fun on the bike!

This is a Phu Quoc specialty called Bun Quay at Bún Quậy Kiến Xây for 85,000VND with a bottle of Sprite

Dinner Dish: Stir Fry Water Spinach with Garlic

Dinner Dish: Caremelised Pork Belly - YUMZ

Dinner Dish: Fried Omelet with mince Pork

First Iced Coffee

This photo surely doesn't do justice. There were light, fire, water, actors dancing etc.

DAY 2: VINWONDERS THEME PARK

It's theme park day! I was really looking forward to this coz I'm a thrill seeker (at least I think I am?) I was looking forward to sitting on roller coaster rides etc. But when I was there, again, the park was so empty and I ended up feeling too scared to go on those rides by myself. Sean and I took turns to be with Asher. I recommend going to the park with more people if you have a kid with you. 

They have an aquarium with mermaid shows and a big variety of sea creatures. They even have penguins! They were super cute! There is also a mini playground and 2 restaurants in the aquarium. 

The park tickets cost us about RM360 for 2 adults. Children 100cm and below enter the park for FREE, however there are only a handful of rides and activities suitable for them. 

This is the front of the park... A little like Disneyland, some say.

At the mermaid show

Met Aladdin and the gang haha!

The ONLY activity we could do together - Lazy River

There is also a very nice water park, which then you'd have to rent the lockers and bring a set of change. My friend introduced me a disposable towel which can soak pretty well. We brought those so we didn't have to carry big bags to the park. They look like this:

Best Beef Pho we've had - Ann Food & Drinks (Vinwonders)

They also had the light & water show at the theme park, so we stayed until the show ended which was about 8pm. There is a free shuttle bus to get to the theme park as well. So convenient and nice! 

DAY 3: DUONG DONG & PHU QUOC NIGHT MARKET

We had a free & easy day on the day that we were moving to the southern part of the island. We went to the Grand World park to take some photos and then took another free shuttle bus to our next hotel. We love the free bus service so much! The buses are very new and comfortable too. We rented a bike from our hotel to go around the area. The night market is about 8-9 minutes from our hotel. There were many eateries and mart around our hotel too. We booked Aquasun Hotel and paid RM330 for 2 nights. The room comes with breakfast for 3 of us and a free room upgrade (from Agoda). 

Our room! Photo from Google

The bathroom. Photo from Google

The nicest family photo we have from the trip lol!

The view from our hotel room balcony

Beautiful beach right outside our hotel

Measuring cups as beach toys

First time trying this potato snack.

I cannot go to Vietnam and not eat this

The snails were yummy too

Something I'd love to try but didn't

DAY 4: SAO BEACH, KHEM BEACH & SUOI TRANH WATERFALL

We took a whole day to explore some Sao & Khem beach and were disappointed. We saw so many beautiful photos of these beaches on Instagram but when we were there, the sea water was cloudy and dirty :( So Sean found a nearby waterfall that we could go to and it lifted our moods! We had to pay a small entrance fee (60,000VND) to go into the reserved park, walked a little to the waterfall and had our little teatime there.

Hotel Breakfast was yum yum

SAO Beach looked like that :(

Another Vietnamese dish I didn't want to miss: Broken Rice

This was my 4th Banh Mi in Phu Quoc, and the best.

Grilled Squid - all time fave! RM20 only!

Sea Urchins for RM20 too. Taste was not bad!

At this point, I am so tired from writing and trying to recall as much as I can haha! So I'm gonna stop here. Overall we had a good and relaxing trip and I'm so happy to get to try the food in Vietnam! Thank you, Phu Quoc!

How to get to Hat Yai from Penang? 

My husband Googled and found this website where you could book a shared van to get you there. We paid only RM50 per person for a round trip and additional RM20 for some immigration charges. Super affordable and hassle free! We could also select from where we want the pick-up to be and so glad that 1 of the pick-up points was just 3 minutes away from my parent's place. 

We left early in the morning and arrived at Hat Yai about noon time. They dropped us off at Lee Gardens Plaza. The van was super spacious and comfortable. 

Where did we stay in Hat Yai?

It's so easy to look for a place in Hat Yai as there are countless hotels there. We chose a rather affordable one called PM Residence. Here is where we stayed for RM340 for 3 nights. Clean, comfy & comes with free snack bar refill daily! Our room looks like this: 

Photo from agoda.com

What did we do in Hat Yai? 

People would say there isn't much to do there, except shopping, eating and getting a real good massage. So we did EXACTLY that and maybe a little more. When we got there, we realised that it is cheaper & convenient to rent a car than to take Grab or tuk tuk. So we got a contact from our hotel receptionist and got a rented Toyota Vios for 2 days. We went on a little road trip to Songkla too. There, we got to stop by at the beach and also did some touristy stuff, and ate. Oh, before I forget, I may have visited 7 to 8 7Eleven's while we were there. I love love love their convenience stores! Just look at that variety of sausages! Haha, ok not just the sausages, but there were sooo many types of snacks, ready-to-eat food and drinks. I would literally travel to Thailand just for their 7Elevens! 

7Eleven in Thailand rocks my socks!

Tried Orange Espresso for the first time. Yumz!

He was so fascinated by the tuk tuk so he was a good boy in the rides :)

A Thai Milk Tea place we found on our road trip to Songkhla - SUPER GOOD!

Yummy unhealthy food by the street

Some glutinous flour snack with coconut.

Also, randomly stopped by a cafe and ordered their sandwich. The drink behind was supposed to be a milk tea, but we don't know what happened lol!

Food places we ate at in Hat Yai: 

DAY 1

1. Rado Hotel (Coffeeshop downstairs) Pork Knuckle Rice & Koay Chiap

DAY 2

1. Chok Dee Dim Sum - dim sum was below average. We also tried their bak kut teh, it was also not that good. 

2. ไผ่ BETONG ผัดไทยใบตอง&หอยทอด (นางงาม) – Songkhla

We randomly stopped by at local coffee shops and bought these... They were okay. Nothing to shout about. 

Every dish at this restaurant was really tasty, but also spicy. For a person who cannot tolerate so much, I was kind of struggling to eat this meal. But I cannot deny the tastiness! Coconut water helps reduce the pain in your mouth though! Haha! 

1. Chen Loong Boat Noodle (Beef Soup Noodles) - this was SUPERB! The best boat noodle I have ever tasted. 

1. ก๋วยเตี๋ยวเรือเป่าปากชามกะลา (Pork Noodles Soup) - Also randomly found this shop as we were preparing to leave Hat Yai. We walked over from our hotel and they could not speak any English so we just picked from looking at the photos on the menu. Turned out yummy!