Greetings from Paradise!

Hi all,

Internet access is limited here so I haven't had much of a chance to write- although I doubt I would have been able to drag myself away from the sunbeds and crystal blue water anyway.
I am currently on Phu Quoc Island which is Vietnam's answer to Phuket- except it is way less commercialized and has only a small amount of resorts and restaurants. It is bliss! Easily the most beautiful place I have ever been to.

We are staying in a beach bungalow where it is literally ten steps before our feet are in the sand. The water is crystal blue and smooth like silk, and so warm! Very different from the beaches in Australia!
The resort has heaps of free sun lounges for us to use and we haven't done much else than swim, read, swim, read and eat some amazing food. The main mode of employment on the island is fisherman, so all the seafood is fresh and plentiful. So far we have eaten fresh squid, prawns, tuna, mackeral, crab and yesterday on our boat trip we even tried a sea urchin (the black spiky things about the size of a tennis ball!) Very interesting experience. The restaurants here are all located on the beach, where you sit at little candlelit tables with your feet in the sand. I even got to drink a cocktail straight out of a coconut! On our second night here we went to the night market for dinner- awesome place. Heaps of little makeshift restaurants that basically consisted of a table full of fresh seafood and a BBQ- you just pointed at what you wanted and they cooked it for you. Amazing!

Whilst walking along the beach one day we got approached by some local kids who wanted Craig to play soccer with them. He happily obliged and they were such lovely kids. Even though they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Vietnamese we managed to have a girls against boys soccer match on the beach. The kids here are such little dolls, and so high spirited. Often along the beach you will see about twenty of them splashing around in the water, fully clothed!

Yesterday we were brave enough to try scuba diving for the first time. We went on two 45 minute 'try dives' where you only go 6 metres down and have an instructor attached to you just in case. My instructor was this beautiful Vietnamese boy named Ting who took very good care of me! Especially since on my first dive my face mask kept filling up with water and we couldn't work out why for about twenty minutes- it had a leak! Once that was fixed up, I spent 2 x 45 glorious minutes under the water touching sea anenomes, seeing some beautiful coral, thousands of fish (clown fish, angelfish, butterfly fish etc). It was an awesome experience, and Craig and I are hankering to get up to the Great Barrier Reef sometime to try what Australia has to offer on the scuba dive front.

We were on the boat with three couples from Finland- well, that was pretty bad for our self esteem! I have never seen such tanned, muscled, blonde, perfect looking people in my life! I felt very white in comparison. They looked like they were off the set of Baywatch or something. They were good fun though, apart from the fact that we didn't speak Finnish, so therefore had no idea what the six of them were saying the entire trip!

All in all, this place has been a paradise after the bustling of the cities we have been too. We are almost feeling resentful towards Thailand because we have to leave this haven to go there- "Damn Thailand, who do they think they are taking us away from paradise?!" It is going to be so sad to leave Vietnam. We have become so attached to the people, the culture and the food. It has been everything we expected and so much more.

So now I am off to spend my last afternoon relaxing on the beach. I think a swim and a beach massage is in order. I am missing Melbourne and all my loved ones very much- less than 2 weeks till I see you all again!
Love lots x