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Con Dao Island. It was charming, very sleepy and relatively under developed but that is changing. There are three hotels, ours and a couple of pensions. The
Saigon Con Dao was OK, a bit basic for some may be but we found it comfortable and clean with good A/C in room and a great veranda to sit on. It is all a bit government run which has its charm and frustration! For example as long as you follow expected visitor patterns all runs smoothly – but don’t try and go ‘off piste’ for an easy life! As you know we were on full board and were expected to be at table on time for the set menu (one choice). The food was fine but they would struggle to cope with fussy western eaters so you need to like fish! If you tell them you are away for a meal they insist you take an enormous packed lunch which is a four courser in itself complete with hot food chop sticks etc. You need to hire a motor bike just to carry it!
The bikes are cheap and OK here because there is so little traffic you can easily cope where in the rest of the country you would not. I only fell off twice! The national park is strongly in evidence but a bit under developed (they don’t have good planned trails or decent maps for example).
My diving was a disaster; I booked this with the only dive company on the island, Rainbow who let me down totally. They rely on the three parks boats which they use when the parks are not using them. The result is on a busy week no diving! Better book direct with the parks which I think is possible. We hit the week UNESCO had teams of scientists there monitoring the devastation of the local fish populations ant the boats were fully booked so I was dumped out! We did get out Turtle trip however on one of the boats since this was booked by you with the park and was over night when the scientists were asleep! It was a huge success, left at 4.00 pm to another island where we ate with the parks rangers (another packed meal from the hotel!) and then slept until 2.30 am (depends on high tide) in basic cabins tow metal bunks with nets – lots of midges from the mangrove so spray essential. At 2.30 woken up by ranger who has monitored the beach, there were 9 turtles that night of which we watched 3 lay. One was not in a safe location so the 124 eggs were lifted and moved to the hatchery – all fascinating and a great experience. Return at 7.00am the next morning.
There are a few nice beaches on the island but you need a bike to get to them. We did not visit the French prison buildings which are a pilgrimage for the Vietnamese but they are apparently interesting and sobering – we had our dose of that in Phnom Penh!
So Con Dao is a good place for a slow pace, peace and quiet and a glimpse of rural VN for those with a bit of adventure and not to fussed about 5 star treatment – actually the treatment is 5 star plus even if the accommodation is not, we liked it!