Vignettes of the World
I was waiting for the driver to pick me up at the Dinh Cau Temple. In the open area outside the Dinh Cau Temple, I saw some snack vendors and I was curious. Besides that they were apparently sweet snacks, I had no idea what …
It is no surprise that the Goddess of the Sea is the long-revered deity for the people of Phu Quoc. That is certainly the commonest worship in the coastal regions of southern China as well. I wanted to visit heritage and religious sites in the …
There is never enough ocean time for me and I was very excited about the visit at the Starfish Beach. I was done at the Pepper Farm and Rach Vem was next. At around noon hour, my driver took me to the Rach Vem Fishing Village for the boat ride. I learned that the fishermen were gathering for their noontime meditation before riding out to the sea. This is their daily practice to pray for safety.
I was slightly disappointed that the visit to the fishing village did not come with the opportunity to see how the fishermen caught fish. I was hoping for a fishermen’s boat tour, to observe how they did their proper work.
Instead, I found myself in the midst of rows and rows of marine fish culture facilities.
As I waited for the fishermen to finish their meditation, I walked around the fishing village a little. It was quite a scene at the fishing ponds. They were fish that I knew, as in the common kind of high-end fish that we would have for a typical Hong Kong seafood meal. Except that the fish there at Rach Vem were a whole lot bigger – fish of that size would go for astronomical prices in a Hong Kong seafood market, if they are even available at all.
Otherwise, I’d say that the fishing village was photogenic. From the shore, rows and rows of narrow wooden footbridge extends out to the open sea. The fishmen’s abodes are built upon the still-shallow waters, but where it was deep enough to designate pools for fish culture. The humble lives of the fishermen are apparent, but perhaps the fact that they run the sea routes shuttling tourists to the Starfish Beach indicates their business acumen. There is no question that the tourist economy is on everybody’s mind in Phu Quoc.
One tip for foreign tourists is that they should consider the local options when they plan for the Starfish Beach. Inquire at your hotel for local tours. I saw some really swanky yachts docking at the starfish beach, and I figured that the transportation options are either very expensive (yachts) or very cheap (local fish boats) and they are far and few in between. The boat ride took just about 15 minutes, so there was no need to hire a luxurious yacht to take you there.
As its name suggests, the Starfish Beach is full of picture-perfect, giddy-looking starfish. Somehow, they hover at the shallow waters of the beach and you can freely touch them and feel them.
Having visited three beach locations by now, I would say each beach presents some unique qualities and the vibes are different at every one of them in Phu Quoc. The Khem Beach was a proper, standard beach, where a lot of people swam, with good facilities for one to stay there a whole day sipping your margaritas at the beachside bar.
At the Fingernail Island during the island hopping tour, the facilities are also there, and you can swim at the rather small beach and enjoy the softest white sand.
At the Starfish Beach, the vibe is “out of this world.” Surely, there are also shaded beach chairs there and vendors provide cold drinks (alcoholic or not). But the scenery there is so pristine that you feel like you have risen up a level in heavens.
The sky was in a light aquamarine blue, in an endless, cloudless stretch of crystalline expanse. There was copious sunshine, but it felt gentle like the morning rays. Its waters was so calm that you’d think you are at a large outdoor swimming pool. The water did not appear to be the same as the emerald waters of the islets in the southern coast. It was very clear, and looked a few shades lighter. The waves washed over me in small, light strokes against my back. I floated on my back for a very long time.
As to the star of the show, the starfish, it was the first time that I had a close encounter with this creature. I was quite surprised that every one of them that I touched had a very hard “shell.” I could not figure out if they were living or dead starfish? But I was sure that some of them moved while I was there.
In terms of touristy setup, there was a photogenic swing there, and I have to say it was well done. Be sure that you will have to wait for a long time because men and women love that spot. Many of them take both photos and videos there.
I passed by the starfish beach to go further out, to a section of the beach that does not have starfish but much more secluded with almost no one there. I swam there freely until a group of local folks gathered around the rocky area to have a family picnic. They were simply too loud.
When I was dropped off from the fishing boat, there was no explicit instructions on what time I was supposed to leave. By the time I felt like I had enough of the beach, the boat operator has left with the last tourists that they took.
I simply went around showing my bracelet to everybody and someone took me, just me, back to the Rach Vem fishing village. I was very thankful for that special arrangement.
What a wonderful day at the beach. I hired a driver for a full day to take me there. It cost 1,300,000₫.
Being an island, Phu Quoc’s economy was heavily dependent on fishing before the people realized that the pristine waters by the creamy beaches bore enormous potential for tourism. Besides fishing, Phu Quoc was known for agriculture and pearl culture as well. I managed to visit …
One of the most looked-forward to tour in this trip was Island Hopping in the southern waters of Phu Quoc. From the scenery to the activities to the food, this one-day shuttling between the open sea and beautiful islets served every purpose for which I …
One cannot understand the human face of the Outback without a fair appreciation of the state of affairs concerning the aborigines in Australia. In this last entry on the Outback, I attempt to provide a brief overview of the historical issues that have direct bearings on the welfare of the aborigines in Australia. I am not Australian and I do not represent or advocate for any party on this issue. This is my own learning on an issue of significance as it matters to Australia today.
A brief research on articles online reveals two underlying currents of developments concerning aboriginal rights in Australia historically. The first is the contention over the natives’ rights to the land that they had inhabited for tens of thousands of years. The second is the policy of removal of aboriginal children (at the earlier times, specifically children of mixed blood) from their families with the stated aim of societal integration or child protection. These are the issues that continue to resonate in Australia.
The term “Stolen Generations” refers to the innumerable aboriginal children that were forcibly removed from their native families and communities pursuant to the government policy of removal. This policy of removal is purportedly done for the sake of assimilation of aboriginal children into the society, clothed in the name of “child protection.”
The forced removal of aboriginal children was a practice in a few of the former commonwealth countries that have had to confront the historical tensions between colonist settlements and the rights of indigenous peoples. This includes the United States, Canada and Australia.
The aborigines were very much tied to the land and they formed intimate bonds with the land. Before the child even learned to walk, he could recognise the footprints of his whole family. Throughout his life, he would be learning cues from nature for all kinds of survival skills. The aboriginal children were born in the sand. The baby was washed in the sand and it would forge a lifelong relationship with the land.
The aborigines’s lives evolved with this land throughout thousands of centuries. The climate was once tropical in the Outback and now it has become a desert. They had the skills to tell where the water is, the hunting etc. They never wore clothes and yet they could survive extreme temperatures. When they were put into settlement communities, they lost their distinct sense of the earth.
The aborigines also have strict rules about with whom someone may have children. When the children were taken away, they did not know what their bloodline was and as a result there was inbreeding.
From around 1905 to 1967, forced removal of aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders children was a systematic practice. Under various legal arrangements, the authorities would take the (mostly half-caste) aboriginal children away from their mothers, and often at birth. Sometimes the authorities simply told the parents that the child had died. Similarly, for the children taken away, they would grow up being told that their parents had died as well. It is estimated that during the material times, 1 in 10 to 1 in 3 aboriginal children were taken away from their parents.
The legal developments that concerned aboriginal affairs in Australia had not always been so vicious. But a patonizing sentiment was present, in that the aborigines were viewed as subjects to be “protected” and not really as citizens that had recognized and actionable legal rights. Take South Australia as an example. The Letters Patent of the colony includes a clause that guarantees any “Aboriginal Natives” or their descendants to lands they “now actually occupied or enjoyed.” In 1836, the “Protector of Aborigines” was appointed to protect the undisturbed possession of their land. There was also effort to introduce the aborigines to the perceived “more civilized” way of life, such as farming in reserves.
In the Aborigines Act of South Australia (1911, 1923 and 1934), the government invoked the power that resulted in grave consequences to the aborigines. Amongst others, the Chief Protector and Guardianship was appointed to oversee the removal of aboriginal children from their parents. Furthermore, this law introduced the policy of segregation and commandment of resettling aborigines into “communities” and limiting their movements in and out of the reserves.
Perhaps the policy of removal was first expressed in the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869, which was a legislation of Victoria. This legislation allowed the removal of Aboriginal people of mixed descent from the aboriginal reserve forcebly, so that they could assimilate into the Anglo-Australian society. In 1883, the Board for the Protection of Aborigines was established in New South Wales. Although it acted without legislative authority at first, it was given the authority to remove children by the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 (NSW), without having to first establish in court that the children were neglected.
The practice of removal was appalling beyond the forced disablement of an aboriginal child’s instincts about nature. The children would grow up in a home or in foster care. They were to learn life skills in the home, so that when they left, they could be of use to the Anglo-Australians as servants or farm hands. It goes without saying that the aboriginal children suffered neglect, at best, and abuse, at worst, at these homes. The purported objective of the so-called “protection” policy fell flat on its face in practice, let alone the unmistakeably racist views that motivated the policy.
As to the point of racially motivated policy, it is worth mentioning that Australia adopted a White Australia policy during 1901 and 1970, with the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act, which restricted non-white (it really intends to exclude non-British) immigration. That is not Australia today, for sure. And to be fair, such similar policies did also take shape in the United States (then already independent) in around the same time.
In a previous entry on Alice Springs, I have discussed the tensions that arose when the Anglo-Australian settlers occupied the frontier lands of the Outback freely, touching off the Coniston Massacre of 1928. This incident was representative of the kinds of issues concerning the occupation and use of land and other resources against the interests of the aborigines.
But post WWII nuclear tests in the Outback have rubbed salt into wounds, and amplified the problems multifold. The British and the Austraslian governments together had done more severe and long-lasting damage to Australia’s native land and its peoples, particularly in the Outback, than the continuous frontier skirmishes. The nuclear tests conducted between 1952 and 1957, and the radioactive waste dumping thereafter, resulted in life-threatening consequences for the aborigines and the natural evironment. The irony is, the Anglo-Australian colonists took the land away from the aborigines, and with final recognition today of the wrong done, Australia “returned” the land to its original owners, only that it was already dangerously contaminated.
In the case of South Australia, some notable efforts to recognize indigenous rights began around the 1960s. The Aborigines Affairs Act abolished the powers to remove aborigines to the reserves in 1962. The Aborigines and Historic Relics Preservation Act of South Australia provided some protection of sacred and burial sites and other sites of significance beginning in 1965. In 1968, the Aborigines Affairs Amendment Act finally prohibited the forced removal of young people.
Nationally, in 1962, the First Peoples won their rights to vote in state elections after lobbying. The 1967 referendum was perhaps the singlemost significant turning point for aboriginal rights. In this referendum, 90% of Australians agreed that First Australians deserved equal constitutional rights. The result was reflected in the removal of discriminatory wordings from the Australian Constitution, allowing the Federal Government to make laws concerning the aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders, and counting them in the national census. With a 90% vote affirming the referendum, the 1967 referendum is still the most successful in Australian history.
In 1982, the Torres Strait Islanders were the first to bring a formal claim for their native rights to land in the courts. The first point of legal significance is the recognition of native rights to land as opposed to legal titles to land. The difference between the two is that common titles to land as a freehold is a government creation of land rights. In contrast, the native rights to land originates from the common law requiring a recognition by law on an inherent right to land.
In Mabo v. Queensland, the Supreme Court of Australia recognized, for the first time, the indigenous people’s native rights to the land. A group of Torres Strait Islanders sued to overturn the legislation called Torres Strait Islands Coastal Islands Act, which denied the rights to any land claimed by the islanders that arose after the claim of sovereignty in 1879, and with no compensation. The applicants, as peoples of the Torres Straits in the Island of Mer (Murray Island), relied on the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act as the crux of their argument.
This 1992 judgment is a watershed that would start the ball rolling for the process of recognizing the indigenous rights to land in Australia. The judgment recognizes pre-existing rights and interests in land, that such rights survived colonization and still survives today. Where government actions extinguish such native titles to land, the islanders are entitled to just compensation post 1975. The just compensation requirement is contained in the Racial Discrimination Act of 1975, on the basis that if the indigenous peoples did not get compensated for land taken, and other non-natives did, then it is considered racial discrimination. Following this judgment, a few critical cases with similar claims were won by the aborigines in other parts of the country.
Another development is an inquiry done by the Australian Human Rights Commission, which published a report called Bringing Them Home in 1997. Drawing upon the tesimonials of aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders that were forcibly removed in every jurisdiction in the nation, the report exposes and affirms the inhumanity of the practice.
In 2007, Australia became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Right of Indigenous Peoples. This was followed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offering a formal apology to Australia’s indigenous peoples, in particular to the Lost Generations, on behalf of the national government in 2008. The first National Sorry Day was held on May 26, 2008, standing as a national acknolwedgement of the injustices done to the First Peoples.
Perhaps the recent developments in the aborigines’ native rights to the land can only do so much to rectify the grand scheme of injustice that has been done to them for more than a century. For the lost generations of aboriginal children, all states but Queensland has provided mechanisms of reparations to them.
Fast forward to 2023, the latest referendum that concerns the aborigines called for a vote to recognize the First Peoples in the Australian Constitution by establishing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, which was envisioned to be a body in the Parliament that represents and advocates for the indigenous peoples of Australia. The referendum was roundly rejected by the Australian voters.
Reconciliation and remedies are a long path to tread, as with all nations similarly situated. But they all began with recognition of the wrong done to the First Peoples. At least that much is clear in Australia.
AIATSIS, Mabo v Queensland (No 2) [1992] HCA 23; (1992) 175 CLR 1.
Australian Museum, The Stolen Generation.
The Britannica on Stolen Generations.
Caroline Webber, ‘Equal Rights for Aborigines,’ Indigenous Activism and Constitutional Reform, National Archives of Australia, May 20, 2020.
Kristy Wilson, Fallout in the Outback: Nuclear Colonization and the Aboriginal People in Australia, University of Colorado.
ngutungka.com, Aboriginal Timeline SA.
The Wikipedia on Stolen Generations.
I always think that the ocean bears enormous powers of healing. I would be coming to the Khem Beach many times during this trip. In my first evening in Phu Quoc, I took a walk and arrived at Khem Beach a little before dusk hour. …
The Coconut Tree Prison is the most unhappy place in Phu Quoc, and that is an understatement. It stands testament to the ubiquity of political division that haunted the nation during much of the 20th century. In the Coconut Tree Prison, this political division manifested …
I stepped out of the airplane and could smell the ocean already. It is properly “winter” time even for this part of the world. The humidity greeted me all the same, in a somewhat tamed tropical heat. I hoped for some really sunny days on this trip, as I looked to be by the beach sipping margaritas like I would in any beach resort destination.
After landing, it took me a full hour before I checked out immigration, set up my mobile data and exchanged money. It took maybe half an hour for me to arrive at Skyline Hotel, who arranged the ride. I was very eager to see my room. Each room on each floor featured a theme of the world. I think I got the Morocco room.
When I arrived, I realized that the whole area surrounding the Khem Beach is a resort town. Hotels spanning the full price range, from budget to luxury, could be booked there. The structures were new, built in a rather uniform faux European style — one could be easily lost within the resort town because every row of townhouses looked the same.
The Skyline Hotel lied very close to a stretch of restaurants and spa establishments. It took just a minute of walk for me to find food. But as it turned out, I did not eat there even once in my 5 days here. I rather desired very local food instead.
After checking in, I ventured out looking for food.
I would like to stay away from calling Grab to the extent possible. Therefore, the first act in Phu Quoc for me was to walk 40 minutes to the Coconut Tree Prison as my first sightseeing. The walk from Skyline Hotel out to the entrance to the Khem Beach Resort took a good 15-20 minutes already. I really had a chance to see the reality of tourism in Phu Quoc in this walk.
I liked this resort town for what it is. There was certainly the sense that it was meant for much better business than it managed to secure. Of course, the JW Marriot has taken up a prime spot right by the Khem Beach, with the ocean views and the short walk to the beach as its key attraction. From my hotel, it does take 8-10 minutes of a walk to get to the beach.
But otherwise, a cursory look into the buildings in the resort town will reveal an unhappy truth about business there. The resort town is 90% empty, save for the two stretches of businesses that are close to my hotel and close to the Khem Beach, respectively.
It is my observation that the theme of dashed hopes is common in planned economies. Surely, Vietnam has embarked upon a program of significant economic liberalization, not unlike that of China, since the 1980s. But what I observed at the Khem Beach Resort was typical of grand visions that were not supported by good economic analysis, a step that should have been taken before making any kind of significant investment. I have no idea if the Khem Beach Resort was a government initiative. If it weren’t, then the investors must have suffered quite a significant loss.
That said, if you turn a blind eye to the rubbles that lie freely in the vacant lots within those townhouses, the environment is well-designed with a very sunny, cheerful vibe, “almost classy,” as I muttered. Decorative trees adorned the well-paved streets. Even for the ghost streets with no tenants, there were workmen there trimming the trees and keeping the streets clean during the day. It appeared to me that dignity was maintained despite the failed business objective.
About twenty minutes later, I made it to the proper entrance of the resort town. That was when I ventured into the “real” Phu Quoc. I was on my way to the Coconut Tree Prison.
The street views beyond the bounds of the resort town did indicate that I was out of the comfort zones for vacationers. There was quite a bit of trash on the way. The wide, multi-lane motorway was simply extended into the expanse of space until it met the houses on the side, with no proper pavement for pedestrians. In fact, some parts of the road are full of sand.
I saw on Google Map that there were some restaurants on the other side of the road. I have had to navigate carefully before making it across to the other side of the road. I found Com Tam Trang for a plate of com tam (grilled pork chop over broken rice).
A lady fully wrapped in her upper body was running a little coffee stand by the road. I envied her for the attire because I would rather be wrapped in this heat than be breathing in the diesel and the dust. Neither the humidity nor the sea breezes mediated the dustiness of a busy roadway in Phu Quoc.
I ordered my favorite Vietnamese drink, ka phe sua da (iced coffee with milk), for 15,000₫. As I sipped my coffee, I watched the old man grill his meat over an open charcoal fire. For a moment, I was concerned with this dustiness. But I pushed the thought aside. It is worth all the dust to eat like a local.
I sat down with my plate of pork chop rice and at once felt at home in Phu Quoc. This was my fifth time visiting Vietnam.
Historically, both Cambodia and Vietnam lay claims on the island. The issue has resulted in conflicts between the two nations, namely the Cambodian-Vietnamese War of 1979. As the history is presented in Wikipedia, it seems to be the case that the historical rulers or administrators of Phu Quoc have pledged their allegiance to Vietnam. On a balance, it does seem that the island had stronger ties with Vietnam.
In 1739, the Cambodians attempted to liberate Phu Quoc but failed in their expeditions. Since then, the island has enjoyed independence from Cambodia. The French missionaries arrived during the 1760s. They noted that the population there were of Vietnamese descent. Over those times, there were accounts to the French empire indicating acknowledgement of Cambodia’s formal claim of sovereignty over the island. In 1867, the Vietnamese rulers of Phu Quoc pledged allegiance to the French.
In 1939, the Governor General of French Indochina, Jules Brevie, drew a maritime demarcation line (The Brevie Line), between Cambodia and Vietnam, and the island fell within the territory of Vietnam.
With the Geneva Accord of 1954, sovereignty over Phu Quoc Island was handed to Vietnam. Yet, there were continuous tensions between the Cambodian government and the Vietnamese government over their claims to the island. In 1975, a squad of Cambodian soldiers took Phu Quoc, but the island was retaken by the Vietnamese forces soon. Although the Cambodian government dropped its claim to sovereignty over Phu Quoc Island in 1976, there was a series of attacks and counter attacks, culminating in the Cambodian-Vietnamese War of 1979.
In 1982, the two governments signed an agreement to settle the dispute. In 1999 the Cambodian representative to the Vietnam-Cambodia Joint Border Commission affirmed the state’s acceptance of the Brevie Line and Vietnamese sovereignty over Phu Quoc, a position reported to and accepted by the National Assembly.
Under Vietnamese sovereignty, Phu Quoc Island is a special administrative zone since 2025.
The Wikipedia on Phu Quoc.
Phu Quoc, meaning “prosperous land” in Vietnamese, is an island that lies south of Cambodia and west of Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand. Known as the “Pearl Island,” this largest island of Vietnam is blessed with pristine waters and long stretches of beautiful white …