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 made the trip to Phu Quoc.

The Tour

I think I visited three islands on this trip. I only remember that one of them is called Fingernail Island (Hon Mong Tay).  The highlights of the tour were the Sea Walk, lunch at another island, then Fingernail Island (free time to explore the rocky beach), snorkeling off of the Fingernail Island, then back to An Thoi pier.

The tour sends the coach over to your hotel and drops you off at the pier in An Thoi. All the boat rides amongst the islands are covered on the tour.

When the driver was more than an hour late in picking me up at the Khem Beach Resort, I did wonder if I would manage to enjoy all the activities the tour advertised. It promised a sea walk tour (out of pocket), swimming, snorkelling and a lunch in between. But at the end of the tour I was fully satisfied that all of the promised activities were done and the tour topped up with some surprising perks too (drone video- and picture-taking).

All in all, I say it exceeded expectations — especially considering the fact that the tour began in utter chaos and I was seriously worried at first.

I got off the coach at the An Thoi Pier and saw throngs of people, of the full color spectrum, that mostly didn’t speak Vietnamese. They were gathering at the pier. I was amazed, “you mean there are THAT many tourists in Phu Quoc in one time?” It was certainly chaotic. I lost sight of the group of people that were on the same coach as me. I spoke no Vietnamese, and nobody could tell me what to do next. I approached a guide that was seemingly taking roll call, “I am from the Skyline Hotel, one person today,” and of course he didn’t have my name on his ledger. I was very worried — I arranged the tour through the hotel and didn’t know which tour operator I joined. There were quite a number of guides there taking roll call. Some people already started leaving in boats.

When the guide indicated to me that he was writing down my name and taking my money, that was when I was assured that I would be on this tour. It turned out that only one operator was taking all of the tourists on the island-hopping tour. Therefore, they would make sure that all the people gathering at the pier were taken care of.

From my observation of how this tour was run, I figured that there is this thing called “Vietnamese efficiency.” Vietnam, which is a populous country, has a certain way of dealing with throngs of people. Vietnamese efficiency is that somehow, someone will have the brains to work through a big mess that involves impatient souls such as the Indians and the white people (OK, the Chinese people are pretty bad too, but they tend not to speak enough English to raise it with the operator).

In the midst of chaos there would be a lot of shouting in Vietnamese, loud mutterings in good and bad English, and everything in between. Perhaps in the spirit of modern-day pragmatic communism (business is business, and the Vietnamese fully understand that), everybody would be taken care of in the end.

Speed Away at the Gulf of Thailand

I made it to a speedboat and it roared away over the somewhat-stained waters at the pier. The ride was very exciting. The boat knocked off some super rocky waters out there. My mind opened up when the emerald waters of the Thailand Gulf came into sight. From afar we sped by the famous Sunset Town. I had no plan to visit (but in the end I did sit at a café there for an afternoon), because it’s so manmade, but it is indeed full of (manmade) character and very photogenic.

Sea Walking — A Close Up with Fishies

The first stop was Sea Walk and it is an out-of-pocket item. For seeing small fish and no photos, the vendor asks for 1,250,000₫. For photos with small fish, 1,550,000₫. For big fish, 1,995,000. The Vietnamese are good businessmen, and they offered the most expensive option for 1,550,000₫. I didn’t think it was a deal, but I did really want to see manta rays in closeup. I also thought that this would be the closest to “diving” that I would ever do in life. So, I paid heaps for that.

The Sea Walk took up just a very small area that they marked up, sort of like a walk-in fish tank in the sea. There were indeed quite a few large mantra rays, and that was amazing. The walk was just about 10, 15 minutes, but I was in the midst of all these fish (some are edible, as in, the kind that I would steam at home, but maybe three times larger as an ocean variety). I had a guide with me the whole time. A few minutes were spent at the photo taking spot (with decorative, but real, hard coral) and they made both underwater photos and videos for you. The breathing is done inside an oxygen-dispensing air helmet, so there was no need for anyone to have diving experience. In fact, even if you can’t swim, you can do this sea walk.

The few minutes before I ascended, the diver gave me a bottle of fish feed. As I squeezed the food, all these fish, large and small, came around me. And it was so amazing, as in, “am I in wonderland?” They hovered over me in circles, fighting over the food. I have never been in such a close encounter with fish, or any animals, for that matter.

The striped fish above is a distinctively tropical fish that I would see plenty again when I went snorkeling out in the islands.

It was quite a long wait at sea walk, and I started worrying again about the day’s activity. Would I miss some adventure because I was waiting so long to do this sea walk? When I was done, a tour guide approached me and took me to the next spot, which was lunch at an island. That was when we took some drone videos and photos.

A Real Encounter with Sea Fish at Snorkeling

Everybody lined up to take the drone photos and videos. And I commend the tour operator for this top-up feature, because the pictures and the drone video turn out very well.

For some time I sat alone in the beach chairs, just wondering about lunch. I was the only solo party in the whole tour, and everybody seemed to have been seated at the table already. Maybe I even expected to be left behind, but some food was a good idea at that point of the day.

Somehow, when everybody was gone, someone came around to call my name. They didn’t forget me. By then, I was convinced that there was a way that Vietnam gets things done, to the satisfaction of every breed of tourist on earth, and indeed no one would be left behind.

Fishies at the Ocean

After lunch, we came to the very last part of the tour, which was a visit at the Fingernail Island for snorkeling. The beach was very small at the island, but there was a cute area with elevated rock crop for instagrammable photos. I spent some time there taking pictures.

When I looked into the ocean there, I finally understood what people meant when they say “emerald water.” The water was so clear, and under the generous sunlight it scintillated a multifaceted iridescence like gems do. I don’t know what gave it the emerald color, but it was a shade between deep green and deep blue, a color that I love. The sand was so soft.

When I went snorkeling, I saw schools of fishies, but really only of two kinds. The striped Dori was a usual suspect in these waters. Then there is another kind of common-looking dark, smaller and longer fish. They are less distinctive as individuals, but when a whole school of them moved in the same direction, you would think it was a swamp of bees in the ocean. My heart leaped in joy when the whole school of fish moved in the same direction in unison, without any clear indication of leadership by any one member of the fishies.

Before I took the last speedboat ride back to the An Thoi Pier, I took a quick dip in Hon Mong Tay. Not to underestimate the sand, even though it is very soft — I no longer needed a pedicure (though I had planned on that) after walking just a few minutes at the beach.

A First Take on Grab Takeout (And Never Doing It Again)

My dinner that evening was the single most anticlimactic event of the day. I wanted to try GRAB takeout, but the food that arrived was the worst Vietnamese food I have ever had in my whole life (anywhere in the world). The only good thing of the meal was the mango drink. What a plunder. But I had in my mind the beautiful ocean that I experienced that day and I went to bed dreaming about my next beach escape.

That would be the Starfish Beach.

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 20^th century.  In the Coconut Tree Prison, this political division manifested itself in “innovative” tortures against the ideological enemies of the same blood.

Both sides of the ideological divide were guilty of crimes against humanity on a very significant scale during the Vietnam War. At the Coconut Tree Prison, the perpetrators were the Southern Vietnamese that sided with the Americans during the Vietnam War. North Vietnam eventually won, and to this day Vietnam remains the only and the last communist bastion in Southeast Asia.

The history of the Coconut Tree Prison is straightforward. The French kept a prison camp in Phu Quoc as a detention center of anti-colonialists, and the administrators of the prison have been the successive authorities that inherited that side of the conflict — first the French, then the South Vietnamese as they sided with the Americans.

The name “Coconut Tree” (Trai Cay Dua in Vietnamese) is more suitable for a small and cute inn. This prison is so named because it is what its name says — for this was where the prisoners had to grow coconut trees. In 1949, the French took over the facilities in Phu Quoc that the Chinese nationalists left behind (the Chinese nationalists eventually fled to Taiwan and settled there as the Republic of China permanently). The French set up camps here to detain the nationalist fighters of Vietnam (mostly communists) that were captured all over Vietnam’s mainland. At its peak, the number of prisoners kept here totaled 14,000. The camp took up an area of about 40 hectares and consisted of the four sections named A, B, C, and D.

Came the time of the war between the two Vietnams, the South Vietnamese government rebuilt and expanded the site during the 1960s. The camp then had 12 zones, each with 4 sections. Each section could host as many as 950 prisoners. By 1972, the number of prisoners held there reached 40,000 at one point. Both prisoners of war and political prisoners were held here. The site was heavily guarded by American battalions at one time. The estimate is that 4,000 died here during the 5 years between 1967 and 1973. Mass graves were found on site.

The Coconut Tree Prison is infamous in all of Vietnam. For a very long time, even after the Vietnam War ended, the prison was likely what Phu Quoc was best known for. The Communist Government of Vietnam closed the prison in 1975 when the Vietnam War ended.

From the Khem Beach Resort I walked about 40 minutes to arrive at the Coconut Tree Prison.

The Torture

The part of history that is in focus at the museum is the campaign to force prisoners to the New Activity Area, which took place between 1969 and 1972. The campaign began with mass arrests, and then the systematic torture of the prisoners at the camp.

The torture there was systematic, both in terms of the schedules and manners of the torture. There was a set time to beat prisoners at the camp. It is also said that 45 types of torture, consisting of both ancient and modern varieties (some are pretty “innovative,” see below) were raged against the prisoners. One purpose of the torture was to collect intelligence about the ongoing war, such as the organization, leadership, guidelines and the escapes of the revolutionaries. But I suspect that there were elements of hatred and spite as well.

The Coconut Tree Prison is an open-air museum now, but the spirits of those that were tortured to death here are felt. They plead their case through the apparent inhumanity of war, and it is amply shown. The structures are bare, consisting of shacks with ceilings and walls of corrugated iron. Some sections are separated by thickets of barbed wire.

The environment itself bears telltale signs — it is more than an eerie vibe. A mere look at the structures shows the conditions that the prisoners had to endure. The shacks had to be incredibly hot in Vietnam’s tropical summers and unbearably cold amidst the winter breezes of the sea.

Besides the harsh conditions of the environment, the inmates had very little food, and when they did eat, the food was terrible. They had stale rice and spoiled fish, and perhaps a pinch of salt for taste, if they were lucky.

As discussed below, the captions are written in line with classic communist propaganda, but one must also be serious about the claims made therein. It takes more brain work to sift the facts out of such representations, but a lot of those claims are factual and true.

The Tiger Cage

The first exhibition of torture are the tiger cages. The administrator of the museum placed life-sized mannequins in the cage to show how it was done.

The tiger cages were barbed wire cages that were just big enough for the number of people to be held inside. There were one-person cages and there were 3-5 people cages. Some prisoners were made to stand all day inside the cage. Some were made to lie down all day. The prisoners wore nothing but shorts inside the cage, and they did not have bathroom breaks.

It is not hard to imagine that prolonged captivity inside these cages would result in the prisoners being skinned. On hot and cold days they were similarly exposed to the forces of nature, including insects and mosquitoes. It is said that the prison administrators would flush them with cold water during the winter, and bittern during the heat of the summers.

The prisoners were kept in these cages for days on end, and some died from the combination of exposure and skin wounds. This part of the exhibition provokes quite a bit of a shock to visitors, as it is the first section that one comes across when you enter the museum.

Other Types of Torture

Besides the appalling tiger cages, there were also the Catso tiger cage, which is much like cargo containers but very small. The prisoners were also kept inside these cages for days without being let out for air. The air inside these cages was limited, and needless to say, part of the torture depended on the extremity of weather conditions in this part of Vietnam. It could be scorching hot during the daytime and frigid cold in nighttime. The Catso tiger cage was meant to be a disciplinary measure.

There were other “classic” types of torture at the prison, such as nail-driving, electric shock, tooth extraction, and submersion in boiling water.

Acts of Survival

The Tunnels

Those incarcerated at the Coconut Tree Prison survived in the typical way that the Vietnamese people survived wars. Having traveled to various different historical places in Vietnam, I have observed the somewhat odd, distinctively Vietnamese preoccupation with using tunnels as a primary means to survive and fight wars. There are the famous Tunnels of Cu Chi in Saigon, and there are the Vinh Moc Tunnels in Quang Tri. In the Coconut Tree Prison, the captives there also dug tunnels to flee.

The tunnel digging at the Coconut Tree Prison turned out to be the most effective means for prison breaks. The resistance inside the prison was systematic as well. It is said that the Communist Party assigned tunnel digging teams inside the prison. The prisoners made tools with their mess kit, spoons, barbed wire, iron stake and plastic crane.

They began with a spot under the wooden sitting floorboard, then made their way through the ground. The opening was carefully disguised. The most successful escape plan was a tunnel dug in subregion A4, with 113 meters in length, 1.5 meters into the ground, 0.65 in diameter. It enabled the escape of 41 prisoners. This was the most successful prison break that took place in 1971.

Photo: Room 13 in subregion B2 was where the first tunnel was dug. 21 prisoners escaped via this tunnel.

In the museum now, one original tunnel of escape was preserved and expanded for visitors to experience the prison break themselves. It was quite cool for me to walk through this tunnel because my phone battery died and the tunnel was pitch dark for the most of it. I had to feel my way through the tunnel.

Continue reading Prosperous Phu Quoc —The Horrors of the Coconut Tree Prison