Day 7 - Phu Quoc Island and back to Saigon.
about 8 pm right now and we're all back in saigon sitting in long's brother's house. The skies have absolutely opened up and it is wonderful. never seen monsoon rain before. skies darken and temp drops 20-30 degrees and pouring rain and wind and COOL weather! really awesome. neighbor kids rush out the street to play soccer in the monsoon, and tho there are many fewer motorbikes, the ones you see now are simply wrapped in ponchos. crazy neat.
woke up early on phu quoc and had nice leisurely morning. Sue and I took a taxi to the famous Pepper Farms up in the mountains on this crazy very rough dirt road. Pepper farm was pretty neat! I have never seen live pepper before. They start out as little pea-pody things w tiny little nodules all over and the nodules slowly grow into indiv pepper balls. we pulled one off the tree and it was amazing - very spicy and so so fresh. The pepper grows on vines (i guess?) and they train it to grow straight up and around like trees. So crazy - sue and I take this taxi 1 hour out of town into the dense vn mountain jungles. they are building a new road but no road right now so big mess. the farm is pretty small and there is a little tiny "shop" (someone's home w cold drinks and pepper and little other stuff for sale. They probably havent seen any customers in days (weeks?). We buu a couple of sodas and there are some young boys working the farm and we buy them sodas also. very friendly all around.
back to hotel and I pass out from about 11-12. we get taxi to airport and fly 1 hour back to saigon arrive around 3 and back to long's brother's home. This is our 'home away from home' and it's nice to be back.
We have a great dinner of cabbage stuffed w pork, bbq roast duck, veggies of "morning glories" (tastes sort of like green beans - I think they were cooked w garlic) All very good. then a few drops of rain and then BOOM skies open up and it's still raining!
we will spend a couple of days chilling (when it's not 95 deg 100% humidity) here in saigon and then pick up sue's frieds terri and her husband who will do some travelling w us the rest of the trip.
back to the rain...
