Tết, off to a remote island — a trip to Dao Phu Qui ❺ (written by Ho)

Alright, on day two we set off at 8 in the morning. We joined a tour that departs from the harbor. There's an even smaller island to the south, where you can wander around exploring the island, go swimming in the sea, and apparently even do something like windsurfing. And it seems you can also dive down and gather salmon roe (ikura) too.

So with that, we put on our swimsuits and headed to the harbor. There, several motorboats that can carry around 20 people each had arrived. We climb aboard. But the young Vietnamese women were wearing stylish one-piece dresses and such. The way people enjoy the sea is quite different, and it's fascinating. Even as we boarded the boat, the sea was so clear and beautiful that I got excited. In other words, just by cruising about 10 minutes out toward the open sea...

The sea is unbelievably sparkling and glittering, a blend of blue and green, with the sun shining in brilliantly to create such a sense of transparency. It's so beautiful that you'd wonder, wait, is this Okinawa?

And when you arrive at the island (Hon Tranh), it feels like a bit of another world. It's not a sandy beach but a raised area made of shells and coral, so it is just strikingly white and beautiful. It's hard to walk on, but you can pick up as many shell fragments and coral pieces as you like. There, standing exposed to the sea breeze, is artificial heavy machinery — apparently from a development project that was attempted but seems to have fallen through — rusted through and through.

The excavator and the bulldozer sit there with a huge presence, like some kind of ruins, and behind them, in stark contrast, stretches a beautiful blue sky and an emerald sea. Well, that's bound to get you excited, isn't it? Everyone from Vietnam was taking selfies, selfies, selfies — commemorative photos, it's a festival! Just walking along the shallow, gently sloping shore is so much fun that I could go on strolling the beach forever and ever and everrrr.

In our family, even the senior team got really pumped up too. "This is a place overflowing with nothing but smiles and happiness," they said. We'd assumed it was basically an uninhabited island... but right in the middle of the island there's a spot thick with lush greenery, and a longboard marks the way.

Inside but there was a sign lol

Somehow it had become a rest area, and when I stepped inside... Whoa~~~~ there's a café here! I'll order a coffee, please! And there are hammocks too, look~~~ And now the Vietnamese women's makeup and outfit changes kick into high gear. Selfies, commemorative photos with friends, snap snap snap!

Bossing the men (boyfriends) around, ordering them nonstop to take pretty photos of us. Well, of course — it's a place you can hardly ever get to, and the weather on this day was absolutely perfect too!!

About two hours of free time until the meeting time. The Vietnamese families went swimming in the sea, the young women took commemorative photos, the active ones rode longboards and did stand-up paddling, and the Japanese men and women strolled along the beach. This was truly a wonderful time.

Watching everyone looking truly happy, ordering a coffee, and dozing off in a hammock — it doesn't get any better than this.

Is this heaven? — that's the feeling I got. Normally I think seashells are cute, but I always figured, even if I took them home I'd just end up throwing them away... So I never bothered. This time, though — well, I thought, maybe these are actually nice, and I picked out a few pieces of coral to use as chopstick rests, and even the spiral shells, worn smooth by the waves and weathered by the wind, looked so charming to me that I took a few home. I slipped them into my bag, thinking that if I still liked them by the time I headed back, I'd take them home with me. I felt like I could happily stay right here all the way until evening — but the tour wasn't just this. They said it was time to change spots and go diving. I thought this beach was more than enough (I mean, you can see the fish just by walking around), but apparently, out where you can't touch the bottom, if you peer down there's an even more beautiful ocean world... So we boarded a boat and headed to a spot sheltered from the wind. Oh my, this place is perfectly calm in its own way — could it be a lake, I wonder?

Everyone put on your life jackets, and let's dive into the sea one after another!

Both my husband and I love swimming, so we eagerly jumped in — splash! When you look into the sea through diving goggles like a female pearl diver, there are sea urchins, starfish, and fish swimming all over the place. I'd say it's about 5 or 6 meters deep. You could reach the bottom if you took off your life jacket, but that was a bit of a hassle. So we just floated around and had fun. My friend took on the challenge of free diving. She scraped herself on the rocks, though... If you can go this far and really get into it, I thought that next time I'd prepare all sorts of gear — an underwater suit, a snorkel, flippers, boots, and so on. Though splashing around with a float ring is fun too. But when my husband tried to catch one and was thrilled, saying "A sea urchin, there's a sea urchin!", it turned out to be a poisonous kind of sea urchin, so I also thought that amateurs who don't know the sea can be in danger. Splashing around in a life jacket, or at most snorkeling, is really the best. Everyone frolicked like children, and after diving for 30, or rather about 40 minutes, we returned to the boat and then back to the harbor. In other words, the activity ended just past noon. We'd used up a good deal of our energy, so now — time for lunch!!

After heading back to the villa, washing and hanging up our swimsuits, and getting changed, it's off to the next main event — a restaurant floating on the sea, a so-called sea-borne restaurant. I couldn't hold back on the drinks any longer and ended up having a beer... but this place, too, is just hilarious and jaw-dropping — it's a restaurant right on the sea, you know! Woo-hoo~~~ Relocated-life ranking