Joy

This is 'Joy' (not her Vietnamese name!), who with her family runs a small hospitality business from their home on stilts in a small bay on the northern end of Phu Quoc island. The whole family lives there – Joy is the host as she speaks good English, her mum is the main chef and dad runs fishing trips for tourists. They also offer boat trips to the nearby beach, where there's white sand, palm trees and huge starfish.

We had a beautiful mango salad and some crab rice before setting off to the starfish beach, where we managed to get a little burned in the space of about an hour! After returning to Joy's place (see extras) we chatted to her over iced tea and found out she'd also lived in Australia for a couple of years before deciding to return home. The we hopped back on our hire moped to get back to our hotel for a swim and dinner. 

One more day on the island before we fly back to Ho Chi Minh City, where we'll board a train for an overnight 17-hour journey to Da Nang, in the centre of the country.