Con Dao Islands (2)

On the first evening we ate at the Villa Maison , a restaurant with rooms in a beautiful old French Colonial house. They were fully booked but set up a table for us in the bar reception area. This was an early experience of how welcoming and accommodating the people are here. The following morning we located the Cafe Infinity, where again the staff were lovely, we had breakfast there three out of the four mornings and two evening  meals. They serve a mix of Vietnamese and Western food, so everyone was able to satisfy their palates (including Michael!).  On the first evening I blew the budget and had the seafood platter, huge prawns, a lot of squid and a large piece of fish with various salad items and potato wedges. The others helped me out a bit, as it was a very large portion for 1.

After enquiring about the organised tours which are available we decided to do our own thing for a fraction of the price. We were able to make our own picnics and hire the electric car taxis which easily accommodated the five of us. So, the next day, which was Sunday, we made our way to Dam Trau beach which turned out to be a large sandy bay. We walked to the furthest corner (of course!) and set up our 'camp'. Amanda, Orlo and I were soon snorkelling amongst the coral. Much of the coral appears to be dead but there were some golden honeycomb areas and we saw a few fish, small bright cobalt blue ones, larger striped ones and Orlo saw an orange flat fish in the coral. There were lots of flowers on the sea bed too. All of these sights were a new experience for me, fantastic! We swam and ate, and swam again, until the tide started coming up the beach, then we packed up and walked back to the beach cafe area for a drink and sat in their deck chairs while Orlo, Andrew and Amanda went to explore the other end of the each. All in all, a very relaxing day.

Of course there had to be some dam building too!

As we walked back along the beach there were hundreds of tiny crabs running to their burrows, they almost appeared to be flying.

This beach was at the end of the runway where the planes come in, three or four came into land while we were there, they are small planes and are fun to watch.

Later we made plans for the next day, which turned out to be quite an adventure......

To be continued!