Leaving Saigon was the first bus ride after a while and it really was a little bit sad to know to be dependent to schedules and timetables again after the total freedom of motorbiking where you just do up your own schedule and adjust it all the time to current events. But you can’t have everything. The bus was actually a very good one, it was very comfortable and the driver didn’t intend to be the king of the road. And even if it was an overnight drive through the Mekong Delta it was quite interesting with two ferry crossings. We arrived in Rach Gia in the middle of the night at maybe 3:30am and we’re very surprised that the most small cafes were still open. Usually Vietnam is one of this “early to bed – early up again” countries but 3:30 really was a little bit too early even for them. The miracles solution was very cool: The european Champions League was live on TV and they broadcasted the match Juventus Turin – Bayern München. We still had a lot of time until our ferry left the next morning so we did like the locals do and joined them with a few ice coffees. It was simply gorgeous. To watch a german team playing in the CL live in the middle of the night with pleasent 20°C in a small Vietnamese city with locals and ice coffee definitely has it’s own charme. After the match (Munich won 1:4!) we slowly walked to the ferry pier and waited for the sunrise and the departure of our boat. The ferry trip must 
have been very nice with some nice islands that passed by but we didn’t get a lot from the action and slept most of the time. When we finally arrived we maybe have been still a little bit too sleepy and forgot all kind of stuff on the boat, like my cool NorthFake sweater that I bought in Mongolia, self-made postcards from self made photos that we prepared the day (that’s the reason why you all got no christmas cards!), scissors and food. Well, doesn’t matter and we promise that we will send postcards to all of you in, let’s say, the near future 
. The arrival in Phu Quoc is a little bit annoying with a lot of touts, motorbike and taxi drivers and people who try to sell you souvenirs (of course I wanna buy souvenirs from an island that I just set my first steps onto two seconds ago!) but we just ignored them and some kind of hitchhiked into the main city, Duong Dong.
We checked in the first affordable hotel and cured our bus lag (a special kind of jet lag that occurs after overnight bus travels) with 
a few hours nap. After strolling through the very small city for some hours in the afternoon we already knew that we will like this island and this place and the first thoughts of maybe spending christmas here instead of Cambodia or Thailand came up. We just had to find a nice spot near the beach with nice people around, a great cosy athmosphere and great food that was not too expensive, quiet, relaxed and equipped with hammocks in the middle of the jungle and taaaataaaa…. after two days we found it: Freedomland!
We really were lucky that we found it and got the big deal with it. Open just since 4 or 5 weeks before our arrival it describes itself as a “Homestay Eco Resort” and simply is just one of the last small paradises on planet earth. It’s runned by Peter, a Vietnamese man and his portuguese wife Rita (but unfortunately we didn’t get to know her because she was in Portugal in the time we’ve been there) who put a lot of effort into this place. It’s a place you don’t want to leave again, it really feels more like a big housing community than a “Resort” (that’s really not the right way to call it) which is probably is mostly because of the great dinner that all guests have together in the evenings. It’s not like in a Restaurant where all order their own stuff and eat at separate tables, Peter 
prepares a big dinner itself and serves it on a long table. And no one will ever be unsatisfied: The food is awesome and could easily get through in a 5 star restaurant and additionally very vegan- and vegetarian friendly. If they serve any meat they just serve seafood but you always will get a great vegan or vegetarian alternative to that. The ritual of the common dinner makes it easy to get to know the other people who are around. That creates a special nice athmosphere that you can feel in the whole place: Nobody is alone, all people interact together, feel comfortable and good, there’s no anonymity and the fact that there are just 7 or 8 bungalows and therefor not so many people the areal still offers solitude to the people when it’s needed. To make it short: That’s the perfect place to chill out, to relax, to take a break from travelling or just to have a nice holiday.
Our activities during the two weeks we spent in Freedomland were actually pretty limited, but we chose it like that. For us it really was a great pleasure just to hang around, to do nothing and to be lazy. We didn’t even visit the nearby beach that, by the way, was totally abandoned, very often (maybe just every second day). I could even list all our activites until the 24th of December 
(you can read how our christmas looked like in the next article ): On the second day of our stay in Freedomland we went on a great snorkelling trip out to some remote islands near Phu Quoc with 8 other “Freedomlanders” (just 8$ each incl. lunch on the boat), then we went to the night market in Duong Dong ten kilometer away two times and once we walked along the sandy and rocky coast into town – that’s it, and it was great!
During this two weeks on Phu Quoc there was one annoying thing, too (except the flies at the breakfast table): When I wanted to get some money out of the local ATM the machine just swallowed my credit card. It was not my default and I still was totally in my credit limit for this month, the problem was a mistake of my bank. They changed all credit cards and deactivated all the old ones, so mine too, but I knew about that thing and called them before the deactivation and explained to them that I can’t pick up my new credit card and that I’d like to use my old one instead. They agreed and extended the validation of my credit card, at least they told me that. At the end they still deactivated my credit card and the ATM swallowed it. I was lucky that I was able to pick up the card again at the bank the next day and another call to my bank finally solved the whole problem, I am able to get some money again.