GOOD MORNING VIETNAM: PHUO QUOC

Photograph: Martin Perry

BY JUSTIN BERGMAN

After trekking around Vietnam with battered rucksacks in the 40-degree heat for two weeks, my partner Alex and I were beyond exhausted. My muscles ached and my arms were an angry red from mosquito bites—I blame the rickety wooden hut we slept in one night in the sweltering Mekong—and all of our shirts were dank with sweat. Backpacking just isn’t meant to be done anymore when you reach a certain age—and income bracket. Fortunately, however, we had planned on pampering ourselves at the end of our trip, spending a week on the beach at the boutique La Veranda resort on Phu Qoc island.

With visions of pina coladas and Thai massages dancing in our heads, we landed on the island and our hearts immediately sank. The dusty, unpaved road out of town was jammed with bleating motorcycles and trucks, and the faint sickening smell of fish oil hung in the air. (Aside from tourism, fish oil is Phu Quoc’s main industry.) Paradise this was not. When we turned down the rutted dirt road to the resort, I thought for sure we were destined for another sleepless night in an un-air-conditioned hellhole. “Can we get a flight out of here tomorrow?” Alex grumbled as we bounced violently in the van.

 
When we turned into La Veranda, however, I was astonished when I saw the beautifully manicured gardens and colonial-style pale yellow villas with wrap-around verandas, white balustrade railings, and red-tiled roofs. As if on cue, a receptionist emerged with cool towels and glasses of fruit juice and chilled green tea and showed us to our suite. We opened the door and were struck by an unusual scent—not fish oil, thank God, but a perfume of lemongrass, vanilla, apricot and pepper (all grown on the island). My shoulders began to lose their tension. I looked over to Alex and he was grinning madly.

 
Built two years ago by a French owner and decorated by a pair of French and Vietnamese designers, La Veranda is the only five-star resort on this desolate island, which is actually closer to the Cambodian mainland than Vietnam. But more are on the way—Vietnam has big plans to turn Phu Quoc into its own Koh Samui with a number of major international resorts already in the works, as well as new roads and an airport. For now, however, the white-sand beaches and turquoise waters remain blissfully uncrowded. In fact, on long walks or rides through the vanilla and pepper plantations on mopeds—they’re easy to rent just about anywhere—you have the feeling you have the entire island to yourself.

 
Alex and I aren’t really fans of massive resorts. But what makes La Veranda different is the small size—there are only 43 rooms, each with green- and purple-tiled floors and private balconies overlooking the beach or garden—and the distinct colonial-era touches. Each night, sitting on our veranda, we could hear piano music wafting across the grounds from the bar to compete with the rush of the surf and the chirping frogs. Small dessert plates magically appeared on the canopy bed in our room each evening—biscuits with glass jars of clotted cream and chocolate candies. And the staff looked like they could have been going on safari, decked out in khaki shirts and shorts and white pith helmets.

 
After a week of indulgence, it was difficult to strap the rucksack on and leave our little hideaway on the Gulf of Thailand. Part of me wanted to keep the resort—and the island itself—a secret so nothing would ever change. But development is coming to Phu Quoc whether I like it or not. Go now, as they say, before tour buses overtake all the scooters on the road and the chatter of tourists drowns out the nightly symphony of frogs.

JUSTIN BERGMAN is a freelance journalist currently based in Shanghai, China, where he writes for TIME, Monocle, The Associated Press, The China Economic Review, and various other publications. He also teaches Magazine Writing through Stanford University's Online Writer's Studio, a continuing education program.

Prior to moving to China, he worked as an Associate Editor in TIME's London bureau, editing news, arts and business features for Time.com and the European edition of the magazine, and was a Senior Editor at Budget Travel magazine in New York, overseeing the How to Travel Now and Road Trip sections and traveling to Estonia and Oregon for dream assignments.

He was also a reporter, editor and theater critic for The Associated Press for six years, covering everything from the state legislature and college basketball in Virginia to the U.N. Security Council and off-Broadway one-woman shows in New York.

justinbergman.com