The town of Duong Dong Phu Quoc

Duong Dong town

Duong Dong is the largest town on Phu Quoc Island with around 80.000 residents.

Phu Quoc Island Guide wrote an informative piece about this town. You can read it here.

No need for me to repeat all that in this post then, is there?

So I’ll stick to a photo-impression to give you an idea of the town of Duong Dong Phu Quoc.

Wandering through the town of Duong Dong Phu Quoc

There’s no lack of temples in Duong Dong.

If you stroll through town, you will come across several temples and pagodas automatically, like we did.

I’ll start my photo reportage with them. But don’t worry; there’s more to Duong Dong than sacred places.

After a number of temples and pagodas, I will cover:

• the port,
• day and night market, and
• cafes, bars and restaurants.

Dinh Cau

This small temple stands high on a rock, next to a blue-white lighthouse.

 

The temple itself is tiny, but the location gives it a special charm.

 

At the foot of the rock lies smallish Dinh Cau beach, which apparently is frequented by locals in the evenings.

Dinh Ba Temple

Also near Dinh Cau beach is Dinh Ba temple:

Cao Dai temple

A temple that I really would have loved to visit because of it’s vivid colors and all is the Cao Dai temple in Duong Dong town.

 

But when we were near there, we came across a funeral procession, making its way to that very temple.

 

So we were unable to enter the temple.

Watching the funeral (however sad for the family and friends of the deceased) made up for it, since it was an unusual and exotic happening.

 

We stumbled upon some more temples, but I don’t know all of their names:

Dinh Than temple

 

Before you start thinking that Duong Dong is one big temple, let me show you different things.

Duong Dong Port

The port is filled with blue-turquoise fishing boats, which look picturesque from afar.

I don’t particularly like the smell of fish and (probably) of the fish sauce industry, so that took away a bit of the romance for me. You’ll have to take my word for it, since I cannot pass on that smell to you. Lucky you. Hahaha….

As soon as you look closer, the amount of filth, garbage and waste lying and floating around is really gross.

That really takes all the charm out of Duong Dong port for me, actually. Too bad…

Markets

Duong Dong has a daily fresh market in the morning and it has a night market.

Cafes, bars and restaurants

Since Duong Dong town is the heart of the tourist industry on the island and since the town is located next to Long Beach, there is no shortage of cafes, bars and restaurants.

We only passed by this cafe, but it looked cool. Don’t know the name, sorry…

 

 

A few random street scenes

I’m ending this post with a few random street scenes.

No doubt that there are also possibilities to shop in Duong Dong town, by the way, but we did not look for that at all, so I cannot give you any info about that.

All in all I would say:

is Duong Dong town a must-visit? No, it’s not.

Is it very pretty? No, it is not.

But there is a lot of local life going on. A lot of couleur locale. So it’s good for a visit of a couple of hours at the least. And for visiting cafes, bars and restaurants. We really enjoyed our afternoon in town.

So what do you think? Does Duong Dong town appeal to you? Have you ever come across unusual burial rituals and funeral processions?