English Vietnamese French German Italian Portuguese Russian Spanish

Freedom of the Sea


Floating restaurants are popping up everywhere, what started in the far north a few years ago has continued all along the north east coast with a range of places offering that “off land” experience!

In some cases you would be picked up by small boat and whisked out a few hundred meters offshore to a wooden platform surrounded by pens of freshly caught fish and shellfish or you would simply walk a few hundred meters along a rickety wooden pier.

Both of these experiences not only offer stunning sea views but they also giving one that feeling of freedom, being all out at sea I say.

So we piled in the car and headed off to a tiny town in the north of the island called Rach Vem in search of our sea freedom, it took us about 40 minutes from Duong Dong town and we were there.
Rach Vem is as rural as a beach-side village could be, dusty paths with locals playing cards wherever they could find shade and chickens pecking away in search of something nourishing, not much going on really and we absolutely loved it.

We navigated our way along a narrow path, thru some sort of doorway with corrugated iron hanging down looked a bit dodgy and emerged in the warming sunlight on the other side to make our way along a rickety pier for about 100 or so meters.

It was here there was a bridge we nick named the “Golden Gate” due to its (albeit miniature) liking to the one in San Francisco, we clambered over her finally making it to our destination. Here we were, only a few hundred meters offshore yet somehow immediately switched off from the battles of the land and focused on that freedom of the sea!
Tranquility on water with amazingly fresh seafood that we could even see through the glass table down through to the sea below, a great selection of all sorts of live fish and shell fish cooked however you liked!

With cold drinks in hand we celebrated the feeling of being immersed in the nature of the sea yet somehow being in a restaurant!

How to get there

Rach Vem is situated on the northern coast of Phu Quoc, approximately 40km from Duong Dong Town and 10km from Ganh Dau.
On this particular day we went to Quoc Thai restaurant but most of the restaurants are very similar so take your pick!