Away from the neon glow of the big cities, this was a chance to peer into real life for these hill dwellers that have survived for generations, barring the addition of a few Premier League shirts, almost unchanged.
Set in a valley of forest green hills, small businesses sit like punctuation marks along the road, dogs came sniffing inquisitively and then left us for the next...
Where most of Vietnam bares the scars of recent horrors, Phu Quoc, even after housing South Vietnam's largest prisoner camp during the war, is a literal and metaphorical breath of fresh air...
...the carvings here are sensational, almost two hundred giant faces towering out from its peaks, detailed bas reliefs depicting the mythology and history narrating the centuries that have passed here.
We bathed in the waters, watched ephemeral rainbows dance in the falls like quantum particles blinking in and out of existence, then wearing our most sincere smiles we walked back through streams and caves to our bikes.
Past midnight; the moon cut like a sickle, thousands of iridescent points of light overhead, the three of us waded into the lukewarm Cambodian sea...
$12 for a day spent wondering at some of mother natures greatest art, swimming in postcard oceans, kayaking what felt like uncharted earth and getting up close and personal with some of humankinds earliest ancestors.
The early start, the wittering of tour groups and the haranguing of the wannabe guides seemed like a distant memory as the four of us sat alone atop the world and gazed at one of South East Asia's most alluring natural wonders.
Disillusioned by societies languid, apathetic faces reflected in an iPhone screen these days? Then visit Yogyakarta.
