PHU QUOC, Vietnam -- Before there were daily flights to the island of Phu Quoc, passenger Ly Nhu would arrive on a slow boat from mainland Vietnam seated beside vegetables and other cargo. But two decades of tourism and construction had transformed the past solitude of the island into a distant memory for Nhu.
After the pandemic closed Vietnam to vacationers, though, Phu Quoc began feeling a little more like its former self: a quiet outpost where Nhu could walk the beach for miles without meeting a soul.
