Day Ten - 30/11/25
Tanks of live seafood. Some looked like aliens.
Day 10 began with a surprise we technically knew about… but still weren’t prepared for. A notice had been slipped under our door the day before, warning that the entire area would be without power from 6am until 6pm for “upgrades”. So, we woke up in a silent, powerless room and crossed our fingers that breakfast was still happening. Thankfully it was, and before heading to the dining area, we actually managed a family workout session. Skipping, push-ups, sit-ups, and somehow this resulted in everyone being in a great mood. A rare and wonderful alignment.
With a few hours left on our scooter rental, we rode back down to Ông Lang Beach. You can’t access the public section directly, you have to scramble across rocks around a headland, but the walk was much easier than expected. On the other side we found an incredible stretch of water, calm, completely clear, and sitting right in front of a resort going for around $15,000 AUD per week. The contrast between our rock-hop entry and the luxury jetty restaurant overlooking the bay made the whole scene even better. The kids swam and played for hours, and we promised we’d return.
We dropped the scooters back (late, again, but Anh didn’t mind), then coaxed the kids into a bike ride to a local restaurant. Maddie needed some convincing after not enjoying the previous ride, but after a few bike swaps she was happy enough. Lunch was a steaming bowl of pork noodle soup with these crispy, oversized spring rolls. The kids ate about two bites each, I hate wasting food, so I finished everything! With my belly bulging, ready to fall into a food coma we still had to ride the bikes home. Maddie had changed her mind on which bike she wanted to ride, so that left Emmett and I with a busted mountain bike. I went old school and balanced Emmett on the handlebars. We managed to make it home safe, but I’m not sure if Emmett will be too keen to do that again!
Back at the resort, the kids swam while the staff handed out complimentary drinks as an apology for the outage. Kia used the time to work on our YouTube video’s, which are coming along nicely. After cleaning up, we decided to head into Duong Dong for the night markets using the free local bus.
Just before arriving, the kids declared a sudden urgent need for Banh Mi. We passed one vendor and I said, “Not now, it’ll be too hard to walk and eat.” After a very long walk, we found another little stall just before the markets. The kids grabbed their Banh Mi, Kia picked up stronger insect repellent… and at that exact moment, the whole of Duong Dong lost power. It had apparently been on all day up to that minute.
What happened next was incredible: every vendor instantly sprang into action, hauling out generators, helping each other run power leads, sharing sockets, setting up lights. It was chaotic but strangely beautiful to watch. An entire community improvising together in seconds.
The markets themselves were alive despite the blackout.
There was:
live seafood everywhere
children making rolled ice cream using metal scrapers, drumming rhythms as they worked
and, sadly, a monkey tied to a chair as part of someone’s “display.” Confronting to see.
After a few failed attempts to find a working ATM, I finally got cash from a third machine, and by the time I made it back to the others, everyone was exhausted. Grab drivers were too far away, so we found a friendly guy who offered to drive us home for 100,000 VND and gave us his card for future rides.
On the way back he told us the truth about the outage, it wasn’t planned at all. A subsea cable connecting the island to the mainland had been damaged, and crews were scrambling to fix it. That explained the chaos and the generators.
We finally got back for late showers and an instant collapse into bed.
A long, hectic, fascinating, memorable Day 10.