An Thoi, the port, not the postcard
Every boat trip leaves from An Thoi and almost nobody looks at An Thoi. It is a working port town of about twenty thousand people with a real fish market, a shipyard and a fishing fleet, wedged against the largest building programme on the island.
At a glance
| Where | The southern tip of Phu Quoc, 30 km from Duong Dong |
| What it is | The island main fishing port and its ferry terminal |
| Population | Roughly 20,000, the second town of the island |
| Best hours | 05:00 - 08:00 at the harbour, 06:00 - 09:00 at the fish market |
| Getting there | 35 to 40 minutes from Duong Dong on the main road |
| Beach | Bai Sao and Bai Khem are nearby; the town itself has none |
| Stay | Sunset Town next door has hotels. The town has a few guesthouses |
| Caution | Large parts of the surrounding area are a construction site |
What this place actually is
An Thoi is where the island keeps its boats. Several hundred wooden hulls in blue and red, from six-metre inshore boats up to thirty-metre trawlers that work the Gulf for weeks, packed into a harbour with the ferry terminal at one end and a wooden shipyard at the other. It is loud, oily, busy from four in the morning, and completely indifferent to visitors.
The shipyard is the surprise. Wooden fishing boats are still built and rebuilt here by hand, on the hard, with adzes and steam-bent planking, by men who learned it from their fathers. There are perhaps a dozen yards along the shore south of the harbour. Nobody charges to look and nobody minds if you do, provided you stay out of the way.
The town itself is not attractive. It is concrete, it is being dug up, and the main road through it carries every truck on the island. What is worth your time is the water and the two hours around dawn - which is exactly the same rule as everywhere else on this coast.
The construction, and what it means for a visit
An Thoi and the corridor between it and the airport carry a large share of the twenty-one projects being delivered on Phu Quoc before the APEC leaders week in 2027: the airport expansion onto over a thousand hectares, a convention centre on twenty-eight hectares, new urban districts and thousands of resettlement plots, together worth about 137 trillion dong.
In practice that means road diversions with little notice, dust in the dry season, mud in the wet, heavy truck traffic on the main road, and whole blocks that were houses last year and are hoardings now. It also means the population is moving, and some of the families who fished from here have been resettled inland.
This is the honest reason we do not sell a scheduled An Thoi day. We can run a private harbour morning and it is genuinely good, but we cannot promise a route three weeks ahead, and a tour we cannot promise is not a product. If you want it, ask us and we will tell you what this week looks like.
What to see, and when
| Where | Best hours | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| The main harbour wall | 05:00 - 08:00 | Boats in, ice loaded, catch out |
| The fish market | 06:00 - 09:00 | Wholesale first, then retail. Loud |
| The wooden shipyards | 07:00 - 11:00 | Hulls being built and rebuilt by hand |
| The ferry terminal | 06:30 - 16:30 | Superdong and Phu Quoc Express to the mainland |
| Bai Sao | Early morning | Twenty minutes away. Fine sand and now crowded |
| Sunset Town | Evening | A new-build resort district. Not a town in any real sense |
The market is the one to prioritise. Everything the fleet lands passes through it between six and nine, and it is the best place on the island to understand what the water actually produces: mackerel, herring, squid, mantis shrimp, cuttlefish, and the anchovy that ends up in the fish sauce vats.
Getting there and what it costs
| How | Time from Duong Dong | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Scooter | 35 - 40 minutes | Fuel, about 50,000 dong return |
| Grab car | 35 minutes | 250,000 - 350,000 dong each way |
| Taxi | 35 minutes | 350,000 - 450,000 dong each way |
| Ferry from Ha Tien | 80 minutes at sea | About 230,000 dong, arriving Bai Vong |
| Ferry from Rach Gia | 140 minutes at sea | About 330,000 dong, arriving Bai Vong |
Both mainland ferries dock at Bai Vong on the east coast rather than at An Thoi, which catches people out. Bai Vong is 25 minutes from An Thoi and 40 from Duong Dong. Fuller detail is on getting to Phu Quoc.
Costs in the town are the lowest on the island. A bowl of noodles is 35,000 to 50,000 dong, coffee 15,000, and seafood at the market is roughly what a restaurant on Long Beach pays for it.
Gallery
When to skip An Thoi
- If you are only on the island for two or three days. Ham Ninh and Cua Can are better uses of the same hours.
- After nine in the morning. The harbour is quiet, the market is over and what is left is a hot concrete town with roadworks.
- If construction traffic and dust will bother you. Between the town and the airport there are stretches where it is genuinely unpleasant.
- If you are looking for Sunset Town. That is a separate, new-build district a couple of kilometres away and it has nothing to do with the working port.
- If you want to see the An Thoi islands. Those are boat trips from this harbour and they are a different thing entirely - and not something we run.
Tours that go here
None on our scheduled list, for the reason set out above. We run a private harbour and market morning on request, from 05:30, at a group price - it pairs well with an onward ferry or a late flight because you are already at the southern end of the island.
If you go alone, park near the ferry terminal, walk north along the harbour wall to the market, then south to the shipyards. Two and a half hours, no fees, and you will see more of how this island earns its money than on any boat trip.
Questions travellers ask most
Is An Thoi worth a special trip?
If you like ports, yes, very much - it is the best working harbour in this part of Vietnam and the wooden shipyards are unusual.
If you do not, no. It is a functional town with heavy traffic, and there is no second reason to be there.
Can we take the ferry from An Thoi to the mainland?
No. The passenger fast boats to Ha Tien and Rach Gia run from Bai Vong on the east coast, about 25 minutes away, and the An Thoi terminal serves the islands.
Check your ticket carefully; this is the most common mistake people make on departure day.
Is it safe to walk around the harbour?
Yes, with normal care. It is a working quay with mooring lines, ice chutes, forklifts and wet concrete, so watch your feet and stay clear of anything being loaded.
Nobody will stop you or ask for money. Ask before photographing individuals.
Where should we eat there?
The stalls behind the fish market, between six and nine, for noodles and porridge. That is what the crews eat and it is very good.
Avoid the seafood restaurants along the main road, which are priced for the ferry trade and cook accordingly.
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