THIS DIVE INSTRUCTOR was saying to me in a French
accent, scratching his head as he tried to disappoint me
nicely but definitively, “we are conservationists, so we
don’t believe in taking things from the sea floor to eat.”
My friend and I looked at each other mystified. We
were about to head off for a snorkel-and-sunset sail and
hadn’t eaten since breakfast and were just asking to stop
on the way from the hotel to the docks for some banh mi.
Then it dawned on me, the language barrier. “I didn’t
say, uni. I said, banh mi,” I said a tinge more slowly than
the first time. “Vietnamese sandwiches.”
Pause. Ah, sandwiches are okay. Laughter all round.
We were being scolded because I had indeed asked for
uni—earlier. A colleague who had visited this island two
years ago told me the highlight of her trip was an evening
on a local boat; she had chilled with real squid fishermen,
who cracked open fresh-plucked sea urchins for her to
slurp in all their briny goodness. That sounded pretty
great to me, and so I chatted with the general manager of
the JW Marriott Phu Quoc, Ty Collins, about it.
He demurred. Two years somewhere like Phu Quoc is
long enough for everything to change. Now, “squid
fishing” is big business, with boats taking visitors out
just for the Instagram of it. Collins overruled my request
and sent us out instead with a dive instructor and a
marine biologist from Flipper Diving Club, who pointed
out parrotfish, skinny needlefish and lemony rabbitfish
when we went snorkeling, told us about their conservation
ideas for the area, and explained they didn’t want us to eat
uni because they are grazers who keep reefs clean of algae.
We sailed southward under the world’s longest cable
car, lumpy emerald isles in every direction, the sea shades
of sapphire and cyan I never associated with Vietnam. In
the end, we got the best version of a
local experience I could have
imagined: a secluded beach at
sunset (okay, maybe that involved
drinking champagne toted from JW
Marriott), and eating fish and giant
clams with scallion-and-garlic
sauce at an empty, frond-roofed
restaurant on the same island, the
owners cajoling us with shots of
moonshine, our captain laughing as
we tottered back to the boat along
the sticks that passed for a pier.
“UM, WELL, YOU SEE,
THE THING IS,”
CLOCKWISE FROM
TOP LEFT: Go ask the
Alices in The Spa
Chanterelle at JW
Marriott; the
antechamber of the
spa's VIP suite; dive
instructor Xavier
Forain; Pink Pearl
restaurant at JW
Marriott; the world's
longest cable car; an
oceanfront villa at
Fusion Resort.