Phú Quốc is a dreamy holiday island; its primary pleasures are warm shallow waters, lavender and cantaloupe sunsets, and fresh shellfish. However, there are also several unique island exports I found interesting! In fact, there are enough to warrant more than one post, so today I’ll focus on the three most expensive specialties: pearls, dogs, and wine.

1. Pearls

Called “the pearl island,” pearl farming is big business here. Any of the really large pearl jewelry shops have an extensive educational tour about types of pearls, culturing pearls, and timelines to grow different pearls. Unfortunately, it’s all part of a medium/high pressure sales pitch for their incredibly overpriced merchandise! And I don’t say that thinking everything should be cheaper just because I’m in Vietnam. On the contrary, at home in New York City I can buy the same type, color and diameter pearls, of equal or better quality, with14k or 18k settings (as opposed to sterling silver), for one third to one half the price.

That’s right, on this little island in Vietnam they are charging double or triple what I would pay at an auction house, estate jeweler, or local jeweler at home in Manhattan. If you only know the latest retail prices at Cartier or Tiffany, local prices ~might~ seem fair, but the designs are generic and inferior enough to void any value comparison. Perhaps perceived value is different for tourists from other places; I have no idea what pearls go for in Japan or Russia, for example. Maybe there’s a cultural difference I’m unaware of . . . do they expect people to offer half the ticket price and bargain from there? For anyone from the Americas or Western Europe, buying here would just be silly, so window shopping is an interesting afternoon activity at the price of feeling guilty for not purchasing.

2. Dogs

Another Phú Quốc specialty that I just don’t comprehend is the breeding and sale of indigenous ridgeback dogs. There are only three ridgeback breeds (Rhodesian, Thai, and Phú Quốc) and Phú Quốc’s is the most recently appreciated and rarest. In Hanoi and Saigon, specialty breeders and trainers pay $5000- $15,000 for the finest specimens, so I expected the home of the breed to have some specialized facilities for them.

I was unfortunately terribly mistaken. The lead breeder of the dogs seems to make his money off of $2 entrance fees charged to tourists, and locals betting on weekly races around a sort of obstacle course. I don’t know if dogs are routinely purchased here or if it’s more of a rescue/adoption type facility, but there didn’t seem to be high conformation standards. Also, while the obstacle course isn’t a harsh racetrack (it’s more of an agility course) the dogs I saw were not maintained well. They were all living outdoors, flea ridden, and I saw two with serious untreated conditions that I didn’t photograph for fear of getting kicked out (one with very advanced mange covering its entire body; the other limping with what seemed to be a broken lower leg bone).

When I did a bit more research on the owner, I found that his first attempt at a kennel ended in literally all of his dogs dying, which he attributed to his ignorance of how to maintain their health in a forest facility. Needless to say, he isn’t well respected. The dogs seem well fed and genuinely loved, and I do appreciate that just a generation ago many of them might have been a birthday dinner, so they’re doing relatively well . . . but it was still tough to witness. They really need a vet.

3. Wine

The last luxury specialty I want to mention today is wine. At the Simson factory, you can visit the gardens and see how sim, noni, myrtle, and seahorse wines are made. Before visiting I didn’t even know what sim and noni fruits were, I had never seen either before. And of course I know what a seahorse is, but never dreamed people would make wine with them. It’s all impossibly exotic! Their “wine” is what we would consider liquor (with 30%+ alcohol content), but they also sell nonalcoholic syrups; you can also buy sim and noni slushies, ice cream, and candies.

As for taste, it’s all sort of a lark over ice cream or frozen yogurt or mixed with tonic water. They tasted fine but I wouldn’t seek them out for repurchase. Though I didn’t fall in love with anything, I can understand how a local would nostalgically relish them; they certainly taste as good as Campari or Pastis.