We’ve been on the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc for about a week, and unfortunately it has not been as much fun as we wanted, but it is because of me: I’ve been sick. It started last weekend and my energy has been down, so we only explored a small part of the north for a few hours, and finally found “restaurant row,” where were able to find comfortable food that didn’t give us pause. The diet here is heavy in seafood, and that can include shellfish, octopus, clams, mollusks, and ventures into frogs, eels, and various squirmy fish that freak me out.

OK, I admit it: I am NOT an Adventuresome Foodie!

With that said, food prices are reasonable. Tonight Kat had a Red Snapper and an Avocado Coffee (really!), and I had a Pho chicken soup and egg rolls plus a mango smoothie. It was 400,000 dong, about $16 USD.

Our lodging is quite nice, but a little dark and close to the residential part of town, where English is less common. Fortunately, there is a great coffee shop down the street where Kat can get her cappuccino and work much of the day. We’re expanding our footprint day by day and tomorrow we will hit one of the beaches which are quite lovely. I’ll be doing a story on Phu Quoc for International Living magazine, and one of my spins is how contradictory the island is. On the south side of the island is the longest cable car in Asia, a non-stop sea-crossing 3-wire cable system, with a length of 7899 meters. That’s 25915 feet, so we’re talking almost 5 freakin’ miles in the air. About 30 minutes away is the largest Ferris wheel in Asia alongside the largest casino. I understand that gambling is illegal for the Vietnamese, so it is only for foreigners. A big part of the complex is designed to look like Sorrento, Italy, and thousands of units still sit empty.

I’m not sure.

Meanwhile, once you pass the Disneyland of pastel colored facades, it’s back to poverty-ville. Like I said, major inconsistencies