[ad_1]
First printed June 2022 | Phrases and photographs by Patrick Scott
Patrick Scott is a contributing author for Vietnam Coracle. He’s a journey author & former New York Occasions editor. Earlier than venturing to Southeast Asia in 2018, he was primarily based for 2 years every in New York, London & Cairo. His journey tales have appeared in publications together with The New York Occasions, Monetary Occasions, Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, ESPN & Outside Swimmer. In addition to writing, he’s a trainer & a swimmer….learn extra about Patrick
Rimmed by forested hills and dramatic cliffs, Đầm Tre Bay is one among Vietnam’s most pristine, distant and completely magical swimming holes. The cerulean bay is a part of the nationwide park on the northeast nook of Côn Sơn Island, the centerpiece of the Côn Đảo Archipelago, about 100 miles off the southeast fringe of Vietnam. The island has no scarcity of improbable sandy and rocky coves for launching into the ocean for a swim, however Đầm Tre Bay is particular. It has an abundance and variety of coral that’s extraordinary for Vietnam, and swimming whereas the excessive and low tides are filling and draining the bay is like hopping on an amusement trip. The bay provides snorkeling and stand-up paddle boards, too. The journey to the bay – a hike over boulders skirting the shore and up a grassy cape with spectacular coastal views – is marvellous.
[Back Top]
Mountain climbing & Swimming on the Northeast Tip of Côn Sơn Island
The perfect time to go to is April to September, when the wet season brings robust winds and risky seas, however the colors are vivid and the sunshine sharp. Đầm Tre Bay is among the extra rugged and troublesome to entry components of Côn Sơn Island. However the rewards for making the trouble to get there are nicely value it. Click on from the contents beneath to learn extra about Đầm Tre Bay:
CONTENTS:
Map
The Bay
The Water
The Land
The Hike
Sleep & Eat
Associated Posts
Please Help this Website
Vietnam Coracle is 100% impartial & free to learn. There’s no sponsored content material in anyway. If you happen to like this information, please think about making a donation or turning into a patron.
Thanks, Tom
[Back to Contents]
Đầm Tre Bay: Côn Sơn Island | Côn Đảo Archipelago
View LARGER MAP
Patrick’s chosen charity | Click on for particulars
[Back to Contents]
The Bay:
On the distant, wind-swept and wave-lashed northern tip of Côn Sơn Island, a slab of rugged land arches east into the ocean, making a protected round lagoon of turquoise water the place coral and fish flourish and guests hardly ever enterprise. Đầm Tre Bay is maybe the Côn Đảo Archipelago’s best-kept secret. It has remained undeveloped and in its wonderful pure state exactly as a result of it’s arduous to get to. Travellers can get right here by boat, however essentially the most rewarding means is a 90-minute to 2-hour hike throughout the huge Bãi Biển Đông seaside to a trailhead that takes you on a winding climb by way of dense forest to a spartan ranger station and this aquatic wonderland (see The Hike for particulars).
Côn Đảo is one among my favourite locations in Vietnam, an exceptionally stunning and haunting island the place two of the most important points of interest are a cemetery and prisons. The French after which the Individuals ran the island as a penal colony, and now a number of of the prisons are museums, and Hàng Dương Cemetery is a nationwide monument to hundreds of martyred revolutionaries. Most guests come on pilgrimages to the gravesites and temples. However extra are arriving as holidaymakers, drawn to the aquamarine water, lush mountains, French colonial structure and rapidly-multiplying homestays, resorts and seafood eating places. Intensive tourism growth is underway, with giant tracts being carved out throughout this once-overlooked island. It’s solely a matter of time earlier than a resort looms over Đầm Tre Bay. All that’s there now, nonetheless, is a shabby ranger station and a pair bamboo shacks on a hillside. Make the most of the unspoiled panorama and seascape whilst you can, as a result of change is inevitable.
[Back to Contents]
The Water:
*Swimming Security: Though swimming in Đầm Tre Bay is fantastic, please watch out. The tide will be extraordinarily quick and the present robust. If you happen to select to swim, accomplish that with care, diligence and respect for the dangers concerned. Don’t swim right here except you’re a robust swimmer. There isn’t any lifeguard, so that you swim at your personal danger. I’d advise bringing water footwear and don’t attempt to swim throughout the bay when the tide is coming in.
My first go to to Đầm Tre Bay was in January, when it was sunny however nonetheless windy and the water was round 20°C. I arrived close to low tide at midday, which had allowed me to stroll for a few half hour alongside Bãi Biển Đông seaside to the trailhead to the bay, earlier than the incoming sea lined the sand. Throughout low tide on the bay, it’s difficult to get into the water. There isn’t any sandy seaside close to the ranger station; the shore round that facet of the bay is blanketed by rocks that vary in measurement from sea cows to watermelons to marbles. So I hiked a few half hour counterclockwise from the station to a spit of sand in slightly cove and stepped on gravelly sand into the clear shallow water. That part of the bay was only some toes deep, and the ocean was pouring again in quick. As I swam freestyle towards the center of the bay, I used to be barely skimming over fields of bleached department coral, and positively heading into a strong present. The power of the ocean was sweeping me towards the again of the bay. I needed to pull arduous to make it again to the place I put in, by which era I used to be already plotting a high-tide swim. Nonetheless, I needed to go away the bay lengthy earlier than excessive tide so as to have sufficient time to hustle by way of the forest and again to the seaside earlier than it was inundated.
I returned just a few days later to spend the night time on the ranger station and catch excessive tide within the morning. When the tide is in, you may enter the water by stepping fastidiously by way of a cropping of small boulders subsequent to the derelict, L-shaped concrete pier. Swim out about 70 meters to astonishing big scalloped clams, their lip-like folds pointing as much as the floor. Swimming towards the again of the bay and the mangrove timber on the water’s edge, you hit a discipline of unimaginable desk coral – beige and brown and overlapping like a strewn pile of poker chips. Then the seascape shifts to scattered, giant coral formed like cisterns and tractor tires. Rounding the northeast rim behind the bay are tracts of department coral within the shallows, then the underside of the reef vanishes and all you see is blue.
From the shore, the bay is a spectrum of turquoise and sapphire and cobalt. Probably the most sensible blues are the place the water is deepest. The deep channel on the again finally provides technique to a sandy backside. And as you make your means up the alternative facet of the bay, you come to a cropping of craggy rocks and boulders, after which to a sandy seaside with an Instagram-ready swing within the shallows. On the entrance of the bay, flanked by cliffs on either side, the reef is roofed with extra large desk coral and speckled with nodules that appear to be large brains and grapefruit, with flecks of pink and blue. Ending the swim from the mouth of the open sea again to the ranger station after excessive tide, because the water was being sucked again out of the mostly-filled bay, was like driving a rocking horse – repeatedly propelled ahead, then pulled again, till nearer to the pier. Swimming within the bay prices 120,000vnđ for admission to the park and 30,000vnđ for a bathe. It’s also possible to lease for a pittance snorkeling tools, lifejackets or SUPs (stand-up paddle boards).
[Back to Contents]
The Land:
One of many coolest on-foot experiences on the island is mountaineering over the rocks across the little coves to the left of the ranger station. On one among my visits, after a swim off the one sandy seaside on that part of the bay, the incoming tide had submerged the rocky, sandy shore, so I needed to climb up and thru a jagged forest of rock spires after which received to hop from boulder to boulder alongside broad stretches of the graceful spherical rocks. You get right into a groove, concentrating on the place within the zigzagging course the following footstep has to fall. For some perspective, stroll from the ranger station towards the open sea and take one of many dust footpaths snaking means up the bluff, lined in thick grass and streaked with serrated rows of rocks. The vistas of the bay and the expanse of the East Sea are astounding. With sufficient mild by moon or torch, you may negotiate the path at night time for some in-nature contemplation and sensational stargazing.
Different footpaths beneath lead down into the damaged cliffside, bamboo rails and strung ropes guiding you down treacherous pure pathways and uneven man-made steps. One results in the water, which is sort of a washer from September to February however will be flat as glass from March to August. One other takes you to 2 bamboo huts utilized by the rangers within the park’s chook nest enterprise. Swiftlets in a close-by cave construct wax-like nests from their saliva. The nests take 4 months to make and are harvested by the rangers in April and September and offered as delicacies with therapeutic properties and used for making soup and tea. The cave yields 40 to 50 nests a yr, and they’re offered on the Nationwide Park’s web site. The park additionally advertises ecotourism excursions and sea turtle watching, relying on availability, time of yr and variety of individuals.
[Back to Contents]
The Hike:
You may get to the Côn Đảo Islands by airplane year-round or by ferry when the ocean isn’t too tough. As soon as there, I’ve by no means seen it provided, however park rangers say you will get a speedboat to Đầm Tre Bay from the boat pier in Côn Sơn city. Nonetheless, the most effective journey is to journey to the bay independently by taking a bike after which mountaineering to Đầm Tre; however it’s slightly difficult. You’ll be able to lease a bike from most lodging on the town for about 150,000vnđ per day. Head east and north alongside the graceful and undulating coastal highway with breathtaking views of the rocky capes and glimmering sea round each bend. You’ll discover a minimize within the forest about 1km north of Poulo Condor Resort and a tough little highway that leads east into sandy flats dotted with bushes and timber. [View Map] It takes some effort to get throughout the sand on a motorcycle, however simply observe the tire tracks for about 10 minutes to a path by way of the comb that results in the seaside. The positioning of this huge bay with a seaside that stretches at the very least 100 meters to the water throughout low tide is marred by a mountain of detritus that has washed up onto the dunes. A few of it’s fishing trash, like a rope as thick as a fireplace hose and curving like a snake locked within the sand. After a couple of minutes, although, the trash dump is in your wake and also you’re strolling on an unlimited boulevard of sand. Poulo Condor is the one resort on this cove, with its non-public seaside on the south finish, so that you’ll doubtless have the stroll all to your self, save for some fishermen scraping strains within the sand with poles to fire up little crabs.
After about 20 minutes of brisk strolling, close to the northern finish of the bay on the left you’ll see a gap into the forest and a large stone path with an indication in regards to the park. [View Map] Stroll the winding path and climb the intermittent collection of steps by way of dense woods studded with large boulders. Twisting, curving branches like serpents intrude on the trail at factors in the course of the 3km hike to the ranger station. If you happen to arrived to the island by air, you’ll already know that planes virtually land on the seaside subsequent to the airport. The runway is bookended by Bãi Đầm Trầu, the place the flights are available for a touchdown, and Bãi Suối Ớt, the place they take off. The latter is on the finish of the seaside stroll to the trailhead for Đầm Tre Bay. Meaning there’s a good probability that the peaceable soundtrack of rolling surf towards the top of your half-hour stroll on the seaside will likely be punctured by the roar of jet engines or the thrill of props as an airplane shoots off the runway and climbs into the sky. Verify the flight schedules on Baolau.com – it’s doubtless the closest you’ll ever be to a hovering jet.
[Back to Contents]
Sleeping & Consuming:
If you happen to keep in a single day, you’ll be blissfully roughing it on the ranger station. It has just a few cement buildings, one with arduous wood beds for 200,000vnđ per particular person an evening. However if you happen to’re up for sleeping below the celebs, take your rattan mat onto the flat roof of the dorm and spend the night time, lulled to sleep by the waves and the wind. It’s also possible to lease a tent, however tenting is permitted solely behind the ranger station, for 150,000vnđ per particular person. A communal dinner of conventional Vietnamese sea fare – fried squid, bitter fish soup, fried fish with tomato sauce, fried greens, steamed rice and fruit – prices 300,000vnđ per particular person. All in all, this can be a memorable night time.
In any other case, you may keep a pair hours away on the town at a mess of homestays and resorts that vary from $15 to $125 an evening: browse and ebook any of them on this web page. I desire the ocean-front bungalows at Tan Son Nhat Con Dao Resort or Resort de Condor on the north finish of city. If you wish to splurge, on the seafront nearer to the bay, shell out at the very least $700 an evening at Six Senses Con Dao or round $200 and up at Poulo Condor Boutique Resort & Spa. Earlier than setting off on the trip and hike to Đầm Tre Bay, it’s a good suggestion to replenish on water and snacks from the outlets in Côn Sơn city, as a result of there’s not a lot in the way in which of meals when you begin the hike.
*Disclosure: All content material on Vietnam Coracle is free to learn and independently produced. Patrick has written this information as a result of he likes Đầm Tre Bay and needs readers to learn about it. For extra particulars, see the Disclosure & Disclaimer statements and About Web page
Questions, updates and journey stories are all welcome. Nonetheless, please maintain feedback well mannered and on-topic. See commenting etiquette for particulars.
[ad_2]
Source link