Con Dao Island - Breathtaking attraction

Published: 15:54 Tuesday - March 05, 2013

From Vung Tau city, there are two ways to go to Con Dao: going by plane or by ship. We chose the second. It took us a night to dock Ben Dam habour at the sunrise.

Con Dao appears in front of our eyes with immense green color, tops of coconut tree floating in the wind and the coastal line of casuarina. On the way from the habour to the center of Con Dao, you can see the stretch of white sands and the blue of seawater on your right. There are green stretches of forests and fresh meadows and the houses with red roofs hiding in the morning dew with Vietnam travel guide. The picture of nature with bright colors and fresh atmosphere in Con Dao help us to forget the tiredness of seasickness.

In the center of Con Dao, there are streets with the lines of ancient tropical almond trees. After it has used as a place of lords of island to live and work for 113 years, the ancient house built in the period of French domination has become the showroom of historical monuments of Con Dao from Vietnam travel agency.

The relic area of system of prison in Con Dao consists of 127 detention rooms, 42 cells, 504 tiger cages and many prisons. Therefore, visitors are often taken to 3 main prisons that are Phu Hai, Phu son and Phu Tuong. It is more than 30 years, but when we see the crimes of the enemy in the solitary confinement area, tiger cages and cow cages with our own eyes, we still shuddered and shivered.

Hang Duong cemetery is the resting-place of over 20 revolutionary soldiers with names or without names. Maybe this is the only cemetery where the tombs are designed simply: each tomb is a small rectangular rock pillar, above the tomb is a brown brick with a star.

The tomb of Vo Thi Sau martyr that is in the B area is always spiral up with incense smoke. Annually, when the anniversary of her death comes, people come here to worship her respectfully.

However, Con Dao has not only prisons but also stunning natural landscapes. With the total area is approximately 20,000 hectares, Con Dao national park is considered as one of the most various and abundant biological protection area in the world. Right here, there are animals and plants that only exist in Con Dao like Con Son oil tree, house lizard with wings…

Con Dao is also famous for the primitive and beautiful beach like Dam Trau, hang Duong, Phi yen… sand on the beach is very smooth and seawater is clean. The posture of Con Dao rocky mountain with the sea makes the attractive landscapes: Mui ca map, Thanh Gia moutain, Tinh yeu top of mountain…surrounding Con Son (the main island of Con Dao) is small islands: hon Cau, Hon Bay Canh, Hon Trung, Hon Tre… and blue bays: Ben Dam bay, Dam Trau Bay, Dam Tre bay…

Bai Nho is not far from charming Dam Trau bay. Right here, after swimming, we climbed the cliffs, visiting the primitive lake of fresh water behind the bay, and diving to see colorful coral reefs and flocks of fishes. Then, we wandered in the primeval forests, seeing rare animals that are only in Con Dao like Nicoba doves…

At the sunset, we went to the beach, seeing a fascinating phenomenon of nature: purple sunset. That was the strange and very beautiful sunset. It gave us a lot of different emotions.

The following day, we went to Bay Canh by the canoe of Con Dao national park. The landscape here was like a water-color painting of blue sea, white sand and green casuarina forests. In the midday, we sat around the hot pot, sipping delicious seafood, and being listened to stories about being midwifes for turtles and keeping watch for turtles mothers laying eggs by workers in the protection station of turtles.

Coming to Con Dao, do not forget spending time to visit the shrine of Phi Yen – Nguyen Phuc Anh lord’s wife.