The Unscripted, Stumbled-Upon Genius of the Hòn Dấu Resort
Along the coast of northern Vietnam, about 130km east of Hà Nội, just south of Hải Phòng, sits the beach town of Đồ Sơn. Even those who live and travel extensively in Vietnam can be forgiven for having not visited (or even heard of it). For as long as I have been in Vietnam, Đồ Sơn has been synonymous with sleazy beach tourism. Locals sometimes use it as the archetype for bad tourism development.
It’s reputation is well-earned. The water is brown, the beaches muddy — each a product of nearby river deltas. As soon as you approach the beachfront area, touts step in front of your vehicle risking injury to get you to slow enough to notice their cluster of plastic tables and chairs on nearby pavement. Young men on motorbikes follow you down the road offering hotels and companionship. On a couple particular stretches of road, sex workers rise from garishly lit front rooms and step toward the street for approaching cars. The town has a pretty specific feel.
At least, it used to. Like a lot of places, times are changing. An expressway connecting Hà Nội to Hải Phòng has launched a period of family-friendly gentrification. A trip from Hà Nội that was once close to three hours of traffic mayhem is now just over an hour of unobstructed expressway. Streets that used to be lined overwhelmingly with blue-plated government cars and chartered buses for state-owned companies are now busy with family cars and young people on bicycles-built-for-two moving up and down waterfront. The red light districts are still around, but are increasingly out of sight from the main streets.
Seeming to anticipate this era, the Hòn Dấu Resort began construction well before the expressway. It is big, ambitious, and utterly resistant to easy explanation. Everywhere you turn, it feels like a completely different premise at work. Rather than a singular resort, it is more like a loosely connected archipelago of Vietnamese recreational interests. In between these vastly differing islands, there is a pleasant lack of direction or oversight. You’re just sort of expected to wander about.
Location
The resort is largely built on reclaimed land looping around of the southern tip of the peninsula that makes up the Đồ Sơn tourism area. It is a lot of land: nearly sixty hectares.
The approach to the grounds is promising. It is located in Area 3 (Khu 3) which is only home to a couple resorts, a defunct Casino, and some old villas that have been converted into small hotels. A stone and mortar retaining wall fronts a small mountain of greenery. Assorted structures can be seen peeking through the foliage.
In contrast to the big crowds on the beaches in Khu 1 & Khu 2, this absolutely feels like the right area to be in. There is little to no steetfront solicitation to deal with and the space between structures allows for a certain lushness.
If arriving on foot or via one of the many electric cars that now taxi people around the Đồ Sơn area, you can simply walk right in (those on motorbikes or in cars will need to pay for parking). There is no entrance fee. Nobody is vying for your attention. In fact, there is virtually no expectation for your visit at all. You are just sort of there.
Grand Antiquity
The first impression upon entering is not an unfamiliar one for Vietnam. Like the grand facades of many real estate developments around the country (looking at you and your hollow columns, VinGroup), you are immediately faced with buildings using classical Euro imagery to project something about international class.
To the left and right after the entrance are structures that resemble hotels in various stages of construction. On my last trip, it appeared that the structure on the left (the Louis Hotel) was finally completed and open for business…though nobody was actual present in the lobby when I went in to have a look around. The building on the right seems mostly used for offices and event space, as well as having an elevator to access the nearby hilltop facilities. As far as I can tell, the elevator being on that side is the only thing giving the bridge spanning the entrance any functionality.
It is unclear whether they are operated by the same people, though they do share an appreciation of homoerotic Greco-Roman statuary.
A bit farther in, another construction site brings more classical flair. I’d seen this site under construction for years, maybe as many as five, but a recent visit left me stopped cold (and Tweeting about it). It will be a theatre, and somebody apparently told them they can’t have too many nightmare inducing figures on the grounds.
So maybe they’re going for a mishmash of over-the-top classicism? Grand buildings! Ornate symbolism! Not so much. It’s pretty much limited to these three buildings by the entrance. Directly across from the soon-to-be theatre? Santa Claus. Two of them, actually.
The Beach
Continuing forward from the entrance past Santa, we come to the swimming beach. Vietnamese friends familiar with the area tell of the days when they used to come out here to what was then a boulder and stone beach where nude swimming was common. The beach now present was wholly constructed for the purpose of this resort, and you can see what they were going for. It is a long crescent shape with a very gradual slope. Huge amounts of sand were trucked in, and a breakwater nearly encloses the entire thing. It looks the part.
Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do about the water itself. As I noted before, it is muddy. Very, very muddy.
This leads to scenes of very mixed emotions. On the one hand, “Yay! Beach!” Then, steps slow as they get closer and closer to the water. What started out as sand up near the sidewalk clearly no longer is. Kids dive right into it leaving parents ready to pull them out and simultaneously thinking, “But it IS what we came here for.” People wade out, over, around, but it is all the same muck.
This leads to a pretty large portion of the visitors just wandering around the beach more than getting in the water. There are vendors serving the beach area and plenty of spots for photo ops. One of the most popular spots for selfies and group shots is up on the approaches for what was clearly once intended to be a bridge encircling the swimming area.
The supports for the bridge have been there longer than most of the structures on the grounds, but I’ve seen little indication of any work being done to finish the bridge itself. That lends it an odd, ruin-like quality.
The Pool
If you came to swim and the muddy beach isn’t doing it for you, then there is another option. Turning left from the beach and following the shoreline road toward the north end of the resort, you’ll find a swimming pool. A huge one.
The main pool is about two hectares in size and it is flanked by a pair of smaller kids pools. The large pool has several (concrete) islands that one can sit on or jump off of, though nowhere is the pool deep enough for diving. It never gets more than about a meter and a half deep.
It is clearly set up as a wave pool, and the structure to house the wave machine is present, but there are no waves (or wave machine for that matter). There is, however, a large slide that is regularly in use. They’ll turn it on for you even if there are only a handful of people there.
In the evening and on weekends, things can get busy. Holiday evenings are chaos. However, if you are fine going mid-day — just about any day of the week — then you can virtually have the place all to yourself. The water is not especially clean. A lot of the equipment is poorly maintained and probably more dangerous than it should be. But still, there’s something to be said for having a two hectare swimming pool all to yourself on a blazing hot day in summer.
The Buddha and the Buffalo
Directly above the swimming pool (either carved into the very stone of the adjacent hill or more likely placed in a spot carved from it), are tranquil images of religious devotion and the skull of what appears to be a raging buffalo. I’d tell you more about them if I had absolutely any idea what was intended when they were built.
The Alpen Express
Looping around behind the pool back toward the entrance, you will encounter a (mostly unused) roller coaster. It has an overtly Germanic theme, because…of course it does.
I’ve never seen it run. The fact is, there’s very little separating it from any would-be crowds standing around. In places you can virtually reach out into the guts of the machinery.
I don’t know if or when the Alpen Express is scheduled to make its next run.
Little Đà Lạt
Having made your way back to the entrance of the grounds itself, you may now notice a second entrance — one to the resort’s most well-known attraction: Little Đà Lạt. This hilltop entertainment complex within the Hòn Dấu Resort rose to prominence early last year when controversy over its statues of nude, anthropomorphic zodiac animals made the rounds.
In many ways, Little Đà Lạt is a microcosm of the entire resort. Crammed into its five or six hectares are enough different amusement concepts to ensure you never really feel like you know what is going on. In addition to the aforementioned zodiac statues, you’ll also find an entire range of Disney-esque figures scattered throughout that feel as much like psychedelia-inspired satire as the trademark infringement they almost certainly are. If you did not know that cartoon characters are capable of the same levels of uncanny valley creepiness as human figures, then here you go.
When you aren’t battling childhood demons, there is some legitimately nice landscaping and nature to take in. Trees, temples, waterfalls, and flowers surprise you with truly lovely moments.
Just as you are ready to conclude that the space has a real charm to it, you will encounter the zoo. There’s no getting around it: it’s awful. Everything would be better without it, and with any luck the owners will come to the same conclusion in the near future. The enclosures could not be much more bleak and feel all but unattended. It’s at the far northern end of the Little Đà Lạt area, and you might just want to skip it altogether.
The zoo is always a disappointment, but the way out is nothing but the best sort of distractions. More cartoon figures are around every turn. There are waterfalls and a suspension bridge. A “hell cave” beckons. A second, less-celebrated set of anthropomorphic zodiac animals is set up as a football team photo. Turn another corner, and suddenly the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore are flanking a mural of the Great Wall of China.
If you show up on a weekday, ideally an autumnal “off season” weekday, you might not see another living soul present on the hilltop outside of very inattentive waitstaff at the various cafe and restaurant spaces. It’ll be all yours.
My Favorite (kind of) Resort
If you’ve gotten the impression that I’m down on the Hòn Dấu Resort, then I’ve done the experience a disservice. Calling it my favorite resort seems strange; there are so many things that they could (and need to) be doing better, more safely, and more responsibly. That said, its haphazardness makes clear both what I revel in and find disappointing about the wide range of Vietnamese recreational experiences.
The appeal of most resorts is, for me, brief. They often make a great first impression. The architecture, the facilities, the landscaping — it can all be quite nice, but that sense of potential tends to quickly give way to a realization that actual experiences are rather contained. Everyone is doing the same basic things with few surprises. I understand that many people seek out the resort experience as an escape from workaday uncertainties, but something in me is always unnerved by the thought of spending so much to “get away from it all” with dozens or hundreds of others in such intimate yet anti-social confines.
On the flip side, there is no hell I’ll go out of my way to avoid more fully than a resort space that is actively organizing “social” events. It turns out that I don’t like most people that frequent high-end resorts, and the last thing I want is to be asked is to pretend otherwise. I want to be left alone unless the moment I’m about to share with someone has a level of sincerity and spontaneity that is typically too much to ask of a space dedicated to providing consistent, monetizable experiences. It just doesn’t work that way.
Except, I keep having these exact experiences in the most absurd space in Vietnam’s worst beach town. There’s just enough of a contained premise at the Hòn Dấu Resort to draw various sized crowds to its enclosed space, and a wide enough variety of affordable activities to ensure that a broad mix of people make up that crowd. The lack of front-to-back, top-to-bottom integration means you can drift in and out of any particular recreational focus. Liminal spaces abound.
I once rode up with three carloads of friends, our own sound system, BBQ grills, and lawn chairs and set up our own space on the seawall just a few hundred meters from the formal beach area. Nobody batted an eye. Groups of other resort-goers dropped in and out of our gathering as they wandered the grounds. Half of our group ended up at the pool at some point. It was a beautiful day.
Other times, my partner and I have floated around in the pool, all two hectares, all by ourselves for hours. I’ve headed into Little Đà Lạt alone with a book, bottles of wine, and a couple extra cups for the people who wandered by my bench to say hello. I once crossed paths with a group of guys who just finished up fishing off the seawall and helped them eat the day’s catch around a bonfire in the shell of a half built hotel. And if I’m not in the mood for any of this, it feels like there’s no end to the number of spots I can spend a quiet moment alone.
While You Can
Do I recommend you visit the Hòn Dấu Resort? Not if you’re someone who is looking for a conventional resort experience. I suspect the majority of holiday goers would judge the place to be something of a trainwreck. It is a mess, after all — the best kind of mess.
The friends and acquaintances who have most enjoyed my introducing them to the space are those who would feel no consternation at being dropped into the middle of a new city without direction or purpose. They are self-contained enough to set their own course, but open enough to revel in come-what-may. They appreciate something that can be weird without affectation. And the Hòn Dấu Resort? It’s that kind of weird.
I can’t imagine it will stay like this for long. Few things in Vietnam do, and most signs point to this being a hit upon moment more than an explicit strategy. Only about a third of the grounds have currently been built on. Who knows what mammoth projects are lined up to alter the feel of the place? This being Vietnam tourism and all, I’ve heard talk of a cable car being built to the nearby island from which the resort takes its name (currently a short boat ride from a jetty on the resort grounds).
Then again, maybe they have hit upon something more lasting. You get the impression that one company is in charge of the process of making and managing the actual land and beach, while each of the other individual facilities were either leased out or sold to different parties. There are individual entrance fees required for things like the pool or Little Đà Lạt, but there is no evidence that some central company oversees them. Even within Little Đà Lạt there are cabins for rent and restaurants that bear no resemblance to one another. Private companies also run the two hotels currently in operation within the resort.
This somewhat organic development of the grounds mirrors what we often experience in urban spaces where planned neighborhoods are almost never as interesting or lively as those that grow from numerous independent actors reacting and adapting to one another’s efforts. It is one of the most persistent lessons in unintended consequences that projects explicitly built for the purpose of space, both personal and private, often feel suffocating while the unplanned, epiphenomenal mess of a city is full of enough ambiguities and overlapping uncertainties to offer just about anyone a place to be themselves.
Every time I return to the Hòn Dấu Resort, things are a bit different than before. I like that about it. I dread rolling up to it one day and finding out it is “Under New Management” and that someone has decided to whip it into shape. Their vision for it will almost certainly fall well short of the accidents and encounters that have made up my best times there.
