The Island Vietnam Forgot: My Five Days on Con Dao For caves instead of beaches, Phong Nha in central Vietnam has the world's largest underground passages.
The plane banked hard left over the South China Sea and suddenly there it was — a cluster of dark green islands in a navy ocean, no high-rises, no container ships, nothing but jungle and rock and white-sand crescents that looked untouched. The woman beside me, a Vietnamese journalist from Ho Chi Minh City, pressed her face to the window. "This is ," she said. "Most Vietnamese have never been."
She wasn't exaggerating. Con Dao is Vietnam's most remote inhabited island group — 16 islands 230km off the southern coast, accessible only by a 45-minute flight from Ho Chi Minh City or an unreliable ferry. There are 9,000 people on Con Son, the main island. One town. One proper road. No international chains, no party boats, no Instagram cafes.
What there is: the darkest chapter of Vietnamese colonial history, some of the country's healthiest coral reefs, and sea turtles nesting on beaches where you are likely the only human.
I came for five days. It wasn't enough.
Day 1 — The Prison
I couldn't look at the beach without looking at the prison first. It felt wrong to swim before understanding what happened here.
The Con Dao Prison complex was built by the French in 1862 and operated continuously for over a century — French colonials, then the Japanese, then the French again, then the South Vietnamese government (with American support). Over 20,000 Vietnamese political prisoners were held here. The conditions were horrific: the infamous "tiger cages" were cramped cells where prisoners were shackled in stress positions, exposed to the elements, doused in lime.
The museum and prison complex are open daily. Entry: VND 40,000 (~$1.60). I spent three hours walking through cell blocks, punishment chambers, and the tiger cages themselves — restored, with mannequins showing how prisoners were held. The audio guide is in Vietnamese and English.
It's not a comfortable experience. It shouldn't be. But it gives Con Dao a gravity that pure beach destinations lack. The people who visit this island tend to be different — more reflective, less interested in selfies. That shapes the whole atmosphere.
Day 2 — Dam Trau Beach and the Airport Runway
Dam Trau Beach is frequently listed as Vietnam's most beautiful beach. I'll add my vote: it's extraordinary. A crescent of golden sand backed by dense jungle, reached by a dirt road from the airport. And the airport runway literally ends at the beach — planes land directly overhead as you swim.
The beach is free, nearly empty (I counted seven people on a Tuesday), and the water is warm and clear. I floated for an hour. A plane flew over once, low enough that I could see the landing gear. It was surreal and somehow perfect.
Afternoon: rented a motorbike (VND 150,000/day, ~$6) and rode the island's single main road. Con Son is small — maybe 15km end to end — and the road follows the coast, climbing through jungle and dropping to small bays. I stopped at Bai Nhat (a tiny cove accessible by a steep trail), swam, and watched the sunset from a rock.
Dinner at Thu Ba Restaurant in Con Son town: grilled squid and morning glory with garlic. VND 180,000 (~$7.20) for two dishes and a beer. The restaurant is run by a woman whose family has fished these waters for three generations. The squid was caught that morning.
Day 3 — Diving the Marine Park
Con Dao National Park protects some of Vietnam's healthiest coral reefs. The diving here is genuinely world-class — not in a "world-class for Vietnam" way, in an actual "this rivals the Coral Triangle" way. The reef health here rivals what you'll find at Nusa Lembongan off Bali.
I booked a two-dive morning with Con Dao Dive Center — VND 2,000,000 (~$80) including equipment. The first dive was at Hon Tai, a rocky islet south of Con Son: hard and soft coral gardens, schools of fusiliers, a Napoleon wrasse the size of a golden retriever, and a sea turtle that swam directly past me at arm's length, utterly unbothered.
The second dive was deeper — 22 meters at a site called Cathedral Rock. Massive granite boulders covered in soft coral, with reef sharks patrolling the edges. Visibility was 15-20 meters. The dive master said it hits 30 meters in peak season (March-May).
I've dived in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Con Dao's reefs are healthier than most of them, partly because so few people dive here.
Day 4 — Sea Turtle Nesting at Bay Canh Island
This was the reason I came. Bay Canh Island, in the Con Dao National Park, is a protected nesting site for green and hawksbill sea turtles. From June to September, females haul themselves onto the beach at night to lay eggs.
The ranger-guided night tour runs VND 500,000-700,000 (~$20-28) per person. You take a boat to Bay Canh in the late afternoon, hike through the jungle to the nesting beach, and wait. In silence. No flashlights (except red-filtered ranger lights). No phones.
We waited about two hours. Then the ranger signaled. A green sea turtle — easily a meter long, maybe 150kg — was emerging from the surf. She moved slowly, deliberately, dragging herself up the sand with flippers designed for water, not land. She dug a pit with her rear flippers, spent about thirty minutes laying eggs (about 100 per clutch), covered the pit with sand, and returned to the sea.
I was ten meters away. I could hear her breathing — a heavy, labored exhale between flippers of sand. The ranger had tears in his eyes. He sees this dozens of times per season and it still gets him.
We returned by boat in the dark, the Milky Way impossibly bright above the unpolluted ocean. Nobody spoke.
Day 5 — Hang Duong Cemetery and Departure
Hang Duong Cemetery holds over 20,000 graves of political prisoners — most unmarked. The most visited is the grave of Vo Thi Sau, a teenage resistance fighter executed by the French in 1952 at age 19. She's become a national hero.
Vietnamese visitors leave incense, flowers, and fruit at her grave. Some pray. Some weep. It's a pilgrimage site, not a tourist attraction, and the emotion is palpable even if you don't share the cultural context.
I walked the cemetery for an hour. Many graves have no name — just a concrete marker in the red earth. The scale of what happened here takes a while to absorb.
Flight back to Ho Chi Minh City at 2 PM. Forty-five minutes and you're back in a city of ten million people, traffic and noise and screens. Con Dao already felt like a dream.
What I'd Do Differently
Bring more cash. Con Dao has a few ATMs but they're unreliable and sometimes empty. Several restaurants are cash-only. I nearly ran out on Day 4.
Stay a week. Five days was enough to see the main island but not enough to explore the outer islands (Hon Cau, Hon Tre Lon) or do multiple dive days. The diving alone warrants a week.
Visit during turtle season. I went in late May — just before the main nesting season — and saw one turtle. June-August visitors report seeing multiple turtles per night. Plan accordingly.
Don't expect Bali. Con Dao is remote, quiet, and deliberately undeveloped. The electricity is sometimes inconsistent. The WiFi is slow. The restaurant options are limited. That's the point. If you need nightlife, boutique cocktail bars, or reliable Instagram upload speeds, this is not your island.
If you want to feel something — genuinely, in a way that tourism rarely provides — Con Dao delivers. The beauty and the history exist in the same place, and that combination makes everything more intense. The beach is more beautiful because of what happened beside it. The turtles are more moving because the island spent a century as a place of suffering.
Con Dao doesn't sell itself. It doesn't need to.
Continue exploring Vietnam with the world-class caves of Phong Nha, or head to Hanoi and Hoi An for food and culture.
