Vịnh Vũng Rô: the pirates bay

Another day in Tuy Hoa, we had a long morning eating breakfast and drinking coffee in a coffee shop which looks very awesome and is a place to see in Tuy Hoa city, I will talk about that coffee shop next time. Spending a lot of time eating a phở or bún breakfast and then walk slowly to a cafe for a slow coffee activity is very typical Vietnamese. When we decided to go to Vung Ro bay, it already passed midday.

The sun was up high, very nice weather of Southern Vietnam. It was very sunny and the bay is a 40km distance but to the other direction to Ghềnh Đá Đĩa. Not wanting to sit for an hour on the motorbike, or driving bike on the way back when it would be dark, we ordered a local taxi.

The taxi man arrived, he was a friendly local man with very fun local accent. I love all the accents of the South of Vietnam. I love the accents of the North of Vietnam too. But if a sales person calls me trying to sell me something, I will listen to them for the whole phone call if they speak Southern Vietnam accent.

It was actually a good idea to go with taxi because the way to Vũng Rô was through moutains and forests and not easy countryside ride like to Ghềnh Đá Đĩa. We saw the mountain that appears on the logo of the Phú Yên province, in which Tuy Hòa is the head city. The name is Núi Đá Bia, as there is a huge rock standing on the top of the mountain. We think Dragon Tooth is a good name for the rock.

Symbol of the Phu Yen province, Nui Da Bia, with the huge rock standing on top

It was not a tall mount but it is built up from many seperate big rocks. The big rocks lay on each other and the spaces between them are filled up with ivy, bushes and I guess, snakes.

Nui Da Bia from Vung Ro bay with the Dragon Tooth looking down to the whole bay

When we arrived at the Vung Ro bay, it opened out to us as a big round bay inhabitated quite densely with fish farm boat houses. People live on boat houses and farm ocean fish around their living space. The farm houses are restaurants too. Everyday tourists come to have a speed boat trip around the bay, snorkeling, visiting uninhabited islands, and come back to eat lunch at the fish farms. However, it was all packed in a half day tour in the morning.

Fishing boats

A fish farm. Some farms also raise dogs as pets.

When we arrived it was already 3 in the afternoon, all the tourists had gone and that meant we had no one to share a speed boat with. The option was to pay for the whole speed boat and that was 1 million VND. Quite expensive, but we were there anyway so we agreed to pay. Speed boat man came and it was such a blast, a happy man being so proud of his speed boat that he drifted it skillfully, and he was playing the loudest disco music from his gigantic stereo system. It felt like Danza Kuduro music video.

The captain speed boat was so excited he started Vung Ro drifting us through the fish farm village. From afar it looked exactly like a pirate village, very wild spirit. The bay looked like a perfectly closed bay, almost like a circle, surrounded by mountains. I would like to imagine it used to be the perfect place to hide treasures of the pirates. The bay looked wild, mysterious and fun, with the Dragon Tooth looking down all over the bay, like a big landmark for the pirates to go back and find their treasures.

The bay was big, it was a long trip around the bay by the speed boat.

The only open way to get out of the bay to the Pacific Ocean, with another moutain with half greenery and half bare rocks, looking like another monster guarding the pirate bay.

We landed on a small uninhabited island, in fact there was only one soldier man living there to guard a light house but I'm not sure if the soldier man was even there. The island looks so inviting and charming with rocks, I love rocks. So the speed boat captain dropped us there and wait for us to discover around.

We found a pond made by sea water trapped in the lower level of rocks, and life continued there under the pond. Sitting on a rock above the pond and looking into the majestic Pacific Ocean was a very Pacific feeling.

The sun went down, we had to head back to the fish farm village. We went back to the speed boat, and as we just ran a little bit away from the island, the boat was out of energy. No more music. The captain tried so hard to get the boat started again but in vain. We got stuck for an hour on the speed boat at the middle of the bay, I was thinking may be we could swim back to the island. We had to wait on the boat for the rescuers. It got dark very quickly, yes in tropical land close to the equator it gets dark quickly at 6 pm, it's already dark. The whole surrounding became a deep darkness, the sea became black and scary. And the little lights of the fishing boats started moving as they went to the ocean for their working ¨day¨. The black water tap in to the sides of the boat, I could imagine mermaids started singing and raising their arms up to pull us down into the deep eternal ocean. It was really scary, but at the same time exciting.

I thought the rescuer would have been a police boat with lights and sirens, looking like guardians of the pirate bay, but it was just a friend of the captain coming with his wooden boat and a young boy as his sailor. He arrived quietly out of the darkness and we moved to his boat, while he tightened the speed boat to his wooden boat. Then we headed back to the fish farm village in victory. Over the sky, so many stars it was crazy. And in front of us, the stars made by the lights of the village, with the temporary constructions of their simple houses, made it look more like a pirate bay than ever. Eventually, we arrived at the fish farm.

The fish farm owner was a young man, he introduced himself as original from Ghềnh Đá Đĩa. He let us choose a fish that he would later grill it right in front of our face and he gave us also some extra home made booze that he had with him all the time.

The fish we chose, which was the smallest of all

The home made booze

Again, Vietnamese, and East Asian food too, are based on a Yin - Yang or Hot - Cold relationships between the food. As sea food is Cold, we always eat sea food with Hot spices like ginger, chili, lemongrass, etc. and drinking booze from herbs which warms up. The restaurant man started out a very simple form of a charcoal grill, and started grilling the fish that he just chopped down to pieces right next to us, so that we could eat as soon as he finished grilling.

Grilled rice pancake, a snack you find everywhere in the south of Vietnam

Hungry as we were, it was a hard work to finish that fish. Half way through the meal, the taxi driver arrived and he said he was worried that we never called him, so he decided to just come back to see where we ended up. He then sat down on a chair and waited for us to finish the meal. We invited him over for the fish but he refused.

After the meal, we said goodbye to the restaurant man, and went back to the comfort of the taxi. It was absolutely dark on the way home, so lucky we didn't take the bike, and the forest and mountain looked totally black. When we was higher on the way back, we could see the pirate bay one more time from the above, looking exactly like a pirate bay should look like.