I recently took a trip to Vũng Tàu after a long summer of cultural research, which had me traveling up and down Vietnam. It had been seven years since I’d been back to the homeland, and 19 since I’d last seen the beaches of Vũng Tàu, when I was only 16. It felt like returning to a high school crush, and it made me think of the words of Trần Thiện Thanh, who once wrote, “Nhớ lúc xa xưa mười sáu trăng tròn…” I won’t say I wasn’t looking for something familiar, poetic, and possibly even as sappy.
In some way, I was just looking to check in and take in as many of the sights as possible, but I also wanted to reconnect with a place from my teenage years.
The coastline in 1970. Photo by Barry Connors.
Going to Vũng Tàu felt like easing back into a friendship from youth, when sunburns and salted skin were prerequisites to self-discovery. I was chasing what so many seek when they make that two- or three-hour journey from Saigon: the gentle caress of the sea air, wading in warm waters, and grilled seafood among good company. It was a quick four-day escape. In the back of my mind lingered writing projects that needed attention, in what was an otherwise never-ending summer. There were a few things I craved: bánh khọt, ốc hấp sả, and a bánh bao by the beach. You can find them in Saigon, of course, but this wasn’t Saigon. This was Vũng Tàu, and here even cravings taste different, seasoned by a place seemingly unchanged.
From a tiny fishing village to an industrial hub
Vũng Tàu's history, like its flavors, lingers. Once a fishing ground for Chăm and later Kinh peoples, the coastline was notorious in the late 18th century for piracy, until Nguyễn forces expelled them. Once pacified, the court renamed the area Tam Thắng (“Three Victories”) and encouraged settlement. As elsewhere in the south, Chinese (người Hoa) migrants, particularly Cantonese and Hainanese, arrived as traders and artisans, weaving their livelihoods into the fabric of local commerce.
Bãi Trước in the early 20th century. Photo via Báo Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu.
For most of this early history, the town’s population lived off fishing and farming. But the outpost quickly turned into a French port and a place of immigration, with Vietnamese Christians arriving from the north. In 1929, the now-baptized Cap Saint Jacques, became a province; and, in 1934, a proper city.
After the Geneva Accords in 1954, waves of northern Vietnamese, many of whom were Catholic, resettled in southern provinces, including Vũng Tàu. At this point, the city also became a hub for the Republic of Vietnam Navy and oil-related industries, drawing internal migrants, and served as a crucial logistical and air base for allied western forces. It was also a quick getaway for Vietnamese and American GIs, as well as locals, seeking the ocean breeze.
After 1975, the city’s gaze shifted out to sea. Petrovietnam made its home here, and in 1981, the joint venture Vietsovpetro brought in thousands of Soviet engineers, Russian and Ukrainian families who built rigs and drilling platforms that glimmered on the horizon like floating cities. Their presence left its mark in apartment blocks, in vodka sold alongside local beer, and in what locals still call the “Russian village.” A Soviet past folded into a Vietnamese beach town, layered over centuries of arrivals and departures, entrances and escapes.
A busy market in Vũng Tàu, 1970. Photo by Barry Connor.
What beauty and wonder there is in being this paradox: a place that is both entrance and escape. Once a port of leisure and wartime retreat, and later a point of departure across the sea for those in search of another life, Vũng Tàu remains open-ended, its shoreline always facing elsewhere.
And yet, for all this history, the city still feels like a small beach town. The 32-meter-high Jesus statue on Núi Nhỏ, arms wide open, makes it Vietnam’s own Rio de Janeiro. But unlike more international hubs like Đà Nẵng, the fabric of Vũng Tàu has remained largely intact. Luxury hotels exist, yes, but the town’s rhythm, the slow, unhurried pulse of a seaside community, still holds its ground.
A city clinging to contradictions
Beginning in the late 1990s, Đà Nẵng, which at the time was still a sleepy beach city, pursued a grand project of reinvention and modernization, fueled in part by World Bank support. The city recast itself as a hub for tourism, trade, logistics, tech outsourcing, education, and manufacturing. Its ambitions to become another Miami or Barcelona are plain to anyone who visits: the deep-sea ports, the gleaming international airport, the wide boulevards all signal a city with its eyes fixed firmly on the future.
A fishery on the outskirts of Vũng Tàu, 1960s. Photo by Terry Maher.
Vũng Tàu, by contrast, seems uninterested in such reinvention. It clings to its contradictions — industrial yet intimate, layered with history yet resistant to an expected pageantry. And I admit, without shame, that I prefer it this way. Like a one-time lover unwilling to change for anyone, I envy its ability to stay firm in its vision.
Each year, Vũng Tàu receives upwards of 6 million visitors, but very few are international. Only around three million stay overnight. A handful are foreigners venturing out from Saigon, but the majority are domestic travelers from nearby provinces, especially the Mekong Delta.
A regional coach would be the most common way for residents of Saigon and the Mekong Delta to reach the city in the 1960s. Photo by Terry Maher.
This stands in stark contrast to Đà Nẵng, which attracted 10.9 million visitors in 2024, including 4.1 million international. Khánh Hòa Province, home to Nha Trang, welcomed 10.8 million, with 4.7 million international.
By these measures, Vũng Tàu, despite its crowds during high season, still feels like a vacation town for Vietnamese people. Its history plays into this. Though a naval hub and port, it was never developed into an international resort. Instead, it remained regional, tied to Saigonese and Delta memories of summer days by the sea.
A search for affection
I wasn’t sure what I expected from this return. Some 19 years had passed, and in a country so eager for its future, that span can feel like a lifetime. I wanted to understand what Vũng Tàu had become, the way one tries to meet an old friend, or a past crush, again, aware their life has carried on without you, but hoping to see them clearly in the present.
The older city center is on Bãi Trước (Front Beach), lying between Núi Lớn (Big Mountain) and Núi Nhỏ (Small Mountain). It was here the French built Villa Blanche (Bạch Dinh) between 1898 and 1902, as a retreat for colonial governors and Vietnamese royalty.
Bạch Dinh in the 1960s. Photo by Terry Maher.
But as much as I love history, that wasn’t where I stayed. I chose Bãi Sau (Back Beach), known for its leisure vibes, to find a little more isolation and focus on my writing. Though it was still calm, development was clearly underway, cranes and trucks reshaping the beachfront into another Instagrammable stretch. Even so, scattered across the map were heritage buildings, overgrown with vines and flowers, that felt as if time had stood still.
Only a week earlier I had gone to Hồ Tràm, and a few weeks before that to Mũi Né. While those towns are lovely and secluded, they feel more like exclusive resort enclaves. Vũng Tàu, by contrast, felt lived-in; its population denser, its economy more diverse.
By day, the harsh sun beams down, but shade is never hard to find. Phượng vĩ trees, or royal poincianas, line the streets alongside red powderpuff blossoms, striking against the washed-out pastels of schools and government buildings. One afternoon, I visited a book café to do some work. I sat near several locals, students (or so they seemed), hunched over homework while sipping matcha lattes. Outside, the sun poured over a plant-filled courtyard, leaves swaying gently back and forth. The day felt long, but I wasn’t complaining.
Vũng Tàu locals exercise in the morning in Bãi Sau. Photo by Khôi Phạm.
By evening, once the sun had softened to soft coral hues in the sky, and the fear of a laborer’s tan subsided, locals emerged to stroll along the beach. Children ran to and fro, drunk on their own laughter, carried by the miracle of these shores.
The following day I lounged at the northern end of Bãi Sau, journaling in the shade and listening to ‘Em hãy ngủ đi’ by Trịnh Công Sơn, the Khánh Ly version from the 1970s, of course. As I watched the light dance across the waves, I felt lulled by her voice. The song, about death, love, and fragility during wartime, uses sleep as a metaphor for escaping suffering.
The beach could be a place for meditation too. Photo by Khôi Phạm.
There was something calming in its gentle acceptance of impermanence. Khánh Ly’s tender voice, layered over simple guitar chords, stripped everything back to essentials. Here I was: warm breeze, Diet Coke, half-smoked Marlboro, contemplating my place in the world, and this place on the map. It can’t all stay the same, but by all things holy and beautiful, how I wish it could.
On that same beach, I met a local named Bình, who noticed me writing in my notebook. I must have looked odd, a Việt Kiều unmoved by the sun, scribbling trance-like in a leather-bound book, eyes cast toward the Pacific. I wasn’t a vagabond, but it was clear I wasn’t tethered to the town, either.
Reading by the beach. Photo by Khôi Phạm.
After some chatting, Bình offered to drive me around on his moped. He grew up in Vũng Tàu, then lived in Hanoi and Saigon, but returned here after his studies. This was his corner of Vietnam. That evening, he took me to his favorite spot for snails.
It wasn’t a flashy new restaurant with Wi-Fi and flat screens, just two tables on a quiet corner. What mattered were the snails, served by a gentle woman who had been there for years. Bình told me he preferred her because she sold so little she could afford to clean them carefully. He was right: they were plump, fatty, succulent, perfectly paired with spicy-sweet dipping sauce. Bliss.
Vũng Tàu residents gather at a street vendor, 1970. Photo by Barry Connor.
As cars and motorbikes passed, faint sounds of families at dinner mixed with karaoke drifted through the streets. The other locals, who were clearly regulars, sat casually, swapping stories with the vendor, teasing her that she’d lost her pizazz: “Her snails are so bad we had to order more, just to be sure!”
There was affection here, affection in knowing the person who cooked your food, and in the ease of returning again and again to share more laughter. It was what I’d been searching for: a familial warmth, a distraction, and the sense that maybe this is all that really matters, truly. Sharing a drink and some food under low light, with the ocean tide somewhere in the distance.
Vũng Tàu as it always will be
Another night, restless after hours typing in my hotel room, I walked southward along the under-construction beach promenade, stepping over stacked tiles and piles of sand. It was quiet, peaceful without trying.
Wandering in my own little world, the thoughts couldn't escape me: here it is, a getaway town, but one made by and for its own people. The next day, when a hotel staff member told me that Vietnamese guests preferred seafood for breakfast, it struck me as more than a quirky detail. It was a reminder that tourism here is not just about catering to foreign tastes, but about amplifying local rhythms. In these choices, whether grilled scallops at sunrise or crab porridge at the edge of the tide, you really get a glimpse how Vietnamese travelers themselves reshape the economy, remaking the structures of leisure in their own image.
Enjoying a drink on the beach. Photo by Khôi Phạm.
One evening, I stumbled upon a cocktail bar while looking for a quiet place to journal. From the outside, it was unassuming, just a few chairs, light music drifting inside, and two or three people at the bar. Lit well enough to write, but not so bright as to invite company. Perfect.
I ordered a Negroni. A classic, just to test the waters. By my second drink, and several cigarettes later, I trusted the bartender’s intuition. “What are you feeling?” he asked. “Something salty, spicy, sour, and a little bitter. Something pungent that clings to the tongue,” I replied.
He wrinkled his nose, winked, and set to work. After a few dashes, splashes, and an enthused shake, he placed before me a small red gin creation, topped with a trace of spiced oil. The humidity kept the frost on the rim, and I was eager. It was easy on the tongue, surprising in its balance, and lingered when I was done. He told me about his travels, his exciting life elsewhere, and how after all of it, like Bình, he too decided to “come home.” This bar was his home, literally — if you needed the bathroom, you passed through his living room.
Hours later, when I finally bid farewell, I left convinced I’d found one of the best bars in the entire country. Quiet, discreet, but full of surprises, much like Vũng Tàu itself.
The author (right) and his father in Vũng Tàu when he was a teen. Photo courtesy of Vinh Phu Pham.
On my way back to Saigon after my four-day stint, I felt both refreshed and nostalgic. How much do we lose to the march of progress? What will this place look like 19 years from now? About 19 years ago, when I was 16 and first on these beaches, skin peeling from careless sunburn, I didn’t yet know how to love a place, how to hold onto moments before they slipped away. Like any teenage crush, I thought summer would last forever, that the wave would always return no matter how far the ocean pulled back. I let it all drift past, certain there would always be another. At 16, I hated climbing up to the Christ statue, now in my 30s, I am happy I was able to do it then, and grateful I could still do it now.
Returning with different eyes, I see that time changes everything, cities, shorelines, and selves alike. And for all the things we want to change, maybe there are others we hope to keep, preserved for that younger self still alive within us.
For many Saigon children, Vũng Tàu would likely be their first-ever trip outside of the city. Photo by Khôi Phạm.
Now that Vũng Tàu has officially become part of the greater Hồ Chí Minh City metropolitan area, more change is inevitable. I don’t mourn change. Vietnam has always been in flux, and it would be foolish to think things could remain the same forever. But not every beach town needs to become a Đà Nẵng or a Nha Trang, and that’s okay. How many other little seaside towns are there in Vietnam, layered with history, rich in local life, beautiful without even trying?
For now, I am content to witness Vũng Tàu as it is: a timestamp of our mutual re-encounter. But like that old summer crush, it brought back something in me. It remains sweet in memory, tender in the present, and tragically bitter when we must inevitably part ways in the end.
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