Where have you been this year?
The beginning of the new year always marks the start of something new and in many cultures, people want to start it off the right foot. This time is the first month of the Lunar calendar, and in Vietnamese culture, this is the time we celebrate Tet holiday. Since it’s a long holiday, many families, including us, decide to travel, especially when everyone is all together and we can have some quality time.
We didn’t really plan much for this one as it’s really close to my home, in fact, it’s the next town. It’s 300 km if you depart from Ho Chi Minh City and 90 km from Phan Thiet City.
My hometown is in the middle of Phan Thiet and this beach, so it only took us around 40 minutes to get there by car.
Points of interest.
Co Thach beach is a popular destination among the locals, though it’s not a perfect spot for swimming or sunbathing compared to many other good beaches and isles in the area, this beach has its own charm and I would show you in this post, so follow me.
Co Thach beach
We arrived at around 10 p.m, the beach was much quieter compared to a few days ago, the host told us. That’s for the best since we chose this time to avoid the jam-packed beach during the peak of the holiday.
This area is a fishing village, so we have a chance to see many salt fields along the road, this is also one of the traditional industries here. With the rise of renewable energy, this district has developed some areas with wind turbines as well. There are many routes to get here, but we took the scenic drive along the coast, needless to say, it was amazing.
I jumped right into the water, it’s been such a long time since the last time I took a dip in the sea after the longest social distancing.
The waves were larger than usual, so I drank a lot of seawater, still, it was a blast.
Seven-colored stone beach
Just over 1 km from Co Thach beach is the seven-colored stone beach, as the name suggests, what makes this beach special is an area of stones with many different colors along the beach. I have been here twice, but it never fails me, I’m always amazed by these stones.
You can easily take a walk from Co Thach beach to this one, that’s one more thing I love about this area, most of the attractions are so close to each other, it’s perfect to discover everything within a day.
Co Thach pagoda — Chua Hang
After a good rest, we headed to Co Thach pagoda, which is only about 500 meters from Co Thach beach.
“Co thach” means “ancient stone”, it also goes with the name “Cave pagoda” as the local people call it. I guess the name derived from the fact that it was built inside some caves.
This is a hundred-year-old pagoda and has been renovated and extended many times.
There are a lot of vendors selling souvenirs and the town’s specialties along the path leading to the pagoda.
There are many shrines that worship different Buddhas around the pagoda, some of them fall between the rocks that rest on each other.
A dragon statue is decorated with colorful ceramic pieces.
Next to the Bell tower, we could see the panoramic view of the pagoda, beach and surrounding areas.
Wandering around the pagoda, we could see a lot of huge stones and the whole area is shaded with many trees.
Moss beach
The best time to see this beach is from Mid February to March when the tide is lower than the rest of the year. We got up early to watch the sunrise and then check out these moss.
We waited and waited, but couldn’t see the sun, apparently, it was too cloudy and we could only see it when the clouds went away. Anyways, it is a beautiful moment that you don’t want to miss on a beach trip.
It was a bit tricky to see the moss though. Our host said this time was still a bit early in the season to expect more moss. It is usually a large area of rocks covered with moss creating magical scenery in the early morning.
It was already past 6 o’clock, but the tide was still quite high, we only got to see a small area of the moss. Even with just a little moss, the whole place was shining under the sunshine, imagine a large area of this, it must be breathtaking.
Specialties
Since it is a fishing village, seafood is a must, it’s fresher and quite reasonable. We tried crab, clam, mussel, they were all fresh and tasty.
“Mũ trôm” is a kind of gum taken from trom tree (Sterculia foetida). They are dried products, but when you soak them in the water, they grow much bigger. They are great for dessert and provide plenty of health benefits.
This time is springtime which is the perfect occasion to go to the beach. We had a wonderful time enjoying the beach, light sea breeze, and amazing landscape.
Let me know if you have visited or you plan to do it. I’d love to hear about it.