Hon Ong Island: Exploring rural nature on Van Phong bay

Hon Ong Island, in the archipelago of beautiful Van Phong Bay extending 5,000 hectares in Khanh Hoa Province Vietnam, there are many large and small islands, each is a private world that waits for travellers to explore. Among them is Hon Ong Island, which is 110 kilometers from Nha Trang City in the Van Thanh Commune, Van Ninh District.

Hon Ong is one of the popular stops on the Vietnam tours to Van Phong Island. However, tourists following this tour can only see Hon Ong from a faraway view with a gleam of blue-sky sea, white sands and sails. To explore this island, tourists can go there by boat from the port of border post No.358.

Having a total area of about ten hectares, Hon Ong remains a rural beauty of an island in the beautiful bay. On the island, there are wooden bungalows with a sea view belonging to the Whale Island Resort. Nestled under the shadows of coconut trees the rent for these bungalows is US$65 a night and includes meals. Travel to Hon Ong island travellers can choose to stay in these bungalows or spend a more exotic night camping outside.

Travellers to Hon Ong island can explore the nature of the island by following a track to the primeval forest to watch the flora and fauna of the tropical country. In the forest, travellers can find rare and precious kinds of birds such as the white bellied fishing eagle, the plover, the Indian lapwing, eudynamys, charadrius dubius, the pink necked parrot, and the big, ancient trees hundreds of years in age.

After spending time in the forest, travellers should also not miss the beautiful, blue-sky beach of Hon Ong with its clean, white sand. Sea bathing when the sun rises and watching schools of fish swimming around at this beach is an amazing experience.

There are sporting activities on the beach welcoming you to join in such as catamarans, dug-out canoes, wind surfing, and diving to explore the underwater landscape and the diversities of coral as well as other components of the submarine fauna, such as nudibranches, seahorses, sting rays, stone fish and Thor shrimp. The night in Hon Ong can be well spent diving in depths from three to five meters into the sea to discover the beauty of these creatures when they come out of their shelters in the rows of coral.

Tourists travel to Hon Ong from mid February to May, which is also the breeding season of shrimp and the jelly fish, can see the spectacular view of the sea changing with the presence of these creatures and the whales hunting them.

(Source: SGT)