Hon Chong

The beach at the end of the road from our hotel is OK, but not great. It gets quite deep quickly and it is pretty wavy, so it's not ideal for the kids. We saw there are a fair amount of nice beaches to the North, but they are all bout 40km out of town. In the end we decided to give Hon Chong promontory a go. It is a nice view only about 6km North and there is a local bus to take you. There are some beaches around so we thought we could try those.

This bus must be the first public transport we have taken in Southeast Asia since the river boats in Bangkok. It took us right next to Hon Chong. There we paid a little entrance money and scrambled round the rocks for a bit. It's quite a lovely area, and the sea was a brilliant turquoise colour. We were very lucky with the timing, as we were leaving 3 big tour buses pulled up.

The beach just after the promontory looked promising so we walked up it a bit to an area where there were some sunbeds. Not being jet-setters we plonked our towels on the sand next to them. Here the sea was much shallower, the beach much less crowded, and the waves of the ideal height for splashing around (if you were a brave boy or girl). Had a great time. Quite a few locals turned up later in the afternoon, after their work shifts I guess, and joined us bobbing amongst the waves.

Recently I have developed an acute need for meat - I haven't had a decent steak for 2 and a half months - so for dinner we went to a steak house. It was empty but TripAdvisor said it was all right. Meat from New Zealand apparently. It was delicious, I hope they have more there and don't export it all. Washed down with some nice red from Dalat (not great, but pretty drinkable) it will keep me going for another month.