If Vung Tau had been the Gold Coast in Australia that day, the beach would have had hundreds of surfers spread along its entire length with a body surf so I swam out and rode some waves.

A half meter swell was coming through, the conditions were clean, and nicely formed waves broke on the sandbanks all along the long sandy beach.
 
More than just ridable, the surf looked like heaps of fun and there wasn’t a single soul out there.
 
I could just imagine getting some nice long rides on my eight-foot long board, which unfortunately was back in Australia.
 
It was the weekend after Tet and I wanted to get away somewhere without traveling too far from Ho Chi Minh City.
 
I had been to Vung Tau before, on a day trip last year.
 
That day was bright and sunny, the water was the color of the silty grey sand and the waves were about three inches high, with six inch sets.
 
I wasn’t surprised; I hadn’t expected surf, so I just kicked back with my friends and ate plenty of seafood.
 
So when I arrived after Tet and saw waves I was flabbergasted.
 
The ferry had dropped me off mid-afternoon and I jumped on a xe om.
 
As we drove along the rocky coastline I eyed the waves smashing against the rocks with interest.
 
Immediately I started to gauge in my mind if I could surf among those rocks.
 
Then as the motorbike rounded the headland and the long beach came into sight, I took a deep breath – there were waves as far as the eye could see.
 
If Vung Tau had been the Gold Coast in Australia, that beach would have had hundreds of surfers spread along its entire length.
 
People surf in Australia like they have nothing else to do, so anything over two feet and dean will bring a crowd.
 
I got a room in a hotel, put on my boardshorts and went straight down to the beach with plastic dong bills in my pocket to look for a surf board to hire.
 
There were plenty of inflated truck-tire tubes for rent, but there wasn’t a board to be had.
 
I had only seen one surfboard in Vietnam, a sad and decrepit thing in Mui Ne.
 
I would have been happy with that, but I had to be satisfied
 
It was great.
 
The waves were heaps of fun and there was a mild sweep to the south.
 
Surf for surfers is a great thing!
 
I got out after about an hour and went for a long walk down to the headland.
 
People were enjoying themselves everywhere, eating and playing games.
 
The sun was pretty low in the sky when a couple of young guys invited me to play some beach soccer.
 
It was excellent to run around and breathe the sea air, a tonic for the soul after a week in pressurized HCMC.
 
The next morning was the same with good surf. I started thinking maybe it’s like this all the time. Maybe all those “nay sayers” who said there are no waves in Vietnam were wrong.This week I went back. There was some swell there for sure.
 
But a strong easterly onshore wind had ruined it and oil from a recent spill spotted the beach.
 
A tanker had capsized tragically on March 9, drowning the captain and crew and rupturing tanks.
 
Luckily for the tourism industry in Vung Tau, most of the spill had headed further out to sea.
 
But it still played havoc with the local crew who worked the beach. It got on everything: the deckchairs, the tire tubes and umbrellas. Instead of surfing I went to the top of Small Mountain with the Jesus statue at the southern end of the beach.
 
From there the view was spectacular and it was plain to see the swell was coming from the north.
 
Some more investigations into surfing Vietnam have revealed a fairly consistent break can be found at China Beach near Da Nang. Worth a look.
 
There’s even a surf report on the Internet www.surf-forecast.com/breaksl ChinaBeach.shtml, but no webcam unfortunately.
 

Source ThanhnienNews