Ba Dong Beach

The sea of the Mekong Delta has a beauty of its own, and it is nothing like Nha Trang or Da Nang. There is no deep bay here. Ba Động asks to be looked at a little differently, and the name carries a story that makes the looking worthwhile.

Ba Động Beach lies in Trường Long Hòa ward, in Vĩnh Long Province. It used to belong to the commune of the same name in Duyên Hải, in Trà Vinh Province. Here the land sits between two river mouths. One is Cung Hầu, on the Tiền River. The Tiền River is one of the two branches of the Mekong that flow through Vietnam. The other is Định An, on the Hậu River, the second of those branches. From there the coast faces the open sea.

That position explains the color of the sand and the water. This is a coast shaped by silt from many river mouths, and most of the Mekong Delta shore is mudflat and cloudy water. Ba Động has something rare. A belt of sand more than ten kilometers long runs from Nhà Mát hamlet to Cồn Trứng hamlet. When the tide goes out, the gently sloping sand can lay itself bare for hundreds of meters. Among all that silt, such a belt is hard to find.

So Ba Động is a sea of the Mekong Delta, not of the central coast. Its appeal does not lie in jade water or white sand. It lies in a rare stretch of sand in a land of silt. It lies in the rhythm of the tide, in the rows of casuarinas that break the wind, and in a history of many layers tied to this ground.

That history began early. Nearly three centuries ago, fishermen from the Bình Thuận region came here to settle. They brought the place name Ba Động with them, along with the worship of Bà Cố Hỷ. The area around Trường Long Hòa also holds layers from the years of resistance, including the Hồ Chí Minh trail at sea. Few visitors expect that from a beach in the Mekong Delta.

Then, in the early 20th century, the French saw the area's promise as a place to rest. They built a resort here, and nearby a mini golf course, then called a sân cù. Officials and the upper class of the province and its neighbors came for weekends. War swept through, and those buildings are gone. But they left their mark on the map. The hamlets of Nhà Mát and Cồn Cù still exist, and their names come from the resort and the course. They quietly tell of one layer of memory that time has covered over.

After Trà Vinh Province was re-established in 1992, authorities in the area planted a protective forest of casuarinas and built a sea wall against erosion at Ba Động.

Along the beach, dark green rows of casuarinas stand one after another, holding back the wind, and the sea wall hugs the edge of the sand. They do more than decorate the shore. They hold the land and ease the erosion. On a coast where tides and waves lap day and night, they are a quiet suit of armor for a whole stretch of bank.

Ba Động also has flavors to remember. There is a plate of chù ụ stir-fried with tamarind, hot and sharp. There are clams, snails and tôm sú prawns, fresh from the water. And there is a small bowl of nước mắm rươi, a rich sauce that only this land makes. Rươi are small creatures of the ragworm family. A seafood meal here lets the sea soak all the way into the tongue.

The beach gains meaning from the places around it. Nearby stand the Trúc Lâm Zen monastery of Trà Vinh and the weapons reception wharf at Cồn Tàu. There is also the communal house and shrine of Cồn Trứng, and the lighthouse at Vàm Láng Nước. Then come Lầu Bà Thượng and the old tomb at Ba Động. Seen this way, Ba Động is more than a beach for swimming. It is a gateway into a whole stretch of coast with depth of history, belief and nature.

On an afternoon at Ba Động, the tide has drawn back and left a gently sloping strip of sand hundreds of meters wide, wet and smooth, shining golden brown with silt. The casuarinas sing in the wind and the waves roll in slowly. That is the beauty of the Mekong Delta sea, plain and quiet. And somewhere in the air echoes the story of nearly three centuries of people who opened this land.