Bai Trung

Smooth, rounded stones cover the whole of Bãi Trứng, which means Egg Beach. They are not hen's eggs or duck eggs, only pebbles, polished by the waves over more years than anyone could count. From far off, they look like thousands of eggs packed side by side.

This beach belongs to the scenic area of Ghềnh Ráng Tiên Sa, one of the best known stretches of coast in Quy Nhơn.

One thing is easy to mix up. Bãi Trứng sits at Ghềnh Ráng, only three to four kilometers from the center of the city. Hòn Khô is a separate island near the fishing village of Nhơn Hải, 16 kilometers from the city, where people dive to see coral. The two places are quite different, though they are sometimes written up as one.

Ghềnh Ráng is a whole region of rocky mountain running down to the sea. One explanation of the name comes from the work of fishermen. Where boats passed through shoals of broken rock, the fishermen had to slow down, an act they called "ráng", so that the hull would not split. In time the name stuck to this stretch of land. The area has been ranked a national scenic landmark since 1991.

Tiên Sa is the legend tied to this place. It tells of a beautiful girl glimpsed between the mountain and the sea. It is a folk story that people have set into the landscape, not an event that any record can confirm.

Bãi Trứng has another lovely name, the Empress Beach. People there say that Empress Nam Phương chose this spot whenever she came to Quy Nhơn to escape the summer heat. It is a tourist anecdote, and no court record confirms it. Still, it explains why the name sounds so grand and so calm.

The stones are neither sand nor rough gravel. They are smooth ovals, some the size of a fist, the larger ones the size of a goose egg. When a wave rushes in and slides back, the whole beach rattles with a sound of its own, as if the sea were whispering. Standing among thousands of round stones, you can feel how long the sea's time runs.

Ghềnh Ráng is also tied to a name that moves many people, the poet Hàn Mặc Tử. He spent his last days at the leprosarium in Quy Hòa and died in November 1940. His grave now lies on Thi Nhân Hill, within Ghềnh Ráng, looking quietly out to sea. Standing there, with the sea wind passing over the pages of his poems, one seems to hear again the heart of a gifted poet with a hard fate.

So Bãi Trứng and Ghềnh Ráng make one picture of Quy Nhơn that is hard to forget. Rocky mountain runs down to the sea, the smooth pebble beach glints in the sun, and above it stands the hill of a poet who gazes out to the far horizon.

One afternoon, as the sun sinks toward the water, the whole beach of stone eggs glows a warm orange-gold, and the waves keep murmuring over each round stone. Anyone who has stood here wants to come back, to hear the sea tell its story once more through stones polished smooth by the years.