Nghi Son Island

Off the Nghi Sơn coast, about 11 kilometers from the shore, lie 18 scattered islands, large and small. The largest is Hòn Mê, which people in the area also call Đảo Mê. Both names mean the island of Mê.

Together the group covers about 450 hectares. Hòn Mê alone covers about 420. It belongs to Hải Bình ward in Thanh Hóa Province. The ward is also part of the Nghi Sơn Economic Zone.

What sets Hòn Mê apart from most seaside destinations is a plain fact: nobody lives there. A single army unit is stationed on the island, and it is still counted as an important area of security and defense. The boat route leaves from the Hải Bình fishing port at the Lạch Bạng estuary. A border guard post stands there, and every trip out to the island passes through it. Reaching Hòn Mê is not a matter of simply wanting to go.

People in Hải Bình ward say the island group was once called Vị. From the Nam Động mountains, looking out to sea, the 18 islands lay in the shape of the Chinese character Vị. The group is also called Thập Bát Mã Sơn, which means 18 fine horses. This is how the area's elders tell it, part of an oral tradition tied to the island scenery of this coast. It is a folk telling, not a historical record that has been confirmed independently.

The first stop on the island, and the one with the most meaning, is a memorial. It holds a monument to the heroic fallen soldiers of Đảo Mê and a shrine to 16 soldiers of Military Region 4, who died in a plane crash on the island in 2005. The place calls for a solemn mood and a quiet moment, in memory of the soldiers whose lives became bound to this island.

Next comes the lighthouse, where the sea and the islands spread out in every direction. The water around the island is clear and blue, and when conditions allow, people swim there and look at the coral.

The island's beauty is wild, because tourism has hardly touched it. There is primeval forest, blue sea and white sand, and many rare plants and animals. It is a place still intact, and a rare one along this coast.

Thanh Hóa Province plans to turn Hòn Mê into an ecological area that joins national defense with economic growth. The provincial People's Committee has set the size at 238 hectares, with a planned investment of 5,500 billion dong, scheduled from 2028 to 2030. So today Hòn Mê can be seen at its wildest, before roads and crowds change the island for good.

The 18 islands are arranged to look like 18 fine horses. Waves wash around the primeval forest, and soldiers stand guard where ordinarily no one sets foot. Hòn Mê is a part of Vietnam that very few people ever see with their own eyes.