Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) is a hectic city, and it doesn’t take much to get overwhelmed by all the hustle and bustle. Equally, this isn’t a seaside spot, so if you feel like escaping to the beach to unwind, I can recommend just the place.

A mere two-hour drive from Saigon is a small seaside town called Vung Tau. During our visit in November, we experienced one of the most incredible sunsets. It was so nice to just walk along the beach, watch people go about their day, and see the skies change from yellow to orange to dark blue.

You will also find fishermen setting off on their small boats, which makes for great photography.

As the sun set, a large fishing boat approached full of fresh seafood, and immediately the beach turned into a market. People gathered from everywhere, looking to get the best food before it was gone. This was an amazing sight to see, and for a moment you almost felt like a local observing.

After that, we went for a stroll around the town, which was pretty quiet because it was a weekday. On weekends, it gets busy with locals flocking down from nearby towns and Saigon. It’s also worth mentioning the lack of mass tourism here—or any Western tourism, for that matter—which felt like a nice change.

We only spent the late afternoon and evening in Vung Tau because during the day we were unwinding at the Imperial Hotel Vung Tau. I say hotel, but this is more like a resort with all the facilities one could ever want. For full transparency, the Imperial Hotel let us stay one night for free in exchange for some photos and a mention on social media. With that said, if I ever return to this area, I would definitely stay here again and request a sea-view room. You can find out more about this hotel here.

Another advantage of this hotel is that it’s in the middle of two great locations. The first one was Vung Tau, which we’ve already seen. The second one is called Long Hai. This is a very small fishing village that probably never gets any tourism. The highlight for me was the fishermen who had come back from night fishing and were organising all their equipment on the beach.

They were all super friendly and happy for us to get closer and take photos as they sorted things out. This allowed me to get more creative with compositions that otherwise I couldn’t do if I had to keep my distance.

In total, we spent four hours walking up and down this beach and taking photos, and even though we all walked away with some of our favourite images, we all got heatstroke. I had it the worst, and it knocked me out for three days afterward. Despite the temperature not being that high, the sun is incredibly strong, and I didn’t have a hat or drink anywhere near as much as I should have. Lesson learned.

After the beach, we found a nice little shack where we could have a drink and watch the world go by for a bit. It’s fascinating how people here seem so happy with so little (by Western standards), while back in the West, we are often so unhappy with so much more. Maybe that’s for another blog, though.

Once we finished, we walked back to the main road, which involved exploring the tight streets of the village and even watching some locals play pool.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel, collected our stuff, and made our way back to Saigon. The transport between Saigon and Vung Tau was arranged by the hotel, and we were collected from their restaurant in the city centre. The drop-off point was the same too, using their shuttle service. The transport around the local area was by using Grab (a local Uber).

When it comes to photography, everything you see here was shot on my Fujifilm XH2s and three primes: 18mm, 33mm, and 90mm. In full-frame terms, this is 28mm, 50mm, and 135mm. I hope you found this blog helpful and that it aids you a little in planning your trip or finding inspiration for where to travel to next. Thanks for reading, and speak soon!