We moved here in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009 and we spent our first Christmas, just us 3 with no other family — which will never happen in a Philippine setting.  For the Vietnamese, the Tet holiday is the time to go home to family and friends to celebrate the Lunar New Year.  For us Filipinos, it’s Christmas.  Since we won’t be going home for Christmas, we decided to visit Vung Tau and headed to Long Hai Beach.  We heard from friends that Vung Tau can be quite crowded with foreigners, and so, we opted to go somewhere more quiet.  Little did we know, that it was the quietest Christmas outing ever!  For 3 days, we were the only guests in Long Hai Beach Resort (beside the Anoasis Resort) — and we loved every single moment of our stay!  We received first class accommodation and service!  🙂

Our cottage was near the pool and the sea.  We slept like babies with the sound of waves hitting the rocks by the beach.  Best of all it was just walking distance to the restaurant but we still tried room service!  They served Vietnamese (of course!) and International cuisine.  The Long Hai pizza tasted wonderful!

The water was freezing so we didn’t try swimming in the ocean (and the waves were pretty strong too!). We did swim in the pool but we couldn’t stay for long because of the cold and breeze.  But it was nice to just lounge around and bask in the beauty of Vietnam.

The whole darn place was just begging to be photographed!  So we did that too! 🙂  And enjoyed the long stretch of fine, fine sand.

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Truly hope we can go back someday.  But, Vietnam has lots of other beautiful and charming places to offer, so it’ll be a while before we return to Long Hai.
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To get to Long Hai, you can take a bus to Vung Tau or ride a shuttle bus.  We rode Thien Phu Shuttle Services at Le Thi Hong Gam St. in District 1.  It leaves once the shuttle is full (around 15 people).  But leaves every 15 minutes or so.  The cost is 55,000 VND per person (not bad, eh?).  Then from Vung Tau, we rode a taxi to Long Hai — pretty pricey at 300kVND (if I remember correctly) but it was worth the trip!

You can ride the hydrofoil too at the port along Ton Duc Thang St. in District 1 right across Renaissance Riverside Hotel.  The price is 160,000 VND for one way.  It will get you to Vung Tau in 45 minutes.  Unlike the shuttle ride which takes 4 hours on a good day.

[More info: The earliest HCMC-VT schedule is at 6:30 am and the latest is 4:30 pm.  No trips at lunch time.  I’ll confirm but I think the schedule is the same for VT-HCMC.  Happy trip! — 24Feb2011]