Turning the tide
The early morning mist casts a gloomy pall over our boat as our group pulls away from Cua Dai pier, near Hoi An. We are on our way to the Cu Lao Cham archipelago, a part of Vietnam that has remained stubbornly off the country's energetically stomped tourist trail - and it seems as though the weather gods want to keep it that way.
Frigid damp air permeates the atmosphere and scalding cups of Lipton tea are all that are standing between us and a bout of melancholy. It wasn't like this yesterday ...
Having arrived on an early flight from Ho Chi Minh City, I checked into Hoi An's luxurious Nam Hai - a low-rise boutique hotel that combines faithful reproductions of 2,000-year-old Vietnamese villas with the latest in style-mag chic. Later, from my patch of China Beach, the Cu Lao Cham islands loomed large - a vision of mountainous jungle-clad paradise pouring down towards the crystalline ocean, offering no indication of how forbidding they were to become.
Situated about 18 kilometres offshore from Hoi An - the charming, yet ever- so-slightly sanitised, ancient port that doubles as the country's most foreign-friendly enclave - the archipelago is hardly an obscure outpost. When Hoi An was the commercial capital of the Champa kingdom, which ruled central and south central Vietnam from about the seventh century to 1832 and controlled the spice trade between Indonesia and China, the leeward anchorages on the western side of mountainous Hon Lao, the archipelago's main island, provided shelter for vessels from the northeast monsoon.
The island remained an important stop on the trading route even after the Viet people superseded the Cham and its hitherto rich fishing grounds pro- vided a decent living for its inhabitants.
Cu Lao Cham has, therefore, been on the radar for millennia and should, you'd have thought, be a prime target for the development frenzy enveloping this corner of Indochina. However, with accommodation on Hon Lao restricted to four simple guesthouses, basic homestays in the villages of Bai Lang and Bai Huong, and camping on the gorgeous tourist beach of Bai Chong, favoured by the handful of companies operating excursions to the island, it is clear that this won't be the next Phuket anytime soon.