Azerai Ke Ga Bay

On arrival at Azerai Ke Ga Bay, do yourself a favour: drop your bags, and make a beeline for the sealine. Apologise to the front desk, hurry past the aromatic frangipanes, jasmines and bushy fox-tail palms, head down between glossy white colonnades and arrive, panting, at one of the finest ocean fronts in the land. We’d been up and down Vietnam by the time we made our way here, and few sights stirred me more.

A lighthouse, built by the French in 1899, winks welcomingly from the little island across the water. A picturesque fleet of wooden trawlers shelters nervously from the blustery South China Sea in the bay’s shallows. Fragile fishing coracles bob up and down.

All this is even before you look around and note that you’re standing on the stately terrace of a retro-modernist clubhouse that leads down to a marble-lined infinity pool – for laps in the lap of luxury – and, beyond it, a private beach at your disposal. The whole resort, with its suites like secret hideaways in a sprawling, enthralling garden, is bright, white and splendid in the sun.   

This honeymooning Mr & Mrs Smith were a tad cranky when we rocked up after a sweltering train from Ho Chi Minh City to nearby Quy Nhon station (great fun in usual circumstances, less jolly when the air conditioning breaks down) and an ill-advised lunch stop in nowheresville at which, to an old lady’s delight, Mr Smith found a fluffy bird foetus inside his egg. 

You might instead rent a car from HCMC, which will be a zippy two-hour drive away (an hour less than it is now) by the time a brand-spanking new motorway opens later this year. But where would be the adventure in that? And, like footprints on the sand, these mild inconveniences were soon washed away by the first few hours simply soaking it all in. Palm fronds and Bird Of Paradise flowers loomed so densely outside the great bathroom windows of our walled pool suite that, when I took a dip in our enormous tub, it felt like bathing in the Eden Project.

That evening we were treated to one of the most stunning sunsets – a ‘stunset’, if you’ll indulge me – that I have witnessed: an explosion of pink and scarlet that looked like the rebirth of some fiery god. 

‘It’s the best time of year to be here,’ says Tran from the front desk, ‘because the light is just right and the sea is calm.’ Correct on both counts, Tran, and perfect conditions for us to set off bright and early (well, before midday) for the lighthouse. 

There are an absolute boatload of things to do in Ke Ga Bay – from zipping off by motorcycle to fishing villages, to jumping aboard for a day out with local anglers, to guided tours to the still-standing temples of the Cham Kingdom at Tháp Po Sah Inu or a brisk two-hour jungly hike up Tà Cú Mountain which end with Buddhist statues and an eye-catching pagoda (those taking it easy can ride the cable-car). But the lighthouse called to us – so that’s where we went.

Our guide, Hai (‘It means ‘the sea’ in Vietnamese,’ he told us) picked us up in a swanky black car and ferried us a few minutes down the road to a boat that swept us bouncily along to the lighthouse. 

The becalmed sea, for reasons best known to itself, had become a little agitated by the time we boarded. ‘When the sea is very flat we can take you from the hotel,’ he said, before a rogue wave hit me in the face, proving his point. 

It’s a 10 minute trip across the water and we spent an hour on the island (Hai brought a picnic, and pointed out where the watersport-mad city folk from HCMC like to come and kitesurf). It was bliss. 

A few times a year, the tide is so low that you can walk to the mainland. 100 years ago the French brought chickens, frangipanis and the towering sandstone lighthouse to the island, ‘brick by brick, like Lego,’ said Hai, and all of them are still here. 

'I nearly asked Mrs Smith to marry me beneath a lighthouse,’ I told Hai. ‘But it was too windy.’ ‘What?’, said Hai, proving my point. The island is rugged, windswept and utterly unspoilt, as well as being a useful windbreaker for the fishing fleet to hide behind. 

Which is just as well. The restaurant, with a half day’s warning, pre-order local fish off the boats of your choosing to eat out on the seaside veranda at night, gazing out into the inky water as the lights of the hard-working fleet flash like the glitter balls of a giant floating disco. 

Salt, sea spray and – if you'll indulge me again – love were in the warm ocean air. When we returned to our room, lovely Tran and her staff had laid a trail of rose petals to a bath filled with them. 

It's these special touches that make Azerai Ke Ga Bay the sort of place people like me dream of running aground at: serene, serendipitous and surprisingly secluded, with a whole lot of heart. 

The lights are on, come find your way home. To the lighthouse we go.