Just off shore from Hoi An, and within sight of Cau Dai beach, is Cu Lao Cham, or the Cham Islands. As the name suggests it is an island inhabited by people of the Cham ethnic group. There are eight islands, only one of which, Hon Lao, is populated. Basic tourist accomodations are available but most tourists visit the islands on a daytrip.
I expected the tour to be like Koh Phi Phi Ley in Thailand or Nha Trang in Vietnam: meaning beautiful terrain spoiled by thousands of tourists. I was happy to be proven wrong.
It takes about 25 minutes by speedboat to get to Hon Lao from Cau Dai beach. The group I was in was friendly and fun, which is good since we were stacked on the boat like cordwood. I should note that the crew insisted we wear lifejackets, which was reassuring, since I've been on tour boats that didn't even have them.
The first stop was the fishing village at Bai Huong, or Huong Beach. I would have preferred to go straight to the beach, but the brief tour of the town was enjoyable and our tour guide was surprisingly competent. This was a nice touch I hadn't seen before.
We stopped at a small visitor center where we learned about, among other things, land crabs. These migrate from all over the island to a common mating ground once a year, following the lunar cycle. No one understands how they know. They're friendly, too!
To get to the visitor center we had to walk through patches of drying rice.
Our boat is the small white spot in the top left corner. The village is visible in the distance. From there we walked through rice terraces where a farmer was tilling with help from a buffalo.
We went to a small temple where there was more rice drying in the courtyard.
This is a peek inside the temple. Note the red swastika on the small Buddha statue's chest.
The village has little tourist infrastructure. It's a working fishing village. Here are some locals weighing the day's catch of squid.
From there we took the boat to a reef where we could snorkel. Or snoke, as this boat says.
The water was surprisingly cool and refreshing but there wasn't much to see underwater. We went to a small restaurant where the food wasn't great, but it was plentiful.
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach. Our restaurant was part of a small guest house. There was another small resort further down the beach. But we were the only people there! I've been on boat trips where the beach and the snorkel spots are packed with boats and tourists. We had the whole beach to ourselves. Bliss.
The only other boats there were a couple fishing boats. The mainland is visible in the background. Fishermen paint eyes on the front of the boat to help find fish.
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