The sun was shining brilliantly over the bushes and giant rocks of Mt. Phuoc Dinh as I made my way to Dinh Cape in Son Hai Commune, Ninh Phuoc District, Ninh Thuan Province.
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I was completely out of breath as I threw off my backpack and plunked down on the grass.
The sun was shining brilliantly over the bushes and giant rocks of Mt. Phuoc Dinh as I made my way to
Although I had to walk through deserted san dunes and climbed a 40-degree slope, the view of the lighthouse from the side of the mountain made it well worth it.
From Phan Rang, some guys from Akzo Nobel Paint
We drove through rice fields and a fishing village and ended up at sand dunes known to tourists as “kingdom of cactus.” The local residents tend and breed goats and sheep and catch cuttlefish by coracle.
A rock exploiter informed me that the province is planning on making this place an eco-tourism site offering both diving and trekking. Ninh Thuan is looking for investors to develop the 800 hectares of sand dunes in Son Hai Commune and Mt. Phuoc Dinh, the site of a lighthouse built in 1904.
Tourists could climb up the mountain to reach the lighthouse or look for Hai Thanh, a xe om (motorbike taxi rider), the champion of the motorbike race in sand in Festival Ninh Thuan. He could offer you a thrilling ride by motorbike from the village to the top with only VND 50,000.
The bullet-hole ridden lighthouse on
Dong, chef of the lighthouse’s station, told me that the light used to be fuelled by oil and manually rotated using a 10 kilograms dumbbell. Back in the day, the guard had to pull the dumbbell to add more oil. Today, the lighthouse is powered using electricity from sun panels designed by BP Energy Co. and is capable of shining up to 26 nautical miles at night.
There is also a two-floor building for the picket of the lighthouse that is large enough to provide shelter for tourists, but without the amenities of a hotel. The lives of the five picket members are rather solitary, which reminded me of Robinson Crusoe.
From
(Source: Nhandan)
