I received the Amanoi opening announcement while in Saigon (HCMC) on business so I shot off an email to Aman to ask how soon they would actually be open. On September 2, I got back a "How about mid-October?" email to which I replied "How about tomorrow?" A few hours later, Aman came back and said that would be fine. Great!

I booked a Vietnam Airlines (VN) flight on the web for the next morning. There are a few flights a day from SGN to Cam Ranh (CXR) which is located just south of the city of Nha Trang. You can also fly from Hanoi and Danang, which is convenient if you're visiting other parts of the country. It's a short flight, 45 minutes, and the domestic air system in Vietnam is quite good (no worries) and very cheap (SGN>CXR $50 in Y and $100 in J).

A lot of my travel is short last minute trips so getting somewhere quickly and easily is high on my list of my priorities. It's nice to have convenient flights, but I wasn't really looking forward to the 90 minute drive to the resort noted on the Aman website. (And BTW, unlike other some other Aman resorts, airport transfer is not complimentary).

An Aman representative met me at the airport with a Toyota SUV. I was expecting a German sedan, but as it turns out that would not have been very practical.

The first part of the drive is south down the main National Highway (1A) through CamRanh and adjacent towns. It's pretty typical Vietnam...shops and houses. The "highway" is an undivided two lane road with a lot of scooter and truck traffic and not a lot of attention paid to being in the proper lane.

After about 30 minutes, the driver announces we're taking the "shortcut," and turns off the highway. We drive through some scenic paddy fields and a small village along the coast on very narrow, occaisionally paved and often very rutted roads before heading up into the mountains on a new half constructed very bumpy and rocky "road" that made me wonder whether the Toyota Fortuner was going to be up to the job.


View as we head off on the shortcut

Fortunately we soon hit the section of the new road that's been completed and runs all the way down to Vinh Hy. It's about 40 mintues to Vinh Hy, and the drive is spectacular. It's a brand new very good road along the shore and cliffs overlooking the ocean. The scenery is beautiful and reminds me more of the Mediterranean or California coasts than it does of SE Asia. The whole section of coast there is pristine and completely unspoilt. No farms or houses, not a single shred of litter, and we didn't see another car the whole way down to Vinh Hy. It's worth the trip just for the drive alone.


View driving down the coast


Shortly before arriving at Amanoi, you pass through Vinh Hy, which is a very quaint and scenic little fishing village.


The town of Vinh Hy

I'm headed to the beach now, but will add some photos to this post later and also update the other sections of the report as I have time.