Con Dao Islands are a group of 16 islands. The largest island is known as Con Son. Con Dao served as a prison island for political prisoners during the French colonial era, when it was known as Paulo Condore, and in later years the Saigon regime imprisoned opponents of the regime in the infamous cells known as the "tiger cages".
Con Dao
The old prison buildings are still standing and are open to the public as a small museum tracing the island's history. The prison system is similar to the prisons on Phu Quoc except that Viet Cong were held here during the American war while the prisons on Phu Quoc were for the regular North Vietnamese Army. Being traitors to their own country, the conditions on Con Dao were especially harsh.
A Bird-Eye View
Surprisingly jailers and former inmates live here in peace. Con Dao is also an island of immense natural beauty with forested hills, deserted sandy beaches and extensive coral reefs making for some excellent diving. The Con Dao Islands separated from the mainland about 15,000 years ago. This has resulted in the development of dozens of undiscovered or undocumented species of wildlife. The entire archipelago falls under the oversight of the Con Dao National Park.
Coral Reef
Con Dao is another sad example of a National Park doing little to preserve the environment. However due to its remote and little known location it has been preserved from the effects of development. 80% of the land area of the archipelago is a National park offering primary jungle teeming with interesting life such as the endemic black squirrel and the crab eating macaque. Beautiful beaches and hidden lagoons are also to be found here, with very few tourists Con Dao is a paradise off the beaten track. Most of the surrounding marine are is a no-take marine protected area (MPA).
Colorful Fish
The national park is in no way responsible for the amazing health of the pristine reefs that surround the islands, home to a large variety of marine life incomparable to anywhere else in Vietnam. The tourists should consider carefully and ask around on the island before using any of the National Park services. International oversight is desperately needed to be sure the environmental abuses are halted. Despite the overall lethargy, the National Park seems to be rousing from its long sleep as more and more pressure is brought to bear by international visitors. Some real positive actions have been noted and while credit is due, these actions are the job of the Park.
Con Dao Museum
Entrance to Con Dao Museum
Located in the center of town adjacent to the longest jetty where early prisoners first caught sight of the island, the Con Dao Museum was once the home of island governors, regardless the French, South Vietnamese, or American.
Con Dao Museum’s Front Gate
The building was converted to a museum after the island prisons were overrun and liberated by Viet Cong troops in 1975, and this is now the place to begin any exploration of the island's brutal history.
Con Dao Museum
Aimed mostly at Vietnamese visitors, it's a very important patriotic sight and a pilgrimage for people who were held here or who lost loved ones. The collection tells the tale of the prison isle, from grisly photos of emaciated prisoners shackled together, to artwork by past internees of their desperate conditions, to the very rifle butts and clubs that were used to torture prisoners.
Inside the Museum
The last room in a clockwise loop through the building tells of the liberation of Con Dao, chronicles the reconciliatory returns of the many prisoners who were housed here, and has a rather faded collection of German and Russian state gifts to the people of Vietnam.
Tiger Cages
Many members of the current Hanoi administration did tenure in these horrific halls, and the museum has their pictures and information in the entrance. There are good English-language descriptions of the island's history, lists of official French and U.S. policies toward prisoners, and information about the many uprisings and incidents of armed resistance by prisoners to their jailors.
Many Tourists Visiting the Museum
To visit the actual prison sights listed in the guide, you'll have to wait for a group to coalesce and for one of the docents to walk you to the two nearby prison sights. More comprehensive tours of island sights include a visit to the few surviving French "tiger cages" where prisoners were kept in open pits and monitored from above by jailors.
Trai Phu Hai Prison
Trai Phu Hai Prison
Built in 1862, this is the oldest prison of the island prisons. The door opens with a clang and a creak as your docent unhitches the heavy hasp on the massive door out front. Low guard towers loom over the open courtyard, and thick, high walls are topped in shards of glass.
Guard Tower
The guardhouse still has a chalkboard with smudges on it from the lists of names of the last residents. At the center of the broad space is a small Christian chapel built later in 1963, a bit of irony really, considering the atrocities committed here. Comprising the bounds of the courtyard are the sloping terra-cotta-tiled roofs and shaded walkways of cellblocks.
Aisle in Trai Phu Hai Prison
Where elsewhere in Vietnam the faded yellow plaster, heavy timbers, and umber tile work of French colonial architecture looks quaint and inviting, here it takes on a rather sinister aspect. The first cell on the left numbered 9 is set up like the prisons in their heyday, when over 5,000 men were held here, with 80 to 100 shackled together in large common cells. Concrete mannequins, disturbingly lifelike, are rendered in all manner of contorted positions, just as the inmates were: one leg shackled to a long steel rod, one prisoner crammed against the other, surrounding an open area at center. Docents light a handful of joss sticks, and visitors are invited to make an offering at a small Buddhist altar at the center of the room. With the majority of the people who live from here.
Trai Phu Son Prison
Trai Phu Son Prison
Just adjacent to Trai Phu Hai, this prison is more of the same: a large courtyard surrounded by large common rooms of high yellowed walls. The prison's claim to fame is its most notorious revolutionary prisoners the likes of early revolutionary Le Hong Phuong, and later Le Duan, who succeeded Ho Chi Minh as the president of Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War.
Outside Trai Phu Son Prison
Plaques listing the names of famous internees are next to each door. At Trai Phu Son, tourists will be taken into a small isolation cell and will proceed to close the door, shutting out all light, leaving just the smell of wet cement and blinding dark to give you an idea of what solitary is like. Vietnamese tour groups scream wildly.
Lady Phi Yen Temple
Lady Phi Yen Temple
This small local temple was built in homage to Lady Phi Yen, wife of Nguyen Emperor Gia Long, who was sequestered on the island. Just north of town, the temple is a 1958 remake of a late-19th-century original (destroyed by the French).
Festival
The story goes that Phi Yen accompanied her husband in exile after defeat at the hands of the Tay Son. Under threat and desperately seeking French support, help that he would receive, but with many concessions to the French that heralded the beginning of Vietnam's French colonization, his wife expressed doubt, preached peace, and was suspected by Gia Long of treason.
Statues of Lions
Lady Phi Yen was thrown into an isolated cell and left to die after he left the island, fleeing Tay Son, but she survived with the help of mythical creatures (a monkey and a tiger), only to commit suicide later. The temple honors her tragic tale, her fortitude, and her love of peace.
Con Dao National Park
Entrance to Con Dao National Park
Con Dao National Park is one of only two terrestrial and maritime National Parks in Vietnam which encompass both terrestrial and marine natural resources. Con Dao has largely escaped the exploitation and destructive fishing that have been the fate of other reefs in Vietnam and is considered one of the best examples of marine conservation in the country.
Con Dao National Park
Historically, although the French wardens forced prisoners to collect live coral and turn it into lime, the coral reefs have survived. The Con Dao National Park was established in 1977, but protection extended only to the flora and fauna on land. The park now covers fourteen of the sixteen islands and their surrounding marine areas.
Monkeys in the Park
The forest cover on the islands is dense: a sizable proportion is in pristine condition, particularly the humid hill forest growing above 500m above sea level. Over a thousand hectares of Con Dao National Park’s coral reefs survive in the shallow waters. It officially covers 45,000ha, encompassing beautiful beaches and forests. It is home to 882 species of floral species, 135 species of animals, and more than 1,300 species of marine creatures. The park includes a part of the island and the surrounding sea. The national park is characterized by a diverse ecosystem.
A Harmony of Nature
Many species of corals and especially the sea turtle are found here. In 2006, a delegation of UNESCO Vietnam representatives surveyed the area and concluded that the park is eligible to be a natural-cultural mixture world heritage. Con Dao’s environmental significance is recognized internationally and is included in the list of areas of highest regional priority in The World Bank Global System of Marine Protected Areas.
Natural Environment
The entire marine area is rich in biodiversity: over 1,300 species of sea animals have already been identified. The ecosystems on Con Dao are favorable habitats for rare species such as the Hawksbill, Green Turtles & Dugong, the strange creatures popularly known as ‘sea cows’ and believed to be the source of the mermaid legends from their habit of sunbathing on rocks. The World Wide Fund for Nature has been active in protecting sea turtles and dugong.
Baby Turtles Released to the Sea
Since 1995, more than 300,000 baby turtles have been released to the sea and nearly 1,000 mature turtles have been tagged. Con Dao National Park is now considered one of the best examples of marine conservation in Vietnam, complete with regulations to limit fishing activities and prohibit destructive fishing, and is a model for marine conservation throughout the country.
Con Dao Fishing
Con Dao Fishing
Con Dao fishing is an option both day and night; however squid fishing is only available at night. Unlike many areas where the fish and squid are found in deep waters or hiding behind stone falls, fish and squid are abundant around Con Dao and are easy to catch. Services are available such as boat, fish rods and bait, as well as high-tech fishing equipment. There are many types of fish to catch.
A Visitor with Her Fish
Families and friends often gather together for seafood parties. Shark can be reached overland and boat, junk and canoe trips which can also be arranged from Con Son town center or Ben Dam Port to seven sceneries, Mui Dai Cape, Big Bamboo, and Small Bamboo Islands, where visitors can indulge in the splendid island sceneries as well as freely drop their fishing rods and relax after a tiring working day.
Fishing at Night
At night the shimmering lights, gaudy colors and fake squid lure the squid swimming in the darkness of the sea. The best places for squid fishing are 914 Pier, Ben Dam Port, Mui Dai Cape, to name just some off-shore sites. Nhat Beach on Love Top is known for romantic sunsets as well as wonderful shark fishing. This is the best place for fishermen hoping to conquer a shark.
Vo Thi Sau Tomb in Hang Duong Cemetery
Hang Duong Cemetery
Seeing the lekima flower in full bloom, Vietnamese people are always reminded of a heroine who died for future generations. The young lady so full of vitality fought against the enemies with firm spirit and even death could not force her to yield. The song echoes in the mind of everybody who visits Hang Duong cemetery in Con Dao district, Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province.
Vo Thi Sau’s Headstone
Vo Thi Sau, the heroine mentioned in the song, was executed by the French colonialists at the foot of Chua Mountain in the early morning of January 23, 1952. 60 years later, her immortal patriotism and glorious sacrifice still shine in the heart of every Vietnamese person, particularly those who live on Con Dao Island, once called hell on the earth.
A Lot of Graveyards
The 20-hectare Hang Duong cemetery holds the graves of more than 20,000 martyrs, including revolutionary martyr Le Hong Phong, patriot Nguyen An Ninh, and hero Cao Van Ngoc. Visitors are moved to see grave after grave, some were named, some were unnamed, stretching over the hill. Vo Thi Sau’s grave, set in gravel and soil shoveled by her fellow prisoners, lies in section B. The cemetery is most crowded at weekend. Visitors and locals come here to burn incense and pray for those lie here and for the health and peace of those who are still living. Sau’s headstone is made of marble with words engraved that say: “Vo Thi Sau, born in 1933 and died on January 23rd, 1952, at the age of 19”. Sau, whose most valuable possession was her patriotism, sacrificed her youth and her life to the fatherland.
A visitor Praying for Her
Joining the revolutionary movement at the age of 14, Sau was eventually caught and sentenced to death by the French. Not daring to kill her in the mainland, they took her to Con Dao Island for execution. Although sister Sau passed away at a very young age, her image lives forever in the hearts of Vietnamese people. Especially, people who live on Con Dao Island all come to Sau’s grave to burn incense and pray and share their feelings and thoughts with Sau. Nobody misses sister Sau’s grave when they visit Hang Duong cemetery. They always stop by her grave to burn incense and pay tribute to her. That brave young lady is a bright example for the younger generations to follow.
Vo Thi Sau Statue
She encourages all of Vietnamese people to contribute to their nation and be worthy of the sacrifices made by Sau and other martyrs. Sau has become a symbol of respect and patriotism. Her grave is always surrounded by fresh flowers and the fragrance of burning incense. The first thing anyone should do upon arrival at Con Dao is visit the Hang Duong Cemetery and burn incense at Sau’s grave as well as those of other martyrs. Sister Sau’s was already a legend when the ship carrying her docked at Con Dao island in 1952. At the execution, the young lady refused to be blindfolded, wanting to admire the motherland’s landscape and sing till her last breath. Many families on Con Dao Island have set up altars to worship sister Sau, whose legend has become eternal in each Vietnamese heart.
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