Mui Ne

The headland is old Cham country. The plain behind it belonged to the principality of Panduranga, the southern Cham polity that outlasted the rest of Champa and survived as a principality until 1832, and Cham communities still live in the villages inland and worship at the 8th-century brick towers of Po Sah Inư above Phan Thiết. Vietnamese settlement spread down this coast from the 17th century, and the sheltered bay at Mũi Né became a fishing anchorage and a centre for making nước mắm, the fermented fish sauce that made Phan Thiết's name.

For most of the 20th century it remained a village of fishing families, drying yards and dragon fruit farms on a stretch of coast few outsiders visited. That changed with the total solar eclipse of October 1995, whose path of totality crossed this coast and brought many visitors to the area to watch it. The sheltered beach, the dry climate and the reliable wind were noticed, and the first guesthouses opened soon afterwards.

Development followed the single coastal road: resorts filled the gaps between the sea and the road through the 2000s, kitesurfing schools arrived, and Russian and then Korean tour operators made the strip a package destination, leaving Cyrillic and Korean signs still visible along it. Growth slowed when international travel stopped in 2020, and the road and rail links from Ho Chi Minh City have since improved. Administratively the area, once part of Bình Thuận province, has belonged to an enlarged Lâm Đồng province since the two were merged in 2025.

Two ways of life share the same few kilometres. At the eastern end the village keeps the rhythm of a fishing port: boats go out in the evening and return before dawn, women sort and sell the catch on the sand, and the year turns on the wind and the season. Communal houses along the coast honour the whale spirit, a belief of Vietnamese fishing communities in which a stranded whale is given a funeral and its bones kept as a protector; the Nghinh Ông festival is its public expression.

At the western end is a holiday coast, largely built for visitors, where the common languages are Vietnamese, Russian, Korean and English and the daily pattern is set by the wind forecast. Kitesurfing gave the place an international sporting identity, with schools, competitions and a seasonal community of instructors.

The Cham presence remains in the background of both: towers on the hills, ceremonies at Katê in the autumn, pottery and weaving villages inland, and place names along the coast. Manners are those of southern Vietnam — relaxed, hospitable, indirect about disagreement. Modest dress away from the beach and a quiet approach to the harbour at work are appreciated, and bargaining at markets and for jeep trips is normal and good-humoured.

Mũi Né is a ward rather than a separate town — since the 2025 merger one of the coastal wards of the enlarged Lâm Đồng province — and has about 25,000 residents, most of them in the village and the roadside settlements rather than the resort strip. Fishing, fish processing and fish sauce remain the traditional living; tourism now employs a large share of working-age residents, and dragon fruit farms cover the plain behind the coast, lit at night by lamps that force the plants to flower out of season.

Days divide by trade. The fleet works at night and lands its catch in the early morning; hotel and restaurant staff work afternoons and evenings; and the dune drivers run trips at sunrise and sunset. In the windy months the beach is busy all afternoon with kites, and in the calm months with swimmers and Vietnamese family groups.

The strip's dependence on visitor numbers makes it vulnerable, as the quiet of 2020 and 2021 showed, and the mix of nationalities changes with the state of the package market. Erosion has taken sand from parts of the beach, sea walls have been built in front of some resorts, and fresh water, waste and the pressure of vehicles on the dunes are ongoing local concerns.

Seafood is the obvious strength: squid, cuttlefish, prawns, crab, scallops and clams landed in the bay and cooked simply — grilled over charcoal, steamed with ginger and lemongrass, or stir-fried with tamarind — and eaten with muối ớt xanh, a salt-and-green-chilli dip, or with fish sauce and lime. Ốc, the wide family of sea snails and shellfish, is eaten in the evening with beer as it is in Ho Chi Minh City.

Regional dishes come from the coast around Phan Thiết. Bánh căn, small rice-flour pancakes cooked in clay moulds and served with fish sauce, spring onion oil and sometimes fish balls, and bánh xèo, the crisp turmeric pancake wrapped with herbs in lettuce, are the everyday favourites. Bánh canh chả cá, thick noodles in a fish broth with fish cake, and lẩu thả, a platter of raw fish, herbs and noodles arranged in segments around a bowl for mixing at the table, are local specialities.

Above all this coast means nước mắm. Phan Thiết has fermented anchovies with salt in wooden barrels since the 17th century, and its sauce is one of the two most famous in Vietnam. Dragon fruit, grown on the surrounding plain, is everywhere in season, fresh or juiced; thanh long jam and dried fruit are sold as souvenirs; and Vietnamese iced coffee and fresh coconut are the standard drinks on the strip.