Why Life's a Beach in Bai Tram
So I thought I knew Vietnam. I've been coming for six years. Lived there for two. And seen just about all there is to see. Just about. But then this week happened. Rather, Bai Tram happened. Two days ago, I got in a car in Hoi An and was driven eight, mind-numbing hours down the Vietnamese coastline to a place straight out of a fiction novel. I shit you not. Certainly the lack of a great expectations contributed -- until recently, I had never even heard of Bai Tram, let alone known anything about it. But I won't be forgetting what I experienced there anytime soon. Technically, Bai Tram is seven thatched-roof villas fronting a private stretch of beach that extends for a full kilometer and is bookended by giant rock outcroppings. But truthfully it's much more than that. It's near bustling Quy Nhon but far from it. Guests come here to remove themselves from the rest of the world -- to unplug and unwind. No one is forced to. The lack of any sound but that of na...