Ly Son

Ly Son is a small volcanic island off the central coast that grows garlic on top of old lava. It is well known in Vietnam and almost unheard of outside it.

Is Ly Son worth going to?

If you want somewhere genuinely off the international route and are content with simple rooms, yes. The island sits about 15 nautical miles off Quang Ngai, is built on extinct craters, and has coves of clear water below black rock.

Set expectations first. There is little English, the accommodation is guesthouses and homestays, and the island is busy with Vietnamese holidaymakers in summer. It is not an undiscovered paradise; it is a working island that receives domestic tourism.

Craters, garlic fields and the Hoang Sa temples

Thoi Loi is the highest of the craters and the standard walk, with a view over the whole island and out to An Binh. Getting up it takes under an hour.

The garlic fields are the more unusual sight. Farmers spread black volcanic soil and then a layer of white coral sand over it, and the resulting fields are a strange two-tone landscape that exists because of the crop rather than for the view.

The old temples connect the island to the Hoang Sa flotillas — crews sent from here in the Nguyen period, commemorated in ceremonies that still run. That history is why the island carries weight in Vietnam beyond its size.

An Binh, the smaller island, is a short boat ride and worth half a day for its beach. Boats run from the main harbour in the morning and back in the afternoon, so it is a half-day trip rather than an hour, and there is almost nothing on it beyond a few houses and the sand.

When do the boats run?

March to August. The central coast's calm season is when the sea is workable and the crossings run reliably.

From September to December this coast takes the rain and the storms described in the month-by-month guide, and boats are cancelled outright when conditions are poor. That is the real risk of planning around Ly Son: not discomfort but not getting there at all.

What are the guesthouses like?

Guesthouses and homestays in the main village, with a couple of larger hotels. Prices sit at the low end of the tiers in the accommodation guide, and they rise in the Vietnamese summer holidays when the island fills.

Book ahead for June to August and for public holidays. Outside those, arriving and looking works.

Rooms are simple in a specific way worth knowing before you commit: air conditioning is normal, hot water is usually there, and almost nothing has a lift, a restaurant or anyone on the desk after nine. Homestays feed you if you ask in the morning, which is the arrangement most people end up preferring — the island's restaurants close early and there is no strip of them.

What does a day on Ly Son cost?

Cheaply. A guesthouse room runs roughly 250,000 to 600,000 dong, seafood is island prices, and the boat is a modest fare each way. At about 26,000 dong to the dollar, two days here is inexpensive even before you compare it with the resort coast.

Hiring a motorbike for the island is a few tens of thousands and is the sensible way to cover it. The island is roughly 10 square kilometres, so a circuit of it takes an afternoon at walking-pace speeds and nothing is more than fifteen minutes from anything else.

Bring cash. There is an ATM in the main village and it is the kind that runs empty on a busy weekend, and the guesthouses, boats and food stalls all want notes.

How do you get to Sa Ky and across?

By fast boat from Sa Ky port, 35 to 45 minutes. Sa Ky is about 20 km from Quang Ngai city, which sits on the Reunification railway and the main north-south highway, so the island is easier to reach than its obscurity suggests — the rail guide covers the line.

Coming from Hoi An or Da Nang it is about three hours south by road to Quang Ngai. From Quy Nhon it is roughly two and a half hours north, and Ly Son fits naturally into a slow run down that coast.