Last updated July 2024 | Words and photos by Vietnam Coracle

Tom Divers is the founder and creator of Vietnam Coracle. He’s lived, travelled and worked in Vietnam since 2005. Born in London, he travelled from an early age, visiting over 40 countries (he first visited Vietnam in 1999). Now, whenever he has the opportunity to make a trip, he rarely looks beyond Vietnam’s borders and his trusty motorbike, Stavros. Read more about Tom on the About Page, Vietnam Times and ASE Podcast.

The stretch of coastline between the central cities of Huế and Đồng Hới is completely overlooked by most travellers and roadtrippers, leaving nearly 200km of beaches and coast roads practically empty. Characterized by calm blue seas and long arcs of bright sand where fishermen pull up their svelte-looking wood-and-weave canoes, the Tomb Rider route utilizes a combination of newly paved roads, bumpy concrete back-roads and a few kilometres of red-dirt tracks to stay as close to the ocean as possible while navigating a sprawling coastline strewn with traditional, royal-style tombs. The southern half in particular features thousands of elaborately decorated tombs scattered across the sandy landscape between the ocean and the plains. Leading from the old imperial citadel in Huế to the laid-back coastal city of Đồng Hới, gateway to the caves of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, this coastal route is best suited to travellers who like their beaches empty, undeveloped and local.

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TOMB RIDER COAST ROAD

Empty Coastal Backroads between the Central Cities of Huế & Đồng Hới

In this guide, I’ve included an annotated route map, at-a-glance details of the road trip, an overview of important considerations, such as distance, duration, weather, accommodation, etc, and a description of the journey with illustrations throughout. Click from the contents below and, if you find this guide or any other content on my website useful, please donate.

CONTENTS:

Route Map

Overview & Details

The Route

Related Routes

Support My Website
Please donate or become a patron if you enjoy my work. Vietnam Coracle is totally free & independent. I do not receive payment for anything I write.
Thank you, Tom

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ROUTE MAP:

Tomb Rider Coast Road | 195km

Blue Line: Main Route | Red Line: Alternative/Return Route

*Road Safety & Disclaimer: Riding a motorbike in Vietnam – or anywhere in the world – has its dangers. I would hope & expect anyone who chooses to pursue a self-drive road trip based on the information on this website does so with care, respect & due diligence. I encourage careful riding & adherence to road rules, but I am not responsible for the legality or manner in which you ride, nor any negative consequences which may result from your decision to ride a motorbike in Vietnam: you do so at your own risk. Read more >

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Overview & Details:

Below is a brief at-a-glance overview of the Tomb Rider Coast Road, followed by more specific details about important considerations, such as weather, duration, road conditions, accommodation, traffic, and more:

QUICK DETAILS:

• Route: one-way or round-trip from Huế to Đồng Hới on coastal back-roads
• Distance: 195km (one way), 380km (loop)
• Duration: 1-3 days
• Scenery: long stretches of empty sand beaches, extensive ‘tomb-scapes’, fishing villages
• Attractions: beaches, sea swimming, vast open spaces, DMZ & war-related sites, fishing hamlets
• Road Conditions: good newly paved provincial roads, bumpy concrete back-roads, some dirt sections
• Best Time: April-September

ABOUT THIS ROUTE:

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Start/End & Connecting Routes: On my map I have chosen to start/end the route at the imperial citadel in Huế and the old ruined riverside church in Đồng HớI. However, you can start/end the route wherever you like and obviously it can be ridden in either direction – it makes no difference. The Tomb Rider Coast Road (the blue line on my map) can be ridden one-way or as a loop by taking the Eastern Ho Chi MInh Road (the red line on my map) for the return journey. A much longer loop can be created by taking the spectacular inland route via the Western Ho Chi Road between Phong Nha, Khe Sanh and A Lưới.

Distance & Duration: 1-3 days is all you need to complete the Tomb Rider coastal route, either one-way or return. The coast road (the blue line on my map) is only 195km, making it rideable in one day. However, two days gives you more time to appreciate the scenery and stop to find and explore empty beaches. With 2-3 days you could easily complete a loop, either by retracing the coastal route or taking the alternative (and faster) inland route via the Eastern Ho Chi MInh Road (the red line on my map) which would make a 380km round-trip.

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Road Conditions & Traffic: Traffic is very light and road surfaces are mostly good. However, there are some old, bumpy sections and a few kilometres of red-dirt track, particularly at the north of the route. In addition, some small sections were under repair at the time of writing. Generally, none of this should be a problem for most riders and most bikes, unless there has been very heavy rainfall, in which case the dirt-road sections may become impassable.

Weather & Time of Year: The best conditions are during the spring and summer months (April-September) when the weather is hot and dry (most of the time) and the sea is calm and velvety. During the autumn and winter months (October-March), this region can be surprisingly cold, grey and grim, and winds churn the sea into a Hokusai-esque scene of white froth and towering waves.

Gas Stations: Filling up shouldn’t be a problem on this route: there are gas stations at fairly regularly intervals throughout, but don’t let your fuel gauge get too low before looking for a station.

Accommodation & Food: Seafood is a highlight of the Tomb Rider Coast Road: look for beachside eateries near the road with signs saying quán ăn hải sản. There are also plenty of rice and noodle joints (cơm-phở) along the way. The dining and drinking options in Huế and Đồng Hới are increasingly plentiful – check out our Hue Food Guide and Hue Nightlife Guide. When it comes to accommodation, there are simple mini-hotels and local guest houses (nhà nghỉ) in all of the cities, towns and villages marked on my map with a red pin. However, the greatest range of accommodation can be found in Huế and Đồng Hới, which have everything from dirt-cheap hostels to luxury five-star resorts. Alternatively, if you have your own tent, camping is an option on the wide, empty beaches.

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The Route:

Huế→Đồng Hới via Coastal Backroads | 195km

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Leave the former imperial capital of Huế in the early morning. Huế is a relatively languid city by Vietnamese standards, but it can still get busy and clogged in the morning rush hour. Leaving early will avoid a chaotic start to this road trip. What’s more, the city looks its best in the fresh morning light: illuminating the trees along the Perfume River and the old stone walls of the royal ramparts and palaces and gateways. Huế is still one of the more aesthetically pleasing of Vietnam’s urban centres.

Heading due north, the urbanity of Huế quickly morphs into semi-rural, riverside scenes. Little allotments and vegetable gardens grow by bodies of water – canals, streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, lagoons: the province of Thừa Thiên Huế is a watery world. In good weather, these scenes are warm and attractive: a benevolent countryside, bountiful and docile. But in the winter months, when typhoons sweep in from the East Sea and lash the low, flat, defenseless coastline, it feels vulnerable, fragile and cold.

Before reaching Thuận An, Road QL49B veers northwest, crossing the Perfume River first and then the Tam Giang Lagoon on new bridges. Indeed, there is an even newer bridge currently under construction that will link Thuận An with the opposite bank of the Perfume River estuary in the very near future (probably 2025). As soon as you reach the countryside, tombs start to appear by the roadside and waterways. From monochromatic sarcophagi nestled in wet rice paddies, to colourfully-painted monoliths emblazoned with dragons and serpents, shooting up from the wetlands like an exotic crop.

Across the bridges and on the other side of the peninsula, Road QL49B ploughs straight and true, following the shores of Tam Giang lagoon. Road conditions are excellent, traffic is light and the vast, flat landscape with billowing clouds hanging above it – casting great blue shadows over the fields, dykes and watering holes – is reminiscent of 17^th century Dutch landscape painting. Buffalo and cows populate the plains while school children, on their way to class dressed in white and blue uniform, flood the sandy pathways and country lanes. From here all the way to Đồng Hới, you’re unlikely to encounter any other foreign travellers, save for a handful of road-trippers and maybe a tour group visiting the Vịnh Mốc Tunnels.

After a few kilometres, bear right off QL49B towards the ocean where a paved lane stretches all the way northwest to the mouth of the Thạch Hãn River at the Cửa Việt estuary. Although this road can be a little bumpy at times, it’s easily rideable on any motorbike, and the second half of it has recently been repaved. Threading through shady groves of casuarina and eucalyptus trees, there are little concrete pathways at regular intervals leading off to the beaches. Take any of these and you’ll emerge from the trees onto seemingly endless swathes of white sand and sparkling blue sea with clusters of picturesque fishing canoes pulled up on the sand away from the surf. In general, the entire beach is deserted during the searing midday heat, save for some cattle and local fishermen. Take your time, have a swim, and wallow in the open spaces.

On the inland side of the road, the tombs are ever-present and ever more elaborate. Dotting the sand dunes behind the trees, or rising in formation on hillocks like terraced rice fields, the dead far outnumber the living in this dry, salty, sun-drenched region. But these are not ancient tombs; they’re recent. Indeed, dozens are still under construction. Vietnamese buy plots of land for their entire family and commission large mausoleums with intricate carvings and decorative motifs depicting symbolic stories. One of the most important considerations when choosing a site for a tomb is (as it was for the emperors who commissioned the famous royal tombs outside Huế) the principles of feng shui (or phong thủy in Vietnamese). Meaning literally ‘wind and water’, this is an ancient Chinese system which takes into account the lay of the land and other natural phenomena to assess the best location for a structure, among many other things.

Ride across the bridge over the Thạch Hãn River as it empties into the sea, on the other side of which is the small beach settlement of Cửa Việt. There are some good seafood restaurants (nhà hàng hải sản) along the beachfront here, and a couple of empty-looking resorts and guest houses if you need a place to stay. In good weather, the beach at Cửa Việt is excellent, with yet more picturesque slender fishing canoes and miles of empty sand. There’s also the possibility of taking a boat out to the strangely circular island of Cồn Cỏ, which has only started to attract attention in recent years (inquire at the restaurants).

Continue due north along the coast road for another 10km past more empty, casuarina-lined beaches until the road spans a second river mouth, this time the Bến Hải. A surprisingly painterly estuary with tree-lined banks and flotillas of fishing vessels, there’s a small, slightly scruffy beach resort on the other side, called Cửa Tùng. There’s a military presence here, a reminder that this river was once one of the most heavily fortified areas in the world: between 1954 and 1975 it served as the dividing line between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (to the north) and the Republic of Vietnam (to the south). There are a handful of guest houses and restaurants here if you need them.

Just a few kilometres further north up the beach, through a particularly lush and pretty stretch of coastline, is another relic of the long and painful wars of the 20^th century. The Vịnh Mốc Tunnels were dug in the late 1960s, allowing local villagers to shelter from intense bombardments from American planes. The tunnels run for 2km at a depth of over 20 metres. They sheltered hundreds of people at any one time, mostly local families, whose children were schooled in the tunnels, and whose mothers gave birth in the tunnels. Vịnh Mốc is clearly signposted from the road. Entrance is 40,000vnd, including an English-language tour of the tunnels.

From Vịnh Mốc, the road crawls northwest along the coast for a while but, at Vĩnh Thái beach, there’s a frustratingly short section of coastline that has no road. Therefore, it’s necessary to make a short detour by riding due southwest to join Highway QL1A for a few kilometres before riding back up to the coast and rejoining the beach road at Liên Tiến. From here, a small road runs along the coast past the wide empty sands of Lệ Thủy Beach. Just north of here, it’s necessary to take another short detour, this time in order to get around the enormous stalled construction site for the FLC Resort & Golf Course. Once again, it’s an easy detour down to Highway QL1A and back up to the coast again.

Road conditions are good, passing Hải Ninh Beach, but then there are a few red-dirt sections and a parallel road that was under construction at the time of research (2024). In dry conditions the dirt road is totally fine, but if there has been a lot of rain, there’s a possibility of flooding, in which case you can always just drop down to Highway 1 or Nguyễn Thị Định and follow that to Đồng Hới instead.

Several kilometres before reaching Đồng Hới, the road widens into a new, four-lane expressway (called Võ Nguyên Giáp). This is Đồng Hới’s beach road, constructed with the future development of gigantic resorts in mind. So far, only a few big resorts have been constructed, and many more have been abandoned. The coast road ends at a traffic circle next to Đồng Hới’s excellent municipal beach (Bảo Ninh). To get into town, take the bridge across the Nhật Lệ River, turn right (due north) along the riverfront road until you see Nhà Thờ Tam Toà, a ruined church by the river, bombed to pieces during the war. This is the end of the Tomb Rider Coast Road.

*Disclosure: I never receive payment for anything I write: my content is always free and independent. I’ve written this guide because I want to: I like this route and I want my readers to know about it. For more details, see my Disclosure & Disclaimer statements and my About Page

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