Amanoi Sits Between a Dry Forest and One of Vietnam’s Quietest Bays

Amanoi opened in September 2013 on Vietnam’s south-central coast, in Ninh Thuan Province, becoming Aman’s 26th property worldwide and its first in Vietnam. The resort sits on roughly 100 acres between two contrasting landscapes: Nui Chua National Park, one of the few places left in Vietnam and Southeast Asia with an intact dry deciduous forest ecosystem, and Vinh Hy Bay, a sheltered stretch of coast on the country’s East Sea shoreline still largely free of the resort development found further north around Nha Trang and Da Nang.

A resort built around a Vietnamese communal hall

The Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy of the Kuala Lumpur-based practice Denniston designed Amanoi’s 31 villas and its Central Pavilion, taking the form of a traditional Vietnamese đình, or communal hall, as its starting reference rather than importing an unrelated style onto the site. The result is a low, open structure that keeps sightlines through to the East Sea and the dry, scrub-covered hills behind it, with the villas arranged up the hillside so that nearly all of them keep a private view rather than facing each other.

A rare dry landscape by Vietnamese standards

Ninh Thuan is Vietnam’s driest province, with a semi-arid climate that supports vegetation found almost nowhere else in the country, and Nui Chua National Park, which wraps around the resort, was recognised by UNESCO as a World Biosphere Reserve in April 2022 for that dry forest ecosystem and for the sea turtle nesting beaches and coral reefs along its coast. It is a markedly different setting from the tropical, palm-lined image most travellers associate with coastal Vietnam.

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What’s within reach beyond the resort

Vinh Hy Bay itself is used for boat trips out to the coral reef areas protected within the national park, and the ancient Cham brick towers at Po Klong Garai, near the provincial capital Phan Rang-Thap Cham, are a short drive inland, a reminder that this stretch of coast was part of the Champa kingdom for centuries before it became Vietnamese territory. It is this combination, a five-star resort with genuinely little else built around it, that has set Amanoi apart from Vietnam’s more developed coastal resort belts since it opened.

Traveller tips

• Cam Ranh International Airport, serving Nha Trang, is the nearest airport with regular international connections, roughly a two-hour drive from the resort.
• Ninh Thuan’s dry season runs from roughly January to August, with the short wet season concentrated in the last months of the year.
• Boat trips into Vinh Hy Bay’s protected coral areas are typically arranged through the resort rather than independently, given the marine reserve rules.
• The Po Klong Garai Cham towers are an easy half-day trip inland and one of the better-preserved Cham religious sites in Vietnam.