QUANG BINH – Thanh Tuan felt like he was lost in a forgotten paradise when he went to Yen Phu Lake, where the movie Kong: Skull Island was filmed.

Nguyen Thanh Tuan , 36 years old, in Ho Chi Minh City, stopped at Yen Phu lake , Trung Hoa commune, Minh Hoa district, Quang Binh province, during a camping trip across Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh trail at the end of July. According to research, Tuan knew that this was one of the filming locations for Kong: Skull Island , so he was very curious and wanted to experience it firsthand.

Yen Phu Lake has a wild, majestic and beautiful landscape, but few tourists know it because it is located on Ho Chi Minh Road, with few houses and winding hills. “There are no restaurants along the way to eat and drink, no gas stations …”, Tuan said. Therefore, Tuan compares Yen Phu Lake to a forgotten paradise.

Visitors here turn from the national highway and continue to move 2 km concrete road. The location is close to many famous tourist sites such as Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park , Nuoc Mooc stream , so if you have time, you can spend a few hours a day here camping and relaxing.

As soon as we arrived, it was also time when it started to rain heavily, Tuan and his friends had to take shelter from the rain, wait for it to stop, and then set up a camping tent. However, that was also the time when the fog-like clouds drifted between the limestone mountains, “looks even more beautiful than the movie scene I’ve seen”, Tuan said.

Because there are no homestays around, there are no tourist services, so visitors have to prepare everything. This makes Tuan feel like a character in the movie King Kong, exploring a new land. “The experience is that you should go in groups to support each other, the luggage is light. The place is dusty, deserted, suitable for people who like to experience and especially not afraid of ghosts, not afraid of empty places,” Tuan laughed.

The water in the lake is clear, not too deep. Tuan tried swimming and felt very comfortable, immersing himself in the space without people and imagining like he was in the movie. The view was vast but strangely quiet, he could even hear the flapping of a bird’s wings in the distance. Camping here, he still remembers the way to the muddy rainy season lawn, or the white water lily on the lake surface.

Talking about safe experiences when camping in empty places, Tuan said that if you keep an optimistic and positive spirit, people will welcome and help you wherever you go. “If 5 years ago I was still afraid of deserted and wild places, now I am not. I see that the fear is because of me, I have to believe in the honesty of the people. I have not been in danger in the past few years. or any incident, because no one did anything to me,” he said.

Photo: internet