Tam Dao turns ghost town over coronavirus fears

Tam Dao, or ‘three islands’ in Vietnamese, located 90 kilometers southeast of Hanoi, is a highly popular hill resort in Vinh Phuc Province, northern Vietnam. It is considered a mini version of Da Lat, the nation’s premier hill resort in the Central Highlands, with cool climate all year round (average temperatures of 20-22 degrees Celsius).

However, since Vinh Phuc was the hardest hit locality by the Covid-19 epidemic, with 11 of the total 16 infections recorded nationwide, people from other parts of the country have been giving it a wide berth.

Authorities locked down the province’s Son Loi Commune on February 13. Tam Dao is just 10 km from the commune in Binh Xuyen District, where eight locals were infected. Seven of them have since been discharged from the hospital. But the province’s epidemic status and its proximity to the locked-down commune has seen a steep plunge in the number of tourists flocking to the town, turning Tam Dao into an eerily quiet place with a haunted look.

At 8.20 a.m. last Friday, not a single person was seen in the town’s central square.

This is a far cry from a town touted regularly as a great weekend escape for capital city residents even since the French established it as a resort site late in the 19th century.

The entrance to Tam Dao is cloaked in clouds, fog and mystery. A banner strung between the two trees reminds everyone to be hygienic, and wash hands frequently as a safety measure against the novel coronavirus. 

Hotels, hostels and other accommodation providers have no guests to cater to.

Major streets in the town, always bustling with locals and tourists irrespective of weather conditions, are empty. Most locals are also staying at home. 

The old stone church, an iconic destination usually teeming with people, is also deserted, like the rest of the town.

In February 2019, Tam Dao welcomed more than 26,000 visitors. But in the first 20 days of February this year, the town welcomed nearly 1,500 guests. 

A street-side eatery in the town is left empty at around 7 p.m., a peak hour.  

"Tam Dao is usually only deserted from the afternoon of Lunar New Year's Eve and the first day of the New Year. Never have we witnessed such prolonged desolation," said Hoai, owner of the eatery.

Downtown Tam Dao has 125 accommodation establishments - 50 hotels, 27 homestay facilities and 48 guesthouses, with a total of nearly 2,400 rooms.

"This time and summer are the busiest season when the hotels here are mostly full. If guests come without a reservation made a week earlier, they will not find any place to stay. Now, we are offering rates of just VND300,000 ($13) a day for two people, but we still do not get any guests," said Nguyen Van Truong, a hotel employee.

Wild peach blossoms, a local attraction, are still blooming in the mist. But the atmosphere is one of gloom. Sometimes, walking along the town’s winding roads, the silence is broken by the the sounds of people singing karaoke inside their homes.

Vietnam has so far recorded 16 novel coronavirus infections, of whom 15 have recovered.

The global death toll of the Covid-19 outbreak has reached more than 2,400 and infections topped over 78,000, mainly in China.