Nha Trang
— — the bay the South China Sea bends to make.
Not only on a wall.
“A long curve of sand on the South China Sea, about six kilometres of beach along Nha Trang Bay. The Cham Po Nagar towers, built between the 8th and 11th centuries, sit on a low hill at the mouth of the Cai River north of the city. Fishing boats blue and red work the bay at dawn; resort towers rise behind the promenade. The seafood is mostly squid and snapper, eaten close to where it landed.
Nha Trang, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Nha Trang is the capital of Khánh Hòa Province on Vietnam's south-central coast, about 440 kilometres northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. The municipal area holds a population near 535,000 and a six-kilometre crescent beach along Nha Trang Bay, sheltered by Hòn Tre and a chain of smaller islands. The city sits on the Cai River where it empties into the bay; the bay itself was named one of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World by the club of that name in 2003, an event the city still marks on signage along the promenade.
Po Nagar is a complex of Cham Hindu towers on Cù Lao hill, two kilometres north of central Nha Trang, built and rebuilt between the 8th and 11th centuries under the kingdom of Champa. The principal tower, twenty-three metres tall, is dedicated to the goddess Yan Po Nagar, a Cham form of Bhagavati. Four towers survive of an original eight; the brickwork is laid without visible mortar, a technique Cham builders kept as a craft secret. Local Cham and Vietnamese Buddhists still leave offerings inside the sanctuary.
Nha Trang Bay is sheltered by nineteen islands, the largest being Hòn Tre. A marine protected area surrounds Hòn Mun, the small island at the bay's southern edge, established in 2001 as Vietnam's first marine reserve and home to about 350 species of hard coral. Day boats run from Cau Da port at the city's south end; the water reads clearest from April to August, before the autumn typhoon season. Visibility drops sharply once the first October storms come through.