Ha Tien Ten Sceneries: Mui Nai - Loc Tri Village

"Loc is deer, Tri is mountain tip. Loc Tri is Mui Nai. Village is a residential village. Because there is Mui Nai mountain here, the residential village is called Mui Nai hamlet, officially written as Loc Tri village, so Mac Thien Tich named it Loc Tri village". Poet Dong Ho explained the poem Loc Tri village in the collection of Ha Tien Thap Vinh by Mac Thien Tich like that.

The Story of the Lost Deer

However, later, researcher Truong Minh Dat had a different explanation. According to him, the oldest name of Mui Nai was Pu Nay. Pu means mountain, Nay means big, which means Big Mountain. Vietnamese people read Nay as Nai. During the time of Mac Thien Tich, people translated the word Nai into Chinese characters as Loc. That Big Mountain is Den Roi Mountain, the Khmer people call it Phnom P'Nay, and the locals call it Ba Nay. According to him, Vietnamese people had come to live in this land before the time of Mac Cuu coming to Ha Tien.

Mui Nai Beach now

PHOTO: HOANG PHUONG

But to convincingly explain the name Loc Tri, later people created a story about a lost fawn. Legend has it that, since ancient times, this land was vast with water and sky. There was a fawn that often visited this place to drink water. Then one day, because he was so fascinated by the beautiful scenery of Ha Tien, the fawn could not return in time before the forest gate closed. The fawn had to wander back to the beach to walk. Suddenly, at night, there was a strong wind, big waves crashed in, causing the fawn to collapse and turn into a rock lying on the beach. That rock was the protrusion of Ta Pang mountain…

Nai Mountain next to the beach

Tourist services at Mui Nai beach

In the early 20th century, Loc Tri village was not yet a beach. This was just a hamlet with many Chinese residents who specialized in making traps for fishing in the open sea. Today, there is still a place called Bai No at the foot of Den Mountain. The majority of Vietnamese people worked in the fields and gardens, their hands and feet covered in mud. During the rice season, they planted rice, and after the rice season, they planted sugarcane, corn, beans, potatoes, melons, watermelons, etc. The article "Ha Tien Scenery" published in Nam Phong Magazine (issue 150-1930) said that in December, watermelons in Loc Tri village were transported to Ha Tien market for sale. In July, there were sweet potatoes, especially Loc Tri sweet potatoes with red flesh, small tubers but sweet, and were sold by the quintal, each quintal costing 2 or 3 dong depending on the type...

Mui Nai has beautiful beaches.

Until the 1950s, Mui Nai beach was still wild. According to the description in Nam Phong Magazine, on the beach there were only a few thatched houses selling refreshments. Near the beach there was a round thatched hut with a few chairs for tourists to sit and watch the sea, and a long hut with tables for guests to eat and drink and a place to change clothes for beachgoers. The favorite refreshment here was coconut water. Around 1962, due to the effects of the war, some tourist attractions in Ha Tien were banned, and people were not allowed to visit. Mui Nai beach became deserted.

Mui Nai is now a tourist area with a front and back beach. Since 2020, the Ha Tien government has invested hundreds of billions of dong in pumping white sand to improve the beaches, making the sand cleaner to attract tourists. Many services have been opened for tourists, such as restaurants, entertainment activities such as mountain sleds, canoe rental services for fishing, canoe surfing, parasailing, jet skiing... A street photographer said that the canoe surfing service is doing well, although the price is quite high: 100,000 VND/person. On Ta Pang mountain, there is a "tube sled" system that pulls up to the top of the mountain. There is a lookout tower so that visitors can admire the beautiful scenery of Mui Nai.

Hundred years of Nai Mountain Lighthouse

Nui Den Road was put into operation in early 2024 with a length of more than 3 km, currently considered the most beautiful coastal road in Ha Tien. The entire route has rows of winding poplar trees, one side is the mountainside, the other side is the coast. On both sides of the road there are sidewalks for visitors to walk or sit and rest while watching the sea.

Den Mountain, also known as Den Roi Mountain, or Ba Nay Mountain, is located next to the coast, about 1 km from the front beach of Mui Nai tourist area, the center of Mui Nai peninsula. This area has 2 mountains about 300 m apart, called Small Den Mountain and Big Den Mountain, but the height is not much different. The lighthouse was built on Small Den Mountain.

According to old documents, the Nui Den lighthouse was built by the French in 1896. It was a third-class lighthouse, with white light and a range of about 30 kilometers, serving a fairly large area of ​​Ha Tien sea. In the past, the French colonial government also appointed a manager at the Nui Den lighthouse station. The Indochina directory published by the French recorded the names of those responsible for keeping the Nui Den lighthouse, such as Mr. M. Natte in 1912 or Mr. Pierre Chapuis... whose Vietnamese wife bought the gold hairpin dug up from the tomb of Mrs. Nguyen, mentioned in the article The Thrilling Story on Binh San Mountain .

By 1956, Ha Tien became a district of Kien Giang province. At that time, the administrative agencies of the old Ha Tien province moved to Rach Gia province, the lighthouse in Nui Den was also dismantled, no longer in operation, and no documents have mentioned it since then. Since 2000, Nui Den lighthouse was restored, recorded as Nui Nai lighthouse station. This lighthouse is part of the Phu Quoc - Mui Nai - Hon Khoai lighthouse system. (continued)

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ha-tien-thap-canh-mui-nai-loc-tri-thon-cu-185250927203852673.htm