Review: Six Senses Con Dao

Why book?

For a mind and body reset that not even a long-haul flight home could undo, in one of southeast Asia’s most naturally abundant archipelagos.

Set the scene

The ocean’s rhythmic waves crash over an unspoiled, wheat-gold stretch of sand. Hemming the washboard sandbars dotted with scurrying crabs are ancient sea almond trees, swaying palms, creaking bamboo and the staggering Elephant Mountain, on whose back the sun sets each evening. We kick off our shoes (and sullenly retrieve them six days later) to run down the ten stone steps from our airy beachfront villa, straight into the sea. The salty water is the perfect temperature, softening our skin over the next week in ways that, simply put, no spa ever could. (But more on the spa shortly). Following our 15-hour journey, we prop our feet up on a wooden sand-dusted backgammon board and order a mid-morning brunch of black Vietnamese coffee, homemade aged kombucha, green papaya salad topped with mud crab, and summer rolls stuffed with prawns, roughly-cut rice noodles and every herb under the sun from the hotel’s prolific garden. To classify this place as a resort doesn’t feel right: it’s too intimate, and too integrated in the lush ecosystem that surrounds it. In a way, it could be coined the hotel equivalent to quiet luxury, where your masseuse is (casually) a 5th generation Ayurvedic doctor, the oyster and enoki mushrooms in your pho are grown in a shed behind the open-air gym, and the villa’s deep-set bathtub and infinity pool overlooking the horizon are juxtaposed with a rustic outdoor shower, where the cicadas loudly outsing the rushing water. We sleep like rocks in a ylang-ylang scented bed, but the act of touching down here alone is an instant antidote to jet lag.

The backstory

Deemed Vietnam’s hidden paradise off the mainland’s south coast, the Con Dao archipelago is under an hour’s chartered or commercial flight from Ho Chi Minh City, with Con Son, the largest of the 16 islands, being home to the Six Senses. Here, sustainability isn’t just a selling point – it’s the hotel’s whole ethos, and rightly so given its rooting in a national marine park. Founded in 2010, this ecolodge’s existence is now inextricable from its commitment to protecting marine life – most notably the area’s endangered green sea turtles. In 2018, the hotel and Con Dao National Park came together to create an in-resort “Let’s Get Cracking” incubation centre and since then, almost thirty thousand baby turtles have been released into the ocean. While the hotel has clearly been ahead of the wellness curve through its rethinking of healing through wildlife conservation, its definition of wellness is ever expanding, and the spa (finished in late 2024) is its newest chapter in connecting guests with the local environment.

The rooms

The teak and bamboo villas lining the shore blend so seamlessly into the tropical forest, they only come into view up-close. You can access these via the beach or by a winding foot and bike path (n.b. The sweetest part of arriving is the wooden plaque hanging off each bicycle’s handlebars, engraved with your name). The villas are incredibly private and a skinny dipper’s dream: it feels like there’s no one else here. From the downstairs open-air bathroom to the top floor bedroom, where a mosquito net canopy floats dreamily around a centre-of-the-room king, the roar of the ocean is omnipresent, creating a constant state of zen – and its absence upon leaving is a poignant snap back to reality. The villas all have direct beach access, private pools, LCD televisions and BOSE soundsystems (though we can’t bring ourselves to turn either on). The most thoughtful details, from ceramic aloe vera dispensers to giant urns of water with wooden ladles to wash your feet after beach walks (which are found throughout the hotel) enable and encourage spontaneity. You could in theory spend a happy holiday without leaving your own personal haven: after all, in-villa dining and colourful floating breakfasts are very much an option. We celebrate a birthday from our balcony in terrycloth robes, finding dark chocolate-covered mango slices and champagne thoughtfully laid out. The staff have sleep down to a fine art: sheets are subtly imbued with local essential oils, calming go-away-mosquito incense pots are lit in the corners of the room before bedtime, and I learn only late in my stay that I had mistaken natural ventilation for effective air conditioning (which is used even in the gym).

Food and drink

Whenever I’m on holiday for more than a few days, I typically look forward to returning home to my coffee and local delis – but felt none of that here. Perhaps because this is a place for rituals, where you’ll quickly develop favourites to return to over again. The food is nourishing in every sense of the word, dished out in authentic clay pots and ceramic bowls at the hotel’s woodsy By The Market kitchen and By The Beach restaurant. Anyone, I guarantee, who claims to not be a breakfast person will be converted – yes by the coffee, but also by the open air bar serving up local specialties like bánh cuốn, freshly steamed pork and veg rice rolls, and above all, the Cold Room, where a picture of my first breakfast elicits a text from a friend back home: “that bowl definitely cures anything you’ve got.” In this room overlooking the ocean (which doubles as a wine cellar for private dinners) lies a table with an endless bounty of antioxidants: fluorescent pitaya, jackfruit, hempseeds, bee pollen, matcha yoghurt, cacao, papaya slices, Brazil nuts, moringa, baobab, lychee honey, chlorella. Missing breakfast here is just not an option. While By The Market and its adjoining Elephant Bar are the best spots for authentic dishes, from local fish wrapped in banana leaf to bánh mì or coriander and ginger-infused congee, the magic of a dinner By The Beach – which you can walk to or from down a stretch of starlit sand – can’t be beat. While the entrees here are more contemporary, they make almost full use of local ingredients, and we order the chargrilled Con Dao scallops, squid ink vongole and slipper lobster salad on repeat.

The neighbourhood/area

Although the immaculately combed beach might say otherwise, this is the wilderness. Whether you’re trekking up House Peak or Elephant Mountain or exploring one of the area’s secluded beaches, the island is alive as ever. On our first bike ride down the coastal route, families of monkeys (the babies adoring and mothers eagle-eyed) watch us whiz by and “the bravest dogs in the world”, as our guide christens them, sunbathe lazily in the middle of the road. The hotel is a boat ride or drive away from some beautiful snorkelling spots, where we swim over reefs of every texture; five kilometers from the resort is the town of Con Son, where we drink coconut iced Vietnamese coffee at the May Bistro, which hosts live gigs in the evenings, and walk through a bustling local market serving up everything from dried seaweed to candied sea almonds (also a Six Senses staple). On our drive to town, we pass by Con Son’s cloud-wrapped Buddhist temple and the crumbling, now empty prisons where many Vietnamese continue to honour the island’s somber past – and its political prisoners – over a century of French colonisation.

Wellness

Any wellbeing enthusiast could make the tranquil spa and wellness “village” reason alone to fly here. Though this jungle-wrapped part of the hotel is just across from the beachfront, it’s an ecosystem in itself: serpentine wooden ramps crisscross a pond dotted with picture-book lilypads leading to a meditation sala, a yoga pavilion, an alchemy bar (we roam around sipping local butterfly flower tea), and a sauna overlooking the verdant canopy. Offering everything from reflexology to ayurvedic rejuvenation and sleep enhancement, it’s nearly impossible to choose a treatment. But after settling for a post-flight detox massage (which involves suction cupping and bamboo cane muscle tension release) any puffiness is instantly gone, and I spend the rest of the evening reading on a dock surrounded by singing frogs and crickets.

The private sunrise yoga on my last morning is somewhat life changing. (I say this as a longtime evader of yoga classes – no matter how great the rep of the studio). My session with Sandeep Uniyal, a global specialist in Hatha, Nidra, and mindfulness yoga, begins at 7:30 am and leaves me feeling like I’ve left the most productive therapy session, invigorating strength class, and meditation hour all at once. It makes me realise that, back in my urban home of grippy socks, Alo leggings and five-pound turmeric shots (all things Sandeep deems commercial and more or less irrelevant to the actual practice of yoga) I arrived with no concept of what it was all about. “Free yourself from what you know,” Sandeep reminds me as I stretch in the early morning sun. I still think about this.

The staff

Kind and helpful. It sounds simple but these two key ingredients make the experience pretty close to perfect. From the moment you land on the A4 sheet-sized runway to your departure, you’ll have a Guest Experience Maker (GEM) by your side who you’ll quickly become on first-name basis with. They even pack a lunch for your journey home, reminiscent of school days (if school involved lobster and goji berry salad).

For families

Not only is this place suitable for families, but the space it gives families to just be – kids splashing through the water as parents watch the sunset from their balcony, siblings toppling over waves on body boards – is heartwarming. The hotel is intimate enough that you’ll recognise other guests and always say hello. The kids’ programme offers a variety of “Grow With Six Senses” workshops rooted in wellness and creativity, like soap making with recycled ingredients, and has a gorgeous staff-supervised playroom for the younger set.

Eco effort

It’s hard not to raise eyebrows at any hotel that makes sweeping sustainability claims, but the Six Senses is astonishingly genuine in their eco effort. Here, natural ventilation is used in lieu of air conditioning, each villa is equipped with flashlights to avoid light pollution on your nightly walk to dinner (which also just makes it feel more special), saunas are turned on upon request and single-use plastics are quite literally nowhere to be seen. The hotel has a small glass water bottle recycling facility, rooftop and land gardens bursting with sea spinach, purple chillies, mint, Vietnamese basil and sweet potato leaves, and almost everything on your plate can be found growing (or swimming) within a few metres. The team is constantly seeking ways to be sustainable through creative and engaging activities; there might be no better example of this than “Feed the Fish Golf”, which allows golfers to swing from a spectacular viewpoint at balls that dissolve into fish food.

Accessibility

The hotel has connecting ramps for wheelchair access throughout the property (including the spa, restaurants and beach) and carts to bring you from point A to B at any time.

Anything left to mention

This is the kind of place where it’s extremely tempting to just do one thing and stick to it. Never leave the spa. Never leave the poolside. Never stop ordering that one plate of scallops on the shell. But do try it all.

Is it worth it?

It fits the bill as much for a best friends’ getaway as it does for a honeymoon or family vacation to remember. In other words – yes.

Scott Dunn offers four nights at Six Senses Con Dao, Vietnam, from £3,900 based on two people sharing on a B&B basis and includes return flights from the UK and private transfers. For more information, please visit www.scottdunn.com or call 020 3468 9752.