Being acknowledged as the “hell on earth” in Vietnam, Con Dao prison located on Con Lon Island, Con Dao District, Ba Ria Vung Tau Province is the system of prisons built by the French in order to contain particularly dangerous jails for colonialism. So far, thanks to the efforts of people on the island together with the Con Dao authorities, they have made this place become a tourist attraction to Vietnamese next generations and international friends visiting Vietnam to directly explore direness of the wars and truly blowing their minds about this prison hell on earth.
Annually in Con Dao there are about 50,000 visitors to visit and discover the beautiful island significantly closed with hardships of Vietnamese soldiers and people from the wars. Besides the beautiful pristine beaches, attractive coral reefs in tropical jungle, Con Dao prison is also the place to be chosen by many visitors to directly witness many tragic historical traces of the wars.With an area of only 52 square kilometers, there are eight prisons on the island. According to information available since the French colonial built, the prison from 1862 to 1975 detained 200,000 prisoners, most were political prisoners and 20,000 of them died at that time.
In the nineteenth century, Con Dao was restored to be a museum, where it was recorded and also evidence of the cruel crimes committed by the French colonialists and the US henchmen. The French prison system consists of detention centers such as Bagne I (Phu Hai camp), Bagne II (Phu Son camp), Bagne III (Phu Tho camp – Secondary school), Bagne III Tiger Cage. Most visitors to the camps feel shivering and frightened because of the hot and stuffy rooms and the forms of horrific and inhuman torture tools used to torture Vietnamese people.
Let’s discover the hell on earth, Con Dao prison to truly understand about the dire wars in Vietnam from the past!
Other attractions in Con Dao: Con Son Bay, Phu Tuong camp (French Tiger case), Con Dao museum, Whitestone Lighthouse ..
