Best known for its Citadel and history, the city of Hue in central Vietnam is a popular spot for many people travelling through Vietnam but, amongst the many historic sites scatted throughout the city, there is one very distinct, unofficial tourist attraction.
Welcome to Ho Thuy Tien, aka Hue’s Abandoned Water Park, now without stray crocodiles.
The History
Only partially complete upon launch, it seems this project was doomed from the start and it was never finished. Ho Thuy Tien Water Park opened to the Vietnamese public in 2004 at a reported cost of 70 billion Vietnamese Dong (around 3m USD). As the park later closed down, I assume it was running at a loss and cash for the project ran out. Either that, or there was a mysterious disaster which forced the closure – who knows? Abandoned ever since and now decaying and covered in graffiti, it has turned into an attraction for curious locals and backpackers interested in less conventional sites.
It’s not entirely clear when the water park closed – some sources say 2011, some 2008, others say within a couple of years of it opening, some say within the first few months. Googling “when did Ho Thuy Tien close” will tell you it closed in February 2018, but this is somewhat misleading – the park had already been abandoned for years. It wasn’t officially off limits until early 2018, when it was declared to be dangerous to visit due to the deteriorating state of the buildings.
Despite some excessive Googling, I’m none the wiser about when exactly the park closed. I don’t think the project went so badly that it closed within a year of opening as some sources say, but I haven’t found anything conclusive. At some point ownership was transferred from the original owners, state-backed enterprise Hue Capital Tourism Company, to a company called Haco Hue, which intended to restructure the site for eco-tourism but quietly abandoned the venture before any development was done.
Going further down the internet rabbit hole to Vietnam’s Company Register, it seems that Haco Hue Company Limited isn’t doing anything, with an operation status described as ‘lock’. Having no clue about Vietnamese company law, I’m not entirely sure what that status means, but the other two possibilities I have come across on their register from randomly clicking on other companies are self-explanatory – active and dissolved.
Anyway, it appears that Haco Hue, which I think has a parent company in Hanoi, has been heavily in debt for some time and the park is now being managed by the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
IMPORTANT: There are news articles from May 2020 stating that authorities in Hue are looking for investors to redevelop the site. With this in mind, it is possible that the park will disappear in the not too distant future. In the event of any work starting, entry to the park would no doubt become genuinely prohibited at that point. Having said that, a vague government redevelopment plan that require investors is something that could easily drag on for years without producing any results.
Getting to Hue’s Abandoned Water Park
Option 1 – Taxi
I visited the water park with some other travellers from my hostel – Hue Happy Homestay. We simply asked the owner about it and he said he could arrange for a taxi to take us there, wait for us then drop us off at The Citadel after. I haven’t stayed in any other hostels in Hue, but I understand quite a few of them offer similar packages where a driver will take you to the water park along with other, more conventional, attractions in Hue and wait while you explore.
Option 2 – Scooter
Alternatively, you can rent a scooter and drive there. Simply Google ‘Ho Thuy Tien’ or ‘Hue Abandoned Water Park to get the location. The park is about 8km south west from the centre of Hue.
Just to dispel a myth, there are a number of posts online about the park that state its location is some closely guarded secret, passed around between backpackers with directions scribbled down on napkins. For any articles written in the last two or three years (maybe longer) that claim this, it is total nonsense and is purely a case of some travel bloggers using their creative licence to… copy each other. In fact, this description was inspired by Alex Garland’s ‘The Beach’ – a book made famous by a film of the same name starring someone called Leonardo Di Caprio.
Tip: Some of Hue’s royal tombs are fairly nearby (the closest being Khai Dinh Tomb, less than a 10 minute drive away) so combining a trip to the park with some of the royal tombs could make for a full, fun and efficient day out. Check out my post on visiting Hue for some other places to see in the city and, for my fellow remote workers, details of coworking spaces in Hue.
Entering Ho Thuy Tien
Despite the park being officially off limits, gaining entrance is usually easy. The park has one (non-English speaking) security guard by the entrance. Luckily for us, health and safety rules and a language barrier are no match for this guy’s entrepreneurial spirit – simply approach him and he will show you a piece of paper stating the cost of entry and some basic guidelines to follow inside. Hand him the cash (20,000 VND per person) and you’re free to explore the park, at your own risk, for as long as you want.
I didn’t see it but I understand there is another entrance to the park and a guard there too. There are some stories online about visitors being refused entry but this seems to be rare. If this does happen, drive around to the other entrance or look for another way in. Alternatively, it may be that local officials were going to the park that day and the security guard will be more welcoming if you go back the next day.
Another myth to dispel – there is a rumour that the security guard(s) are actually fake and go there each day dressed up to charge tourists for entry. I don’t see how this can be true given the reports online of people being denied entry. A good hustler like that wouldn’t turn down easy money!
Exploring the Abandoned Water Park
Now, we’re getting to the good stuff. After the entrance, we walked about ten minutes along a path surrounded by overgrown vegetation until we reached the lake, where the Insta-famous dragon is perched on top of what was once an aquarium. The lake was dry when I was there in August 2019.
Naturally, we stopped to take photos, then entered the dragon and had a look around each floor. There are stairs leading up to the mouth of the dragon and it’s not so sharp teeth, where you get a view of the park. Going up to the mouth is the highlight of the interior – there isn’t much else to see inside apart from graffiti and the ruins of the aquarium.
After this, we continued exploring the rest of the park and came across various abandoned features. The most notable parts aside from the dragon are an amphitheatre, where we met a chilled stray dog, and some waterslides that you definitely do not want to slide down. Everywhere you go, you’ll see overgrown vegetation, graffiti and damage to the features, either due to vandalism or the ravages of time.
Eventually, we made it back to the lake, exited the park via the entrance we originally came through and met back up with our taxi driver. In total, it was a little under two hours between us entering the park and leaving. We stopped a number of times throughout the park, either to look around, take photos, or just relax so you could easily spend less time here and not miss anything.
While we saw very few people inside the park, I don’t think this place can really be considered as off the beaten track anymore. It has become popular enough for a couple of savvy locals to set up stalls inside the park selling colds drinks and snacks – I just bought some water, but relaxing by the lake with a beer has some appeal. Apparently, some young Vietnamese couples even come here for wedding photos. It was a Wednesday when we visited and I imagine it gets a bit busier at weekends, with locals joining in the fun.
Is it safe to visit the Abandoned Water Park?
Based on my err… highly technical risk assessment, the place seemed safe enough. Need I say any more?
On a serious note, the park was declared off limits due to safety concerns, which I’m sure were raised by people with actual knowledge on the matter. I understand the structures were deemed to be unstable, so visit at your own risk.
A few tips to stay safe if you visit:
- Wear closed shoes – there are some minor hazards around the grounds so a wrong step could result in an injury. I’ve seen a video of a girl in flip flops getting cut here by stubbing her toe.
- Bring mosquito repellent.
- Avoid going in the water. This is for your personal hygiene and dignity more than safety, but you could probably catch something.
- Don’t climb on top of the dragon!
At the time of writing, there doesn’t appear to be any reports online of anyone having a serious accident here and I can’t see how anyone would, unless they do something stupid or… they get unlucky and one of the structures breaks. As long as you pay attention as you’re walking around and don’t do anything reckless, you should be fine. Providing you don’t run into any crocodiles…
The Crocodile Story is… actually true?
There is a vague story going around that there were three crocodiles at the park (securely in the aquarium) when it was in operation and they were left abandoned along with the park, possibly in a location that became less secure over time, either due to vandalism, a lack of maintenance or something else. The story ends with them being moved by PETA to an unspecified wildlife park in north Vietnam.
I figured the crocodile story was a joke that later got spread around as fact but, after further research, I came across a couple of photos that seemed to confirm live crocodiles were at the park up to some point in 2015. First, this photo (credit: Ryan McGrath) from an old Huffington Post article about the park and a second below.
While neither of those photos show anything that proves they were actually taken in the water park, we can’t really expect the crocodiles to go waddling in front of the dragon for a photoshoot. The photographers have other pictures from Ho Thuy Tien dated early 2015, so they seem to be legit. The rubbish spread around the first photo also suggests that the location is abandoned. I came across another photo of the park (no crocodiles) from about the same time on Instagram that mentioned crocodiles in the caption. Unless the three separate photo takers were all joking (and they certainly don’t seem to be), it appears the story about live crocodiles was true.
As for how the crocodiles survived in the park, locals were apparently feeding them live chickens to keep them alive. On that morbid note, I also came across a Vietnamese news story about the park from October 2014 which included a photo of two crocodiles there. After going through Google Translate, the caption states that “Alligators raised in the lake were dead, stinking, but no one cleaned up”. Lovely. This story predates the photos so it’s possible there were more crocodiles at one point, or those two were wrongly believed to be dead by the reporter.
In any case, there are none in the park anymore, so there’s no need to worry about stray crocodiles roaming about in search of human snacks. There are a few cows that local farmers seem to have put there for grazing, but they’re not so threatening.
Finally, is the Abandoned Water Park worth visiting?
It’s definitely worth a visit if you’re interested in exploring more unusual sites. Of course, the park is supposed to be inaccessible due to safety concerns so you go at your own risk.
Overall, it was a fun bit of urban exploration and completely different from the experiences you get visiting the conventional attractions in Hue.
[…] made for an fun bit of urban exploration. I have written a separate post with details about the park and how to get […]