Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [2]
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Where to go
The “Hanoi or bust” attitude, prompting new arrivals to doggedly labour between the country’s two major cities, no matter how limited their time, blights many a trip to Vietnam. If you want to travel the length of the country at some leisure, see something of the highlands and the deltas and allow for a few rest days, you’ll really need a month. With only two weeks at your disposal, the choice is either to hopscotch up the coast calling at only the most mainstream destinations or, perhaps better, to concentrate on one region and enjoy it at your own pace. However, if you do want to see both north and south in a fortnight, internal flights can speed up an itinerary substantially, and aren’t too expensive.
For the majority of visitors, Ho Chi Minh City provides a head-spinning introduction to Vietnam. Set beside the broad swell of the Saigon River, the southern capital is rapidly being transformed into a Southeast Asian mover and shaker to compete with the best of them. The city’s breakneck pace of life translates into a stew of bizarre characters and unlikely sights and sounds, and ensures that almost all who come here quickly fall for its singular charm. Furious commerce carries on cheek-by-jowl with age-old traditions; grandly indulgent colonial edifices peek out from under the shadows of looming office blocks and hotels; and cyclo drivers battle it out with late-model Japanese taxis in the chaotic boulevards.
Few tourists pass up the opportunity to take a day-trip out of the city to Tay Ninh, the nerve centre of the indigenous Cao Dai religion. The jury is still out on whether the ostentatious Cao Dai Holy See constitutes high art or dog’s dinner, but either way it’s one of Vietnam’s most arresting sights, and is normally twinned with a stop-off at the Cu Chi Tunnels, where Vietnamese villagers dug themselves a warren stretching over two hundred kilometres, out of reach of US bombing.
Hmong minority people
Most tourists next venture southwest to explore the Mekong Delta, where one of the world’s truly mighty rivers finally offloads into the South China Sea; its skein of brim-full tributaries and waterways has endowed the delta with a lush quilt of rice-rich flats and abundant orchards. You won’t want to depart the delta without spending a day or more messing about on the water and visiting a floating market, which is easily arranged at Cai Be and Can Tho.
Rice planting near Can Tho
Da Lat, the “capital” of the central highlands, is chalk to Ho Chi Minh City’s cheese. Life passes by at a rather more dignified pace at this altitude, and the raw breezes that fan this oddly quaint hillside settlement provide the best air conditioning in Vietnam. Minority peoples inhabit the countryside around Da Lat, but to visit some really full-on montagnard villages you’ll need to push north to the modest towns of Buon Ma Thuot, Plei Ku and Kon Tum, which are surrounded by E De, Jarai and Bahnar communities. Opt for Kon Tum, and you’ll be able to visit minority villages independently or join treks that include river-rafting.
Northeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Highway 1, the country’s jugular, girds its loins for the arduous journey up to Hanoi and the north. For many people, first stop is at the delightful beach and sand dunes of Mui Ne, fast becoming one of the country’s top coastal resorts. Another popular spot is Phan Rang, which is blessed with some of the most splendid examples of the Cham towers that punctuate Vietnam’s south-central coast. Nha Trang has grown into a crucial stepping stone on the Ho Chi Minh City – Hanoi run, and the tirelessly touted boat trips around the city’s outlying islands are a must. North of Nha Trang, Son My village attained global notoriety when a company