Ho Chi Minh City or Hue?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Hue gets you to the sand far more easily. Thuan An's long, plain strip lies about 15km out where the Perfume River meets the sea. The lovelier curve of sand at Lang Co, between a lagoon and the sea, is a little over an hour away. Both are good for swimming from spring through summer.

Ho Chi Minh City's nearest shore is the grey mangrove mud of Can Gio. The closest real beach is at Vung Tau, two hours away, where the water is often cloudy and the sand busy with city crowds at weekends. In practice, swimming there means a hotel or rooftop pool.

Ho Chi Minh City offers far more range. Sweet, herb-heavy southern cooking runs from banh mi carts to whole streets of shellfish stalls, Cholon has its own Chinese-Vietnamese cuisine, and the coffee, from drip over condensed milk to coconut coffee, is a ritual in itself. Above street level there are modern Vietnamese restaurants, French bistros and the international scene of Thao Dien.

Hue's cooking is narrower but very distinctive. It comes from the imperial kitchens and is spicier and saltier, with bun bo Hue, delicate rice cakes and clam rice from the river. Its pagodas have also left a strong Buddhist vegetarian tradition. Outside the staged royal banquets, though, there is little foreign food and almost no fine dining.

Hue holds the deeper heritage. The walled citadel of the Nguyen dynasty, with the Ngo Mon gate, the Thai Hoa throne hall and the scarred ground of 1968, is a world of its own. Upriver, the tombs of Tu Duc, Minh Mang and Khai Dinh each show a different idea of how an emperor should rest. Thien Mu pagoda and the royal antiquities museum complete a stay of several rich days.

Ho Chi Minh City tells the story of the twentieth century instead. The War Remnants Museum and the Reunification Palace deal with the war, and the colonial landmarks around Dong Khoi date from the French period. For older layers there are the incense-filled halls of Cholon and the Jade Emperor Pagoda.

Ho Chi Minh City is the place to go out. The neon walking street of Bui Vien suits a crowd, while rooftop bars, cocktail rooms hidden up apartment stairwells and clubs full of young locals give more choice around Nguyen Hue. Thao Dien adds a quieter expatriate bar scene, and the night runs into the small hours.

Hue's evenings are a riverside stroll, the night market by the Truong Tien bridge and a few backpacker bars on the south bank. There are hardly any clubs, and the city is quiet well before midnight.

Hue is far better for time outdoors. Pine-covered hills, villages and rice fields begin at the edge of town and are easy to cycle. The Tam Giang lagoon offers fish traps and stilt huts on flat water, Bach Ma National Park rises through wet forest to waterfalls, and the Hai Van Pass drops from the mountains straight to the sea.

Ho Chi Minh City is flat and densely built, with dawn exercise in Tao Dan park as its everyday green space. Its real nature is further out: the macaques and boardwalks of the Can Gio mangroves, and the canals and palms of the Mekong Delta. There are no hills within reach.

The two cities are broadly level for day trips, and both lead to wartime tunnels. From Ho Chi Minh City it is Cu Chi, often paired with the pastel Cao Dai temple at Tay Ninh. From Hue it is Vinh Moc, part of a long day through the old Demilitarised Zone to the Hien Luong bridge and Khe Sanh.

After that the landscapes differ. The south offers the Mekong Delta's orchards and coconut workshops around My Tho and Ben Tre, plus the seaside at Vung Tau. Hue looks along the coast instead, over the Hai Van Pass to Lang Co and Da Nang, with Hoi An close enough to move on to, and craft villages within a short ride.

Neither is easy with young children, but Ho Chi Minh City has a slight edge because it has places built for them. There are the rides and water park at Dam Sen, the odd Buddhist-themed fun park of Suoi Tien and the old zoo in the centre. The cost is fierce motorbike traffic and pavements that are hard work with a pushchair.

Hue's streets are calmer, and dragon boat trips, the wide citadel grounds and village cycling suit older children well. Still, there is nothing designed for kids, and the heritage sites soon tire small ones.

Both cities are about equally hard to get around, but in different ways. Ho Chi Minh City's colonial core is walkable. Beyond it, distances are huge, the one metro line serves a single corridor and most visitors rely on ride-hailing cars and motorbike taxis, with a river bus for the occasional trip. Keep your phone away from the kerb, because bag snatching from passing motorbikes is a known risk.

Hue is small, flat and suited to bicycles and cyclos, with the south bank and the citadel close together and gentler traffic. The catch is the royal tombs, spread several kilometres upriver, which you reach by hired car, motorbike, boat or tour.

Ho Chi Minh City offers much more. You can haggle at Ben Thanh, browse wholesale stalls at Binh Tay in Cholon, have an ao dai or a suit tailored within days, and buy lacquerware and Song Be ceramics. There are also luxury malls around Dong Khoi and small design boutiques in Thao Dien. Counterfeits are common in the tourist markets.

Hue's shopping is local and small-scale, centred on the crowded Dong Ba market. Its best souvenirs are particular to the place: poem hats with verses hidden in the leaves, sesame candy and incense from Thuy Xuan. There is no fashion shopping.

Both are among the cheapest places a visitor can pick, and the difference is small. Hue is a little cheaper again, and its guesthouses, stall food and bicycle hire cost next to nothing. The main extra costs are the citadel and tomb tickets and the staged royal dinners. Ho Chi Minh City has a pricier upper layer of international hotels, rooftop bars and imported wine, but anyone eating at street level will spend very little in either city.

Neither city is worth planning a trip around for performance, but Ho Chi Minh City offers more evenings to choose from. The French-built Opera House hosts the ballet, the symphony orchestra and acrobatic shows about village life. Add water puppetry, cai luong reformed opera in a few theatres and small jazz rooms.

Hue's offering is narrower and tied to its court history: nha nhac royal music in the citadel, and ca Hue singers on dragon boats drifting down the Perfume River among floating lanterns. The Hue Festival broadens the programme in its season.

For treatments, Ho Chi Minh City is ahead. Foot and body massage is so cheap and widespread that it becomes a daily habit, and the long reclining hair wash with scalp and face massage is a local ritual. Day spas add herbal steam and hot stones. The noisy, humid streets outside the treatment room make lasting calm harder to find.

Hue relaxes you more through its pace than its spas. It offers quiet pagodas, the garden houses of Kim Long, hushed evenings and a riverside resort spa or two. For a day of soaking, the hot springs and mud baths at Thanh Tan are about an hour away.