Nha Trang

Nha Trang is a beach town first. A sandy crescent of around 6km runs the whole length of the centre along Tran Phu, with a palm-shaded promenade behind it, so most visitors are on the sand within a few minutes of leaving their hotel. From spring through summer the sea is warm, often 27°C to 29°C, and usually calm in the mornings, and the beach is busy from early swims at dawn until the evening.

For quieter, clearer water, boats run out to the bays of the offshore islands, and the long beach south towards Cam Ranh has broad empty sand. Doc Let, about 50km north, has shallow, pale water. From roughly October to December the monsoon brings rain and rough surf, and swimming in town can be choppy or off limits.

Eating well here means seafood and south-central Vietnamese street dishes. The town's own specialities are bun cha ca, a noodle soup with fish cake and jellyfish, nem nuong grilled pork rolls from nearby Ninh Hoa, and small banh can rice cakes cooked in clay moulds. In the evenings, open-air seafood places set out tanks of crab, squid, clams and lobster to be grilled at the table, and plastic-stool stalls in the residential streets serve noodle soups and broken rice from early morning.

The drip coffee culture is strong, with pavement cafés and condensed-milk iced coffee on every block. What it lacks is depth: the fine dining is mostly in resort hotels, and many menus around the tourist streets swap local cooking for pizza and Russian dishes.

The essential sight is Po Nagar, a group of brick Cham temple towers on a hill above the river mouth, still used for worship and centuries older than the town around it. Long Son Pagoda has a large white seated Buddha looking over the city from its hilltop, and the stone Gothic-style cathedral sits on a rise near the station. The small museum dedicated to Alexandre Yersin, the scientist who settled here, and the Oceanographic Institute with its old specimen collection fill out the list.

That is about a day's sightseeing. Most of the town is modern hotel blocks along the shore, and visitors come for the sea rather than the heritage.

Evenings centre on the seafront and on the few blocks of backpacker streets just behind it, where bar crawls, cheap cocktails and loud music run late. Some beachfront bars put on fire shows and DJ nights on the sand, and a handful of clubs keep going into the early hours. Local nights out look different: large groups drinking beer over grilled seafood at long outdoor tables.

It is lively, but it is a beach-resort kind of lively, built around tourists, and not deep or varied enough to choose the town for.

The bay is the landscape: a ring of steep green islands in front of the town, with mountains rising behind it. Boat trips out to the islands are the main outdoor activity. The waters around Hon Mun are a protected marine area and among the most popular diving and snorkelling grounds in Vietnam, with coral and reef fish, best seen in the calmer dry months.

Inland, the Ba Ho waterfalls have a scramble up a rocky stream to a series of pools, and the forested hills of Hon Ba and the Yang Bay area make good half-day outings. Kayaking, parasailing and jet skis operate off the main beach. Serious trekking is limited, and the highland scenery around Dalat is too far for an easy day.

There are few places within a comfortable day. The best heritage outing is south to Phan Rang, about two hours away, for the hilltop Cham towers of Po Klong Garai and the Cham villages around them, where pottery and weaving are still made. Closer to home, boats reach island fishing communities such as Binh Ba, and the coast north and south has quiet bays and fishing ports.

The better-known places, the highland town of Dalat or the old ports further up the coast, need an overnight stay or a long drive, so most visitors here stay put and treat the bay as the trip.

Families come for the beach, which is long, sandy and mostly gentle in the dry season, and for the big amusement park on Hon Tre island across the bay, with rides, a water park and an aquarium in one day out. The Oceanographic Institute's tanks and turtles, boat trips with snorkelling for older children and the mud-bath parks, which children enjoy, add to it.

Vietnamese culture is warm towards children, and resort hotels with pools are easy to find. The hard parts are the scooter traffic, which makes crossing roads stressful, broken pavements for buggies, the midday heat and the rough sea in the autumn rains.

The seafront promenade is easy to walk, and most hotels, restaurants and the main beach sit within a strip a visitor can cover on foot. Beyond it, pavements are uneven or taken over by parked scooters, and crossing the busy roads takes nerve.

There is no metro or tram, and local buses are little used by visitors. Most people rely on ride-hailing cars and motorbike taxis, which are quick and simple to use, or hire a scooter. The airport at Cam Ranh is about 35km south, so arriving means a car or shuttle, and the islands are reached by boat.

Shopping is about markets and local products. Cho Dam, the round central market hall, sells dried squid and fish, coffee, cashews, fabric and household goods to locals, and the night market near the beach adds clothes, souvenirs and lacquerware. Pearls, bird's nest products and agarwood are the region's specialities.

Beyond that there are a couple of malls and plenty of beachwear and souvenir shops, but nothing in the way of design boutiques or fashion streets. Haggling is expected at the market stalls.

This is a very cheap place for a beach stay. Comfortable mid-range hotels, often with sea views or a pool, cost a fraction of what a comparable stay costs in a Mediterranean resort, and street food, noodle soups and coffee are inexpensive. Ride-hailing and motorbike taxis keep transport cheap, and the main temples and pagodas charge little or nothing.

The costs that climb are the beachfront resorts, imported drinks, the island amusement park and dive or boat trips. Seafood restaurants along the main tourist streets price by weight, and it pays to check before ordering.

There is very little to attend. The live music a visitor finds is cover bands in beach bars and hotel lounges, plus the occasional staged show of folk dance or Cham music for tourists, sometimes performed at the temple sites. The town's sea festival brings outdoor performances when it is held, but there is no regular programme of theatre, classical music or jazz.

Nha Trang's distinctive pleasure is the mud bath. Several bathing parks on the edge of town, near the Thap Ba hot springs, let visitors soak in warm mineral mud, then rinse off in hot spring pools and waterfalls, a half day that locals and visitors both enjoy. Massage and foot-reflexology shops are on almost every street, and the resort hotels on the quieter bays have proper spas.

The pace on the beach is slow, with long mornings under umbrellas and sunset walks along the promenade. The centre is less restful, a dense strip of high-rise hotels with scooter traffic sounding late into the evening, so the calmest stays are in the bays outside town.