Ho Chi Minh City + Nha Trang: southern Vietnam, a city and the sea
A metropolis with French boulevards and a heavy war history, and an hour away a beach town with islands in front of it.
How it works
Ho Chi Minh City, which locals still often call Saigon, is Vietnam's fastest: towers, cafés in colonial buildings, a stream of motorbikes you hesitate to step into. Nha Trang is the opposite — a resort stretched along a six-kilometre beach that people fly to for the sea. The pair gives both, and the domestic flight takes an hour.
Ho Chi Minh City: three days
Day one is the centre: Notre-Dame, the post office built by Eiffel's bureau, the Independence Palace, Dong Khoi street. The War Remnants Museum is hard going, but it is what explains the country's twentieth century. Day two is the Cu Chi tunnels two hours away: a multi-level guerrilla network you can climb down into. Day three is the Mekong delta: floating markets, boats through the channels, coconut workshops; take the overnight version if you want to see a market in the morning, when it is real. It is also worth stepping into the post office and the Ben Thanh market, and drinking coffee in the «coffee apartment block» on the waterfront — an old residential building where every flat has become a café or a shop.
Nha Trang: five days
The beach and the islands are the substance. Boat trips around the bay with snorkelling stops, a cable car over the sea to Hon Tre island, mud baths that are a local classic. On the cultural side: the Po Nagar Cham towers of the eighth century on a hill above the river, and a neo-Gothic cathedral. Outside town: the Ba Ho waterfalls and the Hon Chong promontory at sunset. Further along the coast lies Mui Ne with its dunes, visited for a day or moved to for a couple of nights.
When to go
February–May is the best time in Nha Trang: dry, calm sea. From October to December the southern central coast has its rainy season, and that is not drizzle but serious downpours with swell. Ho Chi Minh City is hot all year, and the rains from May to October come briefly and hard, usually towards evening.
Getting there
The flight between the cities takes about an hour with plenty of departures. There is also the coastal train: around eight hours, with sea views for the second half and decent sleeping cars. If the trip is unhurried, the train is honestly more interesting than the plane — this is one of the finest railways in Asia.
Mui Ne and the dunes
Four hours along the coast from Ho Chi Minh City lies Mui Ne, a fishing village turned resort with constant wind: kitesurfing and windsurfing schools work almost all year. Beside it are the red and white sand dunes, which look like a piece of the Sahara by the sea, and the Fairy Stream, a red-clay canyon you walk barefoot. Go to the dunes at dawn or sunset; in the middle of the day the sand is scorching.
The Mekong delta in more detail
A day trip from Ho Chi Minh City usually stops at My Tho and demonstration workshops. It is more interesting to spend two nights in Can Tho: the Cai Rang floating market works from five in the morning and is packing up by eight, so you go out by boat in the dark — the strongest impression of the delta. Around it are orchards, canals, houses on stilts and an entirely different Vietnam, slow and rural.
Practical matters
No visa is required, up to 45 days. Much in Nha Trang is signposted in Russian, which is convenient, though prices in such places are higher — a block away it is all cheaper. Buy seafood where it is picked from the tank in front of you. And take the sun seriously: at this latitude you can burn in forty minutes even on a cloudy day. Order taxis through an app or from the large operators: street cabs with meters have a long-standing reputation in these two cities that they are in no hurry to fix.
Moscow → Ho Chi Minh City → Nha Trang
Route and nights go into the form — adjust the date and passengers.