Nha Trang is one of those home-away-from-home places. If you keep your mind on all the new Western friends you're sure to meet here, you can almost avoid the Vietnamese people altogether. It's a place where you can say you've been to a foreign country and have the passport stamp to prove it. Where in just about any restaurant or bar you can listen to the the likes of Marley, Morrison and Dylan. Over and over and over.There's a Novotel and a Sher...

   The Hoang Yen is a several star hotel that sits directly on the beach in the city of Quy Nhon. Ellen and I thought we'd treat ourselves after battling the tailors of Hoi An. I was nervous when we walked up to the front desk in this classy looking establishment. I hadn't shaved in a week and probably smelled a bit too. The hotel receptionist couldn't speak a word of English; when she showed us the per night rate of 500,000 dong I almost flipped. ...

 Hoi An has a beautiful little old town centre with a river running through it. Remarkably, it saw little devastation during what the Vietnamese call the American War. And now the tourists have found it. Hoi An's specializes is renting hotel rooms to the horde and making clothing for them. The streets are lined with tailors. Show the tailors a photo of a suit or dress, even a pair of shoes and they'll make a perfectly fitting replica in a day or so. This...

 Ellen and I arrived in Saigon last Sunday. After just two days in this chaotic city of nine million people we boarded a train for a 1,150 kilometre journey up the coast. The Imperial city of Hue, with its tombs, temples and palaces would be much calmer. Trying to envision a place after reading about it is so often a poor way of planning your travels. At least for me it is. If you were to take the guidebook's word for it, Kuching in Borneo and Hue in Vietnam...

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon is a bustling mega-city. Vietnam's capitol, Hanoi, in the north cannot compare when you look at the wealth of Saigon. But missing in Saigon is the Vietnamese charm that only the country's capitol possesses. It's like everything else, you either got it or you don't. Yesterday, after lunch I popped into the restaurant's WC. It had a toilet, urinal and a sink. The room was so small that they had to install more ...