8 posts
A French doctor found a cool plateau in 1893 and a governor-general built a place to escape Việt Nam on it. Đà Lạt is still that city — which is why you should skip the Instagram sets and go for the weather, the pines, and the market.
The lanterns are the newest thing in Việt Nam's best-preserved port town. The older Hội An is the river, the morning, and the villages a bicycle ride away — if you time your visit around the crowds instead of with them.
Vietnam’s most famous motorbike route is a few hundred kilometres of limestone, switchbacks and border villages. The trick is not to treat it as a race between viewpoints.
Continue reading “The Hà Giang Loop: Ride It Slower Than They Tell You” →
Lan Hạ is not a cheaper copy of Hạ Long — it is the same limestone seascape, now inside the same World Heritage site. What changes is the trip: an island with a town, a forest and a bay you can paddle into yourself.
Continue reading “Cát Bà and Lan Hạ: The Same Bay, a Different Trip” →
The Cái Răng floating market is shrinking because the delta finally has roads. Go anyway, go early, and then spend the rest of the trip on the canals the market grew out of.
Continue reading “Cần Thơ: Go for the Floating Market, Stay for the Rivers” →
Sơn Đoòng gets the headlines, but it costs about US$3,000 and a waiting list. The rest of Phong Nha — a boat into a river cave, a kilometre of Paradise Cave, a valley of rice and karst — is the trip most people should take.
Continue reading “Phong Nha: The Caves You Can Actually Visit” →
Việt Nam's last imperial capital rewards the traveller who refuses to rush — a citadel built around an absence, tombs that read like autobiographies, the best bowl of noodles in the country, and rain that locals will tell you is the whole point.
Continue reading “Huế: Rain, Emperors, and the Art of Taking Your Time” →
Limestone karsts, river caves, and the ruins of a 10th-century capital — two unhurried days in the landscape they call "Hạ Long Bay on land."
