Vietnam travel guide

Karaoke is BIG in Asia and Vietnam is no different. Every city, town and village have at least a couple of enterprises with private rooms furnished with a plastic couch and a huge TV. Some of the more dodgy ones might even sports some red light. Here you can scream along with your friends or have that romantic duet with your chosen one.
Keep in mind that in Vietnam and neighbouring countries karaoke bars also doubles as brothels, so not all karaoke goers are that keen on singing.

At first sight Kon Tum town could be any place in Vietnam. Narrow Vietnamese houses build in cement, motorbikes and schoolkids in uniforms, but then you pass an impressive wooden Cathelic church. As you keep going and reach the edge of town, the neighborughood morph into a traditional tribe village and if you keep going you will finally reach green fields that extend all the way to risen mountains in the horizon. The Central Highlands are home to several of Vietnam's 54-or-so ethnic tribes and rigth on Kon Tum's doorstep live two of them, Bahnar and Jarai. The Bahnar are the closes ones, living in the villages connected to Kon Tum town, while Jarai live further out. Both have impressive community houses, so-called rong, while the Jarai also intrigue with their unusual burial tombs. We are not the first who have noticed this, but Kon Tum people (both Kinh Vietnamese, Bahnar and Jarai) are among the friendliest in Vietnam and very chatty.

The Mekong Delta is where the Mekong River flows into the sea through a maze of side rivers. It is the most fertile region in Vietnam and the relative small area manage to produce half of Vietnam's rice production along with a overwhelming range of vegetables and exotic fruits. The markets in Mekong are therefor packed with colorful fruits like rambutan, dragon fruit, mangosteen and of course the smelly pointy durian. But the people in the Mekong are also known for their taste for, well, pretty much anything. Frogs, snails, turtles, rats, snakes, scorpions, you name it. If they can catch it, they eat it. So the local market in the trading town of Vinh Long can have the feeling of a zoo but don't be fooled, everything here is for consumption.

The highest mountain in Indochina (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) might seem as a easy trekking peak due to the not so impressive height of only 3,143 m, but don't be fooled. The are several routes to the top, but every track is difficult and involves a overnight stay unless you do commando raid (record is around 10 hours up and down from Heavens Gate at 1,949 m). A lot of scrambling on slippery rocks and zigzagging through dense bamboo forest is the norm, and expect bitterly cold and wet nights. To get the full experience, it's highly recommended to descend on the southeast side into the Sapa valley over multiples days. Coming down from the top covered in dense forest and trekking into the farmed valley with rice terraces and villages is a rewarding finish.
Since the beginning of 2016 you can just take the almost 6.3 km long cable car straight from Sapa.

Mui Ne is a funny beach town. Not really a town, but rather a long road only separated from the white sandy beach by coconut palms and a single row of resorts. It begins at the fishing village and sprawls for some 10 km. Once it was a hideout for wind- and kitesurfers (apparently it is one of the best spots in Southeast Asia), but these days resorts are fast taking over the beach front. Russian tourism is a big thing here, so don't be surprise to see signs in Cyrillic. That said, Mui Ne is very long and there is space for everyone, so you can easily find a deserted stretch of sand or chilling with the surfers, if stiletto wearing Russian bikini models is not your thing. Beside looking at the kitesurfers (or try to learn it yourself) the only other sights are two huge sand dunes inland, respectively 3 km and 28 km away.

My Son is a humble collection of Hindu temple ruins from the ancient Champa kingdom (4th-14th century AD). The Champa kingdom was enemy with the Khmer kingdom in Cambodia. Those two took turns to invade each other and in 1177 the Cham managed to reach the Khmer capital of Angkor and sack the Khmer king. So even though the two kingdoms were in constant clinch, they were influenced by the same things, so you will find many similarity between the temples in My Son and the temples at Angkor Wat. Keep in mind that My Son pre-dates Angkor by several centuries and they are build without the use of any mortar. During the Vietnam War, My Son was in a free strike zone meaning that American B-52 bombers almost could just bomb anywhere, destroying many of the temples.

The newly finished Pa Uon bridge across the Da River is Vietnam highest, and a piece of engineering the Vietnamese government is very proud of. Due to the hydro-electric damn further down, the Da river is today more a long lake rather than a river. When we crossed the bridge in the fall 2010, the water was still raising creating a strangely beautiful man-made landscape dotted with recently erected villages for the area's hill tribes (like Black Thai, White H'mong and Phu La), who used to live down at the bottom of the valley.

Phở is Vietnamese noodle soup. It is served all over the country and considered Vietnam's national dish and has its origin in Hanoi. Every region, or even city, have their own version of this yummy soup and, of course, all claim their combination is the best. The most popular versions are either with slices of beef (phở bò) or chicken meat (phở gà), but more exotic versions with intestines, chicken feet or whatever are also often on the menu. Though phở is mostly eaten as breakfast (especially in the north), it can be bought throughout the day and is a favorite for a late night snack. It is served plain with rice noodles and then it is up to you to add fish sauce, chilies, lime, greens and herbs.

The picture shows a phở from Saigon.

Phu Quoc is the largest Vietnamese Island, located close to the Cambodian border in the Gulf of Thailand. Accessed by boat from Rach Gia in the Mekong Delta or Ha Tien near the Cambodian border. The island has not yet experienced a huge amount of development so it's the perfect island getaway. It has kilometers of deserted white sandy beaches waiting to be discovered on scooter. The national park in the north is beautiful to drive through and there are a few fishing villages along the way allowing you a glimpse of rural island life. Nearly all the accommodation is in Duong Dong or on Long Beach. Super cheap bungalows can be had back from the beach. There is some decent diving to be had around the southern islands. Dining on the beach on cheap sea food is another highlight. Get here before the boom!

Outside the beach town of Mui Ne lies two sand dunes. The smallest is the Red Sand Dune, only three kilometres from Mui Ne fishing village and right next to the road. The bigger White Sand Dune is twenty-eight kilometres away and down a dirt road. To visit them, you can either join a jeep tour or rent a scooter and drive there yourself. The journey is particular pretty and runs partly along the coast. At both places you can rent "sledges" (a piece of linoleum) and at the White Sand Dune you can even rent an ATV for a drive in the sand - something the Vietnamese entrepreneurs advertise as an "eco tour".