Category: Local Life

Step off the ferry in Ben Tre and the air changes. There’s something heavier and greener about it — the smell of river mud and warm coconut husk, of overripe fruit and wood smoke curling from a kitchen somewhere in the palm grove. Ben Tre travel guide territory is Mekong Delta country at its most…

There are landscapes in Vietnam that make you stop walking and simply stand still. The Mu Cang Chai rice terraces are one of them. Carved into the flanks of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range in Yen Bai Province, these cascading fields — thousands of hand-built steps rising from valley floor to sky — represent…

Three hours south of Hanoi, the chaos of the city dissolves into something you didn’t know you needed. This Mai Chau travel guide takes you into a valley so green it almost hurts to look at — a place where white egrets skim paddy fields at dusk, weavers work at wooden looms on bamboo verandas,…

Bac Ha Sunday Market is Vietnam’s most colourful highland market — a weekly gathering of Flower Hmong and fifteen ethnic groups trading textiles, silver and rice wine in the mountains of Lao Cai.

Tay Ninh travel guide: visit the extraordinary Cao Dai Holy See temple, climb sacred Ba Den Mountain, and discover southern Vietnam’s most unique cultural day trip from Ho Chi Minh City.

Pu Luong Nature Reserve is Vietnam’s hidden highland gem — terraced rice valleys, stilt house homestays, and minority village treks without the Sapa crowds. Your complete guide to visiting.

Cuc Phuong National Park Vietnam guide: ancient rainforest, primate rescue centre and jungle trekking. How to get there, what to see and where to stay.

Mekong Delta travel guide: in the final stretch of its 4,350-kilometre journey from the Tibetan Plateau to the sea, the Mekong River splinters into nine tributaries and floods a vast, flat plain of extraordinary fertility. This is Vietnam’s rice bowl and fruit basket — one of the most densely populated agricultural regions on earth, and…

Ba Na Hills travel guide: perched at 1,487 metres above sea level in the Truong Son mountains west of Da Nang, Ba Na Hills is one of Vietnam’s most spectacular — and most surreal — travel experiences. Famous worldwide for its Golden Bridge, a pedestrian walkway held aloft by two enormous stone hands rising from…