Nam Dinh is a city in Ninh Binh province in the Red River Delta region of Vietnam. I visited Nam Dinh in October 2025 as part of a rail trip where I was stopping at lesser-visited cities. This was a research trip for my website, Rail Vietnam.

I was on my way from Vinh to Hanoi, and I stopped at Nam Dinh mainly because I was intrigued by why the line takes such a dramatic detour on the North-South line.

[Vietnam Railway Map.svg by Dragfyre via Wikimedia Commons.]

Nam Dinh was the capital city of Nam Dinh province until Nam Dinh was merged into Ninh Binh in July 2025. I was previously visiting every provincial capital in Vietnam, which was 63 provinces and cities. The provincial mergers have now reduced the list to 34, but I will probably still visit the former capitals.

There is hardly any travel information about Nam Dinh online (apart from empty Tripadvisor pages), and there is no Wikitravel page. I did find a backpacker blog that created a guide to Nam Dinh, but this was an obvious AI hallucination once I explored Nam Dinh (I’m not giving them a link). This problem is going to become more common.

What ended up being most useful was this map from 1924 on the Nam Dinh Wikipedia page.

[Nam Dinh Map from 1924 via Wikimedia Commons.]

The citadel no longer exists, and its footprint has been erased from the current street grid. The other streets are the same, though, so I used this map as the most likely place to find old and interesting buildings.

These are my notes from my visit to Nam Dinh.

Nam Dinh Old City – Hanoi in miniature

Nam Dinh is about 85 km south of Hanoi. The city was an important textile centre in the colonial era, and the province (or former province area) is still a major textile hub today.

Walking around Nam Dinh is like walking around parts of the Old City of Hanoi without the traffic.

Someone in Vietnam commented on my Instagram that they thought I was in Hanoi.

Also similar to Hanoi is that most of the historic shophouses have disappeared, and the shopfronts are a mishmash of different styles.

Most of the high-rises in Nam Dinh are apartment blocks outside the city centre. The inner city features skinny tubehouses that are common in Vietnam, with some larger office buildings that beef up the skyline.

Every province in Vietnam has a provincial museum, and they are often the architectural highlights of the city. Now that the provinces have been merged, these museums will need to be renamed.

[Nam Dinh Museum.]

Provincial museums usually have war remnants around the building.

Another museum is the Nam Dinh Textile Museum. This is at the site of the historic Nam Dinh Textile Factory, which was demolished.

City theatres are another landmark to seek out.

I didn’t intend to make so many comparisons to Hanoi, but the Nam Dinh Flag Tower looks remarkably similar to the Flag Tower of Hanoi.

As I have mentioned countless times in other city notes, if you are in a new city in Vietnam, seek out the central market. The main market here is Cho Rong (Dragon Market), which is easily identified by the dragons on the roof.

Vi Xuyen Lake

Vi Xuyen Lake is a good place for a green walk in the city centre.

The lake and the Khoai Dong Parish Church appeared to be the most prominent landmarks when doing an image search for Nam Dinh.

Nam Dinh River

Referring to the old map again, the road along the Nam Dinh River looked like a potential place for colonial-era buildings. The river is connected to the Red River, and thus connected to Hanoi.

The riverfront road has an embankment in front of it, so the only river view is on the embankment.

I saw one old building of note there, and there is one hotel and not much else to do.

Big churches, domed homes, and phoney coat of arms of the United Kingdom

The Red River Delta and North Central Vietnam are famous for big churches. If you search for things to do in Nam Dinh, you will find guides for churches scattered around the former province. To see these, you will need your own transport or take a guided tour. For this report, I was focused on sites in the city.

The Khoai Dong Parish Church (which can be seen from the lake) is one of the main landmarks of the city.

The city of Nam Dinh was building a new cathedral when I visited.

Here is what it will eventually look like.

Also popular in the North Central region are new mansions with domes that look like churches.

I saw this building from a distance and walked towards it, thinking it was something significant, only to find it was a multipurpose business building.

I’ve seen many of these new rich houses that have the coat of arms of the United Kingdom, though with different details, such as the lion and unicorn on opposite sides. This is something I have seen all over Vietnam, and I assume it’s what people who have come into money think how people with money decorate their houses.

The home of phở?

Nam Dinh is supposedly the birthplace of phở, though Hanoi also claims this title. My friend Connla wrote what is probably the best article ever written about phở (the purist’s guide to phở in Hanoi). The article gives a brief history of its disputed origins.

Whether phở is from Hanoi or Nam Dinh, I figured I should cover my bases by having phở every day while I was in Nam Dinh. There was a phở restaurant near where I was staying that is from Hanoi, so they have a foot in both camps.

Unlike the protagonists in Connla’s essay, I’m not a purist, so my main criteria for picking a phở restaurant are that they only serve phở (not a menu with several types of dishes) and that it is busy with predominantly Vietnamese diners.

What grabbed my attention at this restaurant was the different cuts of meat hanging in the preparation area.

My palate is not refined enough to distinguish what is the best bowl of anything, so I would never proclaim anywhere to be the best bowl of whatever. I can confidently say that this was a good phở.

Getting the train to Nam Dinh

Nam Dinh Station is the second-last station before Hanoi, and you could come here on a day trip by train if you were looking for a quick train trip from Hanoi. For example:

Train SE5
Depart Hanoi: 8.55
Arrive Nam Dinh: 10.31

Train SE8
Depart Nam Dinh: 14.16
Arrive Hanoi: 16.10

The station is close to the city centre, so you can walk to the main sites from the station if you are travelling light.

[Train SE8 in Nam Dinh]

The day before my train trip, I got a text message from Vietnam Railways alerting me that the train was cancelled. There were big floods in Central Vietnam that disrupted the entire rail network. Some trains were running a limited schedule, while some trains were cancelled outright.

Luckily, Nam Dinh is close enough to Hanoi to have minivan service running at regular intervals.

I will do another trip on the North-South Railway to visit more stations on the line.

A review of the overnight sleeper train service from Hanoi (Vietnam) to Nanning (China).

The Hanoi to Nanning train is the only international service from Vietnam, and one of the few international train services in Southeast Asia.

There is also a Hanoi to Beijing train that is a continuation of the Nanning service. For this article I am reviewing the Hanoi to Nanning section, which includes details on the border crossing.

Buy tickets for the Hanoi-Nanning train

Tickets can be bought online at the official site (dsvn.vn) and at Baolau (Nomadic Notes is an affiliate of Baolau).

If you are booking on the dsvn.vn website, look for Gia Lam (for Hanoi) and Nam Ninh (for Nanning). Baolau also allows you to book the onward service to Beijing.

Usually when you buy tickets online in Vietnam, you will get a PDF copy of the ticket sent to you by email. For the train to Nanning, you need to collect the ticket at the station. The ticket office will check your passport and make sure you have a visa (if required). China has expanded visa-free travel for more countries, so if you are eligible you no longer need to apply for a visa.

The tickets are in Vietnamese, Chinese, and Russian. This is a real relic of the past to have a ticket with no English on it.

The ticket is also old-school with the stapled booklet of multi-page carbon paper tickets.

Gia Lam (Ha Noi)

The train departs from Gia Lam Station and not Ha Noi Station. The easiest way to get there is by Grab taxi, and allow about 30 minutes to get there from the old city.

Gia Lam Station is an unassuming station in a small street. There aren’t many food options in this area, so have dinner before you arrive and stock up on snacks.

It’s a small waiting room with no cafe, so it’s not the best station to hang out at.

Passengers are allowed on 40 minutes before departure, so I was glad to be there early to claim my bed.

Note the dual gauge railway track. Vietnam Railways operates on the metre gauge, while this train from China is on the standard gauge (1435 mm).

The obligatory photo in front of the destination plate.

Onboard

Vietnam railway stations are not accessible if you have mobility issues, and it’s a steep step to get into the carriage at Gia Lam.

The ticket inspector takes your ticket and puts it in a little folder, and swaps it for a boarding card. You get your ticket back before arriving in Nanning (just in case you wanted to keep the ticket).

The train is all sleeper cabins, so there are no seats if you were looking for a cheaper option.

The tickets are Soft Sleeper 4-Berth, and there is no price difference for upper or lower. I requested a Lower Berth when booking on Baolau.

I was surprised to see that you get two pillows and a duvet (unlike the one pillow and blanket combination that you get on Vietnam Railways).

There are power outlets under the communal table, so this is a slight advantage for the lower berth passengers.

The mattress was comfortable, and I was able to fit in the bed without touching the wall. I’m 185 cm (6’1″) and I don’t fit in some Thailand sleeper trains.

There is also enough room to sit up on the upper and lower beds. The beds are permanent (like Vietnam and unlike Thailand where they are folded away in the day time).

There is no food service on this train, so come prepared. I had dinner in Hanoi and brought some snacks. I was sharing the cabin with a young Chinese couple, and they asked if it was ok if they eat noodles in the room. They also bought me a packet of chips, so it was nice to be travelling with these polite youngsters.

Pot noodles are the national travel food in China, and you will always find hot water at airports, train stations, and on trains.

The toilet was clean and spacious.

And there is also a separate wash area.

Vietnam to China border crossing

I would have slept well on this train if it wasn’t for the fact that it is interrupted by a long border-crossing procedure in the middle of the night. I saw the timetable at Gia Lam, and I couldn’t work out why there were such long gaps at the border crossing.

The train departs Gia Lam at 21.20 and arrives at Dong Dang at 00.55 (3h 35m).

At Dong Dang Station, you get off the train with all of your luggage and go through Vietnam immigration.

I estimate there were about 100 passengers on the train, and everyone was processed within an hour. Perhaps they have scheduled a 1h 55m stop in case the train is full and there are processing delays.

The train leaves Dong Dang at 2.50 and arrives at Pingxiang (Bang Tuong in Vietnamese) in China at 4.31. China is 1 hour ahead, so that is a 41 minute trip.

At Pingxiang Station, you get off the train again with all of your luggage and go through Chinese immigration. Visa-free travel for Australians made this trip much easier, but no one mentioned that there is an online arrival form to fill out (it would have been handy if this was mentioned in Hanoi). I activated my esim but it took a while to activate. An immigration officer told a foreigner standing next to me to share his internet with me (thanks random traveller!)

Here is the online arrival card.

Most of the passengers were single men (Vietnamese and Chinese workers), so the random handful of westerners were interviewed while waiting to go through immigration. The interviewers had translation devices and asked the usual questions (where are you going? how long are you staying?)

The train leaves Pingxiang at 6.05 (a 1h 34m stop), so overall it took 4 hours and 10 minutes to cross the border.

By the time the train leaves Pingxiang it is sunrise and there is 4h 1m left on the journey.

Pingxiang to Nanning

The Pingxiang to Nanning section is the only daylight section of the trip, so I wanted to see some scenery. The train goes through the region of Guangxi (officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region), and it is a scenic trip through limestone mountains (similar to Ninh Binh and Ha Long in Northern Vietnam).

Every square metre of flat land is given over to agriculture.

I think I nodded off for 30 minutes, but by now the train was getting close to Nanning.

The train passed a high-speed train on the way into Nanning. Most of China is connected by high-speed rail by now, so it was good to be on one of these slower green trains.

I was talking to a businessman from northern China while waiting for the train at Gia Lam. He was happy to practice his English on someone, and I was happy to get an insight on why someone would get this slow sleeper train. He was setting up a tech business in Hanoi and prefers to travel by train, even though it took him over a day to get there.

I did hardly any research about Nanning before I arrived, apart from saving Nanning Station and my hotel in my AMap app. Nanning has a population of over 5 million people, so I was looking forward for some urban exploration. I will have a separate report on my trip to Nanning.

Nanning Railway Station

The train from Hanoi arrives at Nanning Railway Station. This is the old main station in the middle of the city, and there are plenty of hotels nearby (I stayed at Vienna 3 Best Hotel Guangxi Nanning Station). The main high-speed station is at Nanning East (Nanning Dong Railway Station).

Unlike Gia Lam, the platform is level with the train door, so it is possible to place a ramp on the train door.

While the train was waiting at Pingxiang, some more carriages were added to the train.

These are “Hard Seat” carriages, which are padded bench seats that don’t recline. It’s a shame there isn’t a day train from Nanning to Hanoi with this seating option, as that would be a cheap way to travel to China.

At Nanning I got a glimpse of the connecting train that continues to Beijing.

I wanted to visit Nanning so I had no plan to continue to Beijing, but I am now curious about getting the Hanoi-Nanning-Beijing service another time.

After a few days in Nanning, I continued to Hong Kong on the direct Nanning-Hong Kong service. A foreign couple I met on the train were going straight through to Hong Kong. It’s a tight schedule but it can be done, so I will post another article about how to go from Hanoi to Hong Kong by train.

The future of the Hanoi to Nanning train service

One of the reasons I got this train (apart from it being a cool travel experience) was that I wanted to experience it in its current form before it is eventually upgraded. It will be years before that happens, but plans are already in motion. Vietnam has invited China to help build three railways to connect the two countries. Two of the railways will be upgrades of old lines (Lao Cai-Hanoi-Haiphong and Hanoi-Dong Dang) and there will be a new line from Haiphong to Mong Cai.

China have already built standard-gauge railways to meet these three railways at the border. In addition to the slow train that goes from Nanning to Pingxiang, there is a high-speed railway that operates in the same corridor on another line.

I checked for tickets between Pingxiang and Nanning, and the options include the slow train and high-speed railway.

The high-speed service is 1h 10m while the sleeper train is 4h 1m. The distance from Pingxiang to Gia Lam is 176 km, so that trip could be feasibly done in an hour.

[Train distance table at Gia Lam Station.]

If the new train line is built so that the immigration facilities for both countries are in one station, then the border stoppage time could be reduced to one hour. That would then make it a 3-hour trip from Hanoi to Nanning. Until that happens, enjoy the sleepover to China.

Read more railways of Vietnam and train travel stories from around the world. Also follow my other site dedicated to rail travel in Vietnam.

The oddly modern Vinh Station, the old apartments from the German Democratic Republic, remnants of the Nghe An Ancient Citadel, Vinh Market and the famous foam coffee, Ho Chi Minh, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, and future Vinh on the high-speed railway.

Vinh is the capital city of Nghe An province in the North Central Coast region of Vietnam. It’s about halfway between Ninh Binh and Phong Nha, and not many visitors stop in between. That alone was enough reason for me to visit.

Vinh is on the North-South Railway, so I booked a train trip from Da Nang to Hanoi, stopping at some less-visited places along the way.

I arrived on a cloudy day after spending a day on the train from Dong Ha. The train was outrunning a tropical storm that hit the central coast area (around Hue and Da Nang), so I was glad to arrive to see that it wasn’t raining.

I mention the weather to forewarn that most of the photos in this article are grey and dull. I had planned to visit the beach of Vinh to see what a resort beach looks like in the North Central Coast region, but I have been to enough beaches on grey days to know that I would be disappointed.

These are the notes of my visit to Vinh in October 2025.

Vinh Train Station

Vinh Station is an unusual design compared to other stations in Vietnam. It has that “built after the war” vibe that can be found in Eastern Europe.

There is a photo of the old station in the waiting room, which hints at what Vinh used to look like before the war.

The grey weather added to the ambience of my initial perception of Vinh. I walked out of the station and was greeted with a wide and straight road.

The wide streets and greyness of it all made me feel like I was in a former Eastern Bloc country, and this was another reason why I was curious to visit Vinh.

The DDR Apartments of Vinh

Vinh is known for the apartment blocks that were built with assistance from the German Democratic Republic in the 1970s.

The apartments are on the main street in the middle of the city, and they are gradually disappearing as modern buildings replace them in these prime locations.

I wrote an article about the apartments at Future Southeast Asia: The last days of the DDR Apartments of Vinh.

Remnants of the Nghe An Ancient Citadel

What would have been the tourism highlight of the city was destroyed during the wars. Vinh had an ancient citadel, and its star-shaped footprint can still be seen on the map.

[Map of old citadel of Vinh.]

There are three gates that are somewhat intact.

[Left Gate of Nghe An Citadel.]

The moat is also intact, though it loses its visual impact without a wall to go with it. The citadel is a residential area with houses along the moat.

This article has an aerial photo of the moat and some old photos.

Vinh Market and the famous foam coffee

As I have mentioned many times before, when you are in an unfamiliar city in Vietnam and don’t know what to do, head for the central market.

The Vinh central market is architecturally nothing to write home about, but little did I know that one of the most intriguing cafes in Vietnam is hidden in the bowels of this building.

I got a message from an English teacher from England who lives in Vinh. He saw my update on LinkedIn, which has unexpectedly become a useful social media platform for Vietnam. He invited me for a coffee inside the market, so we met outside and I followed him through the labyrinthian interior.

Long Ly Cafe is named after the husband and wife team that operate the cafe, and Cafe Bọt (Foam Coffee) is the type of coffee that is served here.

The foam is freshly whipped on demand. As far as I can tell, the foam is coffee-infused whipped cream, though the articles I have read say that the recipe is a secret. Mr Long has been here for over 20 years, and he still makes the coffees. In addition to walk-in customers, there were many delivery drivers coming and going, as well as deliveries to other workers in the market.

What is interesting about this coffee is that it hasn’t spread across the country yet. There are many types of coffee in Vietnam that are associated with cities:

– Ca Phe Sua Da (synonymous with Saigon, and called Ca Phe Saigon in Central Vietnam)
– Coconut Coffee (Da Nang)
– Salt Coffee (Hue)
– Egg Coffee (Hanoi)

Maybe when Mr Long retires he will give up the recipe and foam coffee will become common across Vietnam. It could be known as Long Coffee, or Vinh Coffee to put Vinh on the coffee map.

A foam coffee cost 15,000 VND (0.57 USD).

[Cafe Bọt menu (October 2025).]

Legend has it that Mr Long is the second-most Instagrammed/TikTokked person in Vinh, after Ho Chi Minh.

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh was born in a village outside of Vinh in 1890 (his birth name was Nguyen Sinh Cung). While technically not from Vinh, he was from Nghe An province, so there is an appropriate statue in Vinh for the provincial hero.

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai

Someone who was born in Vinh was Nguyen Thi Minh Khai. She was born in 1910 under the name of Nguyen Thi Vinh, and was executed in Saigon by the French in 1941.

Nguyen Thi Minh Khai is one of the 1,375 names in the database of street and public work names. Some names are more prominent than others, and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai is a name I see in almost every city. Maybe I notice this name more because I lived on Nguyen Thi Minh Khai in Ho Chi Minh City for a while. The name is seared onto my brain like where I lived in Melbourne (Barkly St and Mitford St), which are now part of my life history.

The Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Memorial House is on the main street (where the DDR apartments used to be).

There is an altar and some information of her life (Vietnamese only). Here is an article about the life of Comrade Nguyen Thi Minh Khai.

The memorial site has some photos of old Vinh, of which there is no trace of today.

[Avenue Marechal Foch.]

A shame that the old Railway Hotel no longer exists.

[Hotel de la Gare.]

Food in Vinh

Some provinces have their signature dishes, and Nhe An is famous for eel soup (súp lươn Nghệ An).

I like the presentation of the fish at this banh canh ca loc restaurant. The pieces are stacked in a way that everyone gets the same portion.

Apart from the English teacher I met, in the four days I was in Vinh I saw two other guys that looked like English teachers, and two travellers with backpacks. I mention this as I was a curiosity to the diners at the restaurant.

Future Vinh

I keep a list of major developments in cities of Southeast Asia at my Future Cities series. There is not enough happening in Vinh to justify a full post, but the arrival of the Sheraton Hotel indicates a new era for the city.

Next to the Sheraton is Vincom Plaza, and they were both nearly finished when I was there. Not that my boss would let me stay there (it’s me, I’m the boss), but if you want a fancy hotel with a view in Vinh, then use my link to book a room at Sheraton Vinh.

I wasn’t expecting to see much here, so the Sheraton was a surprise. I was more interested in seeing Vinh as it is now (including the remaining DDR apartments) before the high-speed railway is built (if it gets built at all).

Vinh will be one of the 5 main express stations (Hanoi – Vinh – Danang – Nha Trang – Ho Chi Minh City) out of a total of 23 stations. Being one of the express stations will be transformative for the fortunes of Vinh, and maybe it will become a thriving metropolis after the railway is built.

Follow the construction of the railway at my Vietnam High-Speed Railway page.

A good Vinh guide

This Vinh guide is on a personal website of a resident English teacher.

Onward travel

From Vinh, I got the train to Nam Dinh.

Dong Ha is a city in Quang Tri Province in the North Central Coast region of Vietnam. It was the capital of Quang Tri until Quang Tri was merged with Quang Binh Province in July 2025. Quang Binh lost its name in the merger, but Dong Hoi (the capital of Quang Binh) became the capital of the newly-merged province.

Dong Ha is not a touristy town, though you might pass through here if you are doing a DMZ tour. It was the northernmost city in South Vietnam, and the city was in ruins by the time the war ended. There is not much to see in the city.

My main reason to visit was to see an old train station as part of my Rail Vietnam project. I was also in the process of visiting every provincial capital in Vietnam. My list has been shortened now that the provincial mergers have demoted Dong Ha and other cities as capitals. I haven’t decided what to do with this list, though I will probably still visit the cities that are no longer capitals.

I was here in October 2025, and during my trip Dong Ha was on the edge of a tropical storm that was barrelling towards the coast further south. I wasn’t lashing rain, but it was a persistent sideways drizzle with a wind that destroys umbrellas.

It also didn’t help that the main thoroughfare was being renovated, so the site of grey and wet construction material wasn’t leaving a great first impression.

Despite the rain hampering my exploration hours, I was able to visit the main sites. These are my notes on Dong Ha.

Old Dong Ha Station

I have been through Dong Ha before on the train, and I noticed some military trophies near the railway in the city centre.

This was the location of the old Dong Ha Station. Most of Dong Ha was obliterated during the war, so there isn’t any obvious architectural sign that this was a station. It is marked on Google Maps as the old station, and the site is now a memorial to the war.

Here is my article about old Dong Ha Station.

Central Market

As I have mentioned before, if you are in a new provincial city of Vietnam and don’t know where to start exploring, start with the central market. Dong Ha Market is in a distinctive building that stands out from the surrounding modern buildings.

Another thing to consider when visiting a new province in Vietnam is to see if there are any regional food specialties.

Vietnam is hit-or-miss when it comes to providing useful information on their official tourism portals, so I was surprised to find a useful article about food in Quang Tri on the Quang Tri government tourism website.

With this list I went to the amazing food hall at the market, which is a round building with a covered dome.

It was enjoyable walking around looking at what the vendors had to offer, and everyone was enthusiastically saying hello to me as I was the only foreigner in the market.

I found what I was looking for (Quang Tri jackfruit noodles), but even if I didn’t know what I was looking for I would have been stopped in my tracks by the presentation.

Another lady came over and sold me on the banh loc (cassava cake). I recognised these from the Quang Tri food list, so I bought a plate (well done Quang Tri tourism board, your blog post helped make a sale). The caphe lady then found me, which was an easy sale. Everyone was so nice so it was hard to say no to the other vendors.

I was on my way out and then I met the juice lady. She grabbed my arm in the way that Vietnamese grandmas do that make it impossible to say no.

I ordered an orange juice with no sugar, and she was so incredulous that I didn’t want sugar that she brought the jug of sugar to me in case I changed my mind.

Provincial musuem

Every provincial capital has a provincial museum, and they usually have some war remnants on the property.

I don’t know what will happen to the provincial museums in the demoted capitals, as the Quang Tri capital is now Dong Hoi. For now, there is still a Quang Tri provincial museum in Dong Ha.

[Missile at Quang Tri Museum.]

Le Duan

A giant figure in 20th century Vietnamese history is Le Duan. I mentioned in my notes on Buon Ma Thuot that streets named Le Duan in Vietnam are usually one of the most prominent streets in the city (such as Le Duan in HCMC, which leads to the gates of the Independence Palace).

Le Duan was from Quang Tri, and he became the leader of North Vietnam after Ho Chi Minh died. It was seen as symbolic that someone from the south (just) was the leader of the north.

Fidel Memorial Park

I saw a park on the map named Fidel Memorial Park and I thought, “like Fidel Castro?”

Yes, there is a Fidel Castro Park in Dong Ha, named in honour of Castro for his visit to the liberated region in southern Vietnam in 1973.

Mine Action Visitor Center

Dong Ha is the base for Project RENEW, which is an organisation that is removing unexploded ordnance (UXO) and providing risk education and victim assistance.

Project RENEW has information about their work and the war in Quang Tri at the Mine Action Visitor Center.

The Mine Action Visitor Center is a small museum that has photos and war remnants on display.

This museum is a reminder of why there are no historic old buildings in Dong Ha.

This map shows why they will be still be clearing the land of UXO for decades to come (and here is an online map of U.S bombing strikes on Quang Tri Province).

I was in Dong Ha a few months after the provincial mergers had taken place. It occurred to me while looking at this old DMZ map that the merging of Quang Binh and Quang Tri has erased the old border between north and south.

Quang Tri province is now where north and south was divided, so it seems fitting that this former divide no longer exists on a provincial level.

If you are visiting Quang Tri then visiting the sites of the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) is a must. I had been to Quang Tri province in 2005 when I did a DMZ day trip from Hue. DMZ tours have changed over the last 20 years as it is now more feasible to do a one-way trip from Hue to the DMZ to Dong Hoi, instead of backtracking to Hue. From Dong Hoi you can go to Phong Nha.

I was glad to visit Dong Ha this time as well. I like to visit unassuming provincial cities after I have been somewhere overly touristy (such as Da Nang and Hue), and my experience at the market showed how welcoming the people of Dong Ha are.

The government tourism board describes Quang Tri as the heroic land. The writer of this articles describes Quang Tri’s main tourism specialties:

“What are the specialties of that land? I keep joking, Quang Tri has a specialty called “bomb”, a specialty that few places have as much as Quang Tri.”

Dong Ha to Vinh

From Dong Ha Station I got the train to Vinh. Stay tuned for my notes on Vinh.

Buon Ma Thuot is the capital city of Dak Lak Province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. While Da Lat is the best-known city in the Central Highlands, Buon Ma Thuot is the largest city and is closer to the geographical centre of the Central Highlands region.

I have been to Da Lat many times, mainly because it’s more convenient to get to from Ho Chi Minh City. On my recent trip to Da Lat, I got the bus to Buon Ma Thuot, saving me a longer bus trip (or flying) from HCMC. These are my notes on Buon Ma Thuot from my visit in March 2025.

Buon Ma Thuot city notes

Buon Ma Thuot is also spelled as Ban Me Thuot, and Ban Me is also used as its name. BMT is also an acceptable abbreviation, which I will use from here on in.

What is immediately noticeable about BMT compared to Da Lat is that the city is flatter and there is a street grid in the city centre. Da Lat is surrounded by steep hills, and there are barely any straight roads. BMT is on a plateau, and it’s easy to walk around.

Being in the Central Highlands, I was wondering where the mountains were. It’s a twisty and mountainous road between Da Lat and BMT, but you can’t see any mountains in BMT. I checked a topographic map, and BMT is on a plateau of around 500 metres in elevation.

My visit was just after the 50th anniversary of the Buon Ma Thuot Victory. There were still many posters around the city celebrating this anniversary.

[50th anniversary of Buon Ma Thuot Victory.]

The central roundabout of the city features the Victory Monument, which has become the main landmark of the city.

Every visit to a new city in Vietnam requires a visit to the central market.

The BMT market has a skybridge connecting two buildings.

When in a provincial capital, always check out the provincial museum as they are usually the most architecturally interesting building in the city.

[Dak Lak Museum.]

Note: I was in BMT before the announcement of provincial mergers that happened in July. Dak Lak province was merged with coastal Phu Yen province, and the expanded province is still called Dak Lak with BMT as the capital.

In addition to being walkable, BMT is also very green. There are many tree-lined streets, and the city is also good at pocket parks.

Cities in Vietnam use the same street names of Vietnamese heroes, and streets named Le Duan are usually in the most prestigious locations. The Le Duan Street of BMT has much nicer trees than the Le Duan Street of Ho Chi Minh City.

There is a cathedral near the main roundabout, though it looks more like a parish church.

[Ban Me Thuot Diocese Cathedral.]

There has not been a construction boom like in the coastal cities of Vietnam, so BMT is still a relatively low-rise city. The Saigon Ban Me Hotel is the landmark tall hotel of the city.

[Saigon Ban Me Hotel.]

Coffee

The Central Highlands is a major coffee-growing region, and BMT is the hub of the coffee industry in Vietnam. In a case of poor timing, I arrived in the city just as they were packing up the Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival.

If you are visiting BMT for coffee, there is the Coffee World Museum.

The museum houses antique coffee-making equipment with displays that show the history of coffee.

The museum is built in highland-style houses.

Next to the museum is a new urban area called The Coffee City. The project was under construction when I visited, though some sections looked abandoned.

Coffee World Museum was built by Trung Nguyen Legend Group, who were founded in BMT and are now headquartered in HCMC. Trung Nguyen Legend Group are the largest domestic coffee brand in Vietnam, though Highlands Coffee are listed as the largest by number of stores in Vietnam.

Trung Nguyen was on the cusp of cafe domination in Vietnam in the 2010s until a messy public divorce between the founders. The cafe chain rebranded around this time. When I came to HCMC in 2012, Trung Nguyen had the best cafe logo.

[Trung Nguyen Coffee logo in HCMC (2012).]

The new logo is not as distinctive and the branding has gone with notable European coffee-drinkers (such as Beethoven) and imagery of successful people flying in private jets and a G7-brand instant coffee.

On my last visit to Singapore was in a random mall and I saw a Trung Nguyen cafe with the original logo. The wife of the original partnership set up Trung Nguyen International in Singapore using the original logo.

[Trung Nguyen Coffee in Singapore.]

If I were in charge of the Trung Nguyen branding, I would drop the weird obsession with the G7 and famous Europeans and lean into their highland heritage. Have an image of a highland house with the steep roof (like at the museum), and celebrate Vietnamese culture.

I rarely visit Trung Nguyen cafes, mainly because I don’t like the iced tea they serve with coffee. Most iced tea in Vietnam is weak and almost flavourless, while the Trung Nguyen iced tea has a strong flavour (possibly barley tea), and I don’t like the taste of it.

Considering that I was in the origin city of Trung Nguyen, I visited the flagship cafe (Trung Nguyen Coffee Village). Having just said that I don’t go to Trung Nguyen cafes, this cafe was a delight to visit. The village is more like a large garden area with water features and plenty of places for photo opportunities.

I had an iced coffee and tried the iced tea to see if it still tastes weird (it still tastes weird).

In addition to visiting the coffee king of Vietnam, I was curious to see what the cafe scene in general was like in BMT. I visited Dak Lac Coffee purely because it has a cool name. Dak Lak is such a great name for a province, and it would be very brandable as a chain.

The coffee lived up to its good name.

I visited Soul Specialty Coffee, who show on Google Maps as Soul Fine Robusta BMT.

There is a new wave of Vietnamese cafes that are celebrating the robusta coffee that is grown in Vietnam. For too long, the arabica cabal has been badmouthing robusta, so cafes like Soul are promoting Vietnamese robusta.

And there are of course Highlands Coffee cafes in BMT, though the cafe chain was started by a Vietnamese American in Hanoi, and not the Highlands.

Food

For food, one local specialty I was looking for was banh uot. A friend from Dak Lak introduced me to a banh uot restaurant in Saigon, so I had to try it in Dak Lak.

[Bánh Ướt Chồng Dĩa Bà The BMT]

Banh uot (translated as wet cake) is a sticky rice sheet that is used to roll around fillings. The sheet is wet and sticky, so it is brought out on a stack of plates. You then roll your own rolls with meat, vegetable, and herb fillings. The sticky nature of the sheet makes it easier to roll, and at the end of the meal, they count how many plates you used.

When it comes to finding food in new cities in Vietnam, I will see if there is a local specialty (like banh uot), and also walk around and see what is popular. I saw this place called Banh Canh Ca Dam Huong (fish cake noodle soup).

There were many people here, and they had extra seats outside, so that was a good sign.

One of my travel rules is not to eat fish so far inland, but I made an exception here for fish cake. The soup had a delicious broth that I can’t describe (which is why I am not a food blogger), and I noticed it got a bad review on Google because they only offer spoons. I looked around, and everyone was eating the noodles with two spoons and no chopsticks.

Vietnam has been slowly globalising, with chains such as Starbucks and McDonald’s finding their way into more provincial cities. The Central Highlands has few global chains so far. BMT has Jollibee from the Philippines (which partly owns Highlands Coffee), Lotteria from Korea, KFC (which was one of the early fast food arrivals in Vietnam), and Pizza Hut. Starbucks are opening in more provincial locations (including Da Lat), but there are no international cafe chains here.

Elephants of Buon Ma Thuot

Elephants are an icon of highland culture, and they are used in imagery around the city (thus the elephant mascot for the coffee festival).

One of the most clever logos I have seen is for the Tay Nguyen Hotel (Tay Nguyen being the name for the Central Highlands in Vietnamese).

[Tay Nguyen Hotel logo.]

One of the best hotels in Buon Ma Thuot is Elephants Hotel.

Another cafe I visited was Ama H’Rin Coffee House. There are some highland houses on display here with wooden carvings, such as this elephant. I didn’t get to explore highland culture outside the city, so I haven’t covered that in this article.

Riding elephants is still prominent in Vietnam, even while other elephant sanctuaries in the region are going “no ride”. The Vietnam tourism website is promoting the first ride-free elephant sanctuary in Vietnam near BMT, though there was still elephant riding at the coffee festival.

Further reading: Buôn Ma Thuột’s thriving elephant culture in 1957.

Transport

BMT is a good place to start if you are visiting other cities by bus in the Central Highlands.

I got the bus to BMT and then took a flight to Da Nang. Most of the flights from BMV are to SGN and HAN, with only a few other domestic locations. There was talk of upgrading the airport to international standards, though every city wants to become international.

There are no trains in the Central Highlands (apart from the fragment of an old railway in Da Lat). There is a long-term plan to build a Central Highlands railway, which would effectively be an inland version of the train from HCMC to Da Nang. I made a map that shows what a Central Highlands railway system would look like if all of the proposed railways were built.

[View full size map of Central Highlands Railways.]

Introducing my latest travel website, Rail Vietnam. This guide covers every train line in Vietnam, station information, and how to buy tickets.

About Rail Vietnam

I write about train travel in Vietnam here at Nomadic Notes, but I figured it would be better to have a dedicated site to post more detailed information.

A Vietnam rail site is the ideal subject for a niche site. It’s a topic I am very familiar with, and it is a small niche that won’t require too much time once it is set up. I also found a great domain (railvietnam.com) that is easy to brand.

The official website is not the most user-friendly experience, and there are many Vietnamese travel agent websites that try to look like the official website. My site is clear that it is an independent guide.

I will be publishing guides for the passenger lines, and I am open to accepting trip reports from other writers. I may also publish destination guides for every place with a train station if I decide to expand the site.

Future railways

While there is not a great variety of train lines in Vietnam, there are many new lines that are planned for the future. Some of the future lines include:

– The North-South High-Speed Railway (replacing the current North-South Railway)
– Lao Cai-Hanoi-Hai Phong Railway (replacing the current Lao Cai-Hanoi, Hanoi-Hai Phong lines)
– Hanoi-Ha Long Railway (possibly high-speed replacing the defunct line)
– Hanoi-Dong Dang Railway (upgrading current line that runs to Nanning in China)
– Ho Chi Minh City-Can Tho-Ca Mau Railway
– Central Highlands Railway

Some possible new international lines include:

– Vientiane-Vung Ang
– Hai Phong-Ha Long-Mong Cai (connecting to Dongxing in China)
– Ho Chi Minh City-Phnom Penh

I write about future rail development at Future Southeast Asia, which covers construction and development issues. Rail Vietnam will cover the new railways from the perspective of future travellers. The average traveller doesn’t need to know about a steel plant that is being built to manufacture rail tracks, so Rail Vietnam will cover topics such as stations and tickets.

These news lines are years away from being a reality, but you will find out about them on Rail Vietnam when they are ready.

Follow Rail Vietnam on social media

Facebook
Instagram
Bluesky

Subscribe to posts by email

I’m not setting up a newsletter for this site, but you can subscribe to blog posts by email (look for the subscribe by email box in the right column). I may start a newsletter if the site evolves into something else, in which case you will be notified about a newsletter if you subscribe by email.

[Somewhere between Da Nang and Hue.]

This guide on where to stay in Phan Thiet lists the best beach areas on the Mui Ne/Phan Thiet resort coast.

Phan Thiet is a coastal city in the South Central Coast region of Vietnam. It’s a popular beach area due to its proximity to Ho Chi Minh City. Phan Thiet is also referred to as Mui Ne, and the two names are used interchangeably.

Phan Thiet isn’t the best beach resort area in Vietnam, but its a good option for an easy beach getaway from Saigon if you don’t want to fly. There is a train from Saigon to Phan Thiet that takes 4 hours, and it’s timed perfectly for short trips.

The main tourist beach faces south, and the coastal breeze that blows from east to west has made it a popular kite surfing destination. There are also some impressive sand dunes that have formed on this dry and windswept coastline.

Having been based in Saigon for years, I have made many trips to Phan Thiet. Like my other Where To Stay guides, I have picked the best area for first-time visitors to save you time. In the case of Phan Thiet, it’s important to pick the right area if you are looking for an actual beach break, because some beaches have lost their sand.

Where to stay in Phan Thiet guide

Map of Phan Thiet hotels
Quick Guide: Best area to stay in Phan Thiet
Is it Phan Thiet or Mui Ne?
Where to stay in Phan Thiet
Ham Tien Beach (The best beach area in Phan Thiet)
Ham Tien Market (Local area popular with backpackers)
Fairy Stream (Guest house options)
Mui Ne (The real Mui Ne)
Phu Hai (Resorts and future new urban areas)
Phan Thiet City (Provincial capital, fishing port, street food)
Tien Thanh (Developing coastal area)

Map of Phan Thiet hotels

Hotels mentioned in this article are pinned on this map.

[View map of Phan Thiet hotels.]

Quick Guide: Best area to stay in Phan Thiet

Best area to stay in Phan Thiet is at Ham Thien.

Top local resorts in this area include:

Sailing Club Resort Mui Ne

Seahorse Resort & Spa Phan Thiet

The top-rated luxury resorts include:

Anantara Mui Ne Resort

The Anam Mui Ne.

The rest of this guide breaks down the main areas to stay in Phan Thiet.

Is it Phan Thiet or Mui Ne?

There is some confusion about the difference between Phan Thiet and Mui Ne. Phan Thiet is a city, which is divided into wards. One of the wards is Mui Ne. This map shows where Mui Ne is within Phan Thiet.

[Phan Thiet Wards Map via Wikimedia Commons.]

Phan Thiet and Mui Ne were put on the tourist map when it was calculated that it would be one of the best places in Vietnam to watch the solar eclipse on October 24, 1995. Guidebooks referred to Mui Ne Bay as ‘Mui Ne Beach’, and the name has stuck ever since. Even now, new hotels and resorts that are not in the administrative ward of Mui Ne brand themselves as Mui Ne.

If you say you are going to Mui Ne but aren’t in Mui Ne, no one will care. For the purpose of this article, I have grouped hotels in their correct wards.

Where to stay in Phan Thiet

These are the main areas in Phan Thiet.

Ham Tien Beach

[Ham Tien Beach, Phan Thiet.]

Ham Thien is where most of the beach action is in Phan Thiet. It has the best stretch of beach, but even here you have to be selective. There has been a lot of coastal erosion over the years, and the steady wind that powers the kite surfers has also piled up the sand to the western half of the beach.

[Kite surfers on the beach in Phan Thiet.]

There are gigantic sand bags that have been placed to stop the sand disappearing completely, making parts of the beach less aesthetically pleasing.

[Sand bag on the beach in Phan Thiet.]

There are some sections of the beach where buildings that were built too close to the sea have crumbled into the sand. The sand bags have stabilised the erosion for now, but this might become a familiar sites on beaches in the future.

Another factor to consider is that shops and restaurants are thinly spread out along one main road (Nguyen Dinh Chieu). This road goes from Phan Thiet to Mui Ne, and there is not really a town centre on the beach area.

Like other beach towns, the big resorts are on the beach side of the road, while the cheaper hotels are on the other side of the road. Arriving from Phan Thiet City, Ham Tien Beach starts at Ong Dia rock beach and goes to about Sunny Beach Resort & Spa.

The widest section of beach is at the western end, with Ca Ty Mui Ne Resort (4-star) and Allezboo Beach Resort and Spa (4-star) marking the start of the beach resort area.

Seahorse Resort & Spa Phan Thiet (4-star) is an independent hotel resort that is on the best section of beach.

[Seahorse Resort & Spa Phan Thiet.]

The Seahorse Resort is on a big property with a great pool overlooking the beach.

[Swimming pool at Seahorse Resort & Spa Phan Thiet.]

Sailing Club Resort Mui Ne (4-star) is a part of the Sailing Club Leisure Group of Vietnam, who have become an institution at beaches across the country. They began in Nha Trang in 1994, and the “Mui Ne” hotel opened in 2001. As the name would suggest, the resort has beach club vibes, and the restaurant is one of the best-located bars on the beach.

[Swimming pool at Sailing Club.]

The pick of the 5-star luxury resorts on this section of beach is the Anantara Mui Ne Resort and The Anam Mui Ne.

Budget accommodation is on the other side of the road. There are some hostels and guesthouses in alley 69, including the Huyen Tran Bungalow.

[Read my review of Huyen Tran Bungalow.]

Delight Hotel Mui Ne is on the main road and close to shops and the good stretch of beach.

[Read my review of Delight Hotel Mui Ne.]

One thing that is remarkable about this beach is that it has managed to stay low-rise. Most beach resorts of Vietnam have big hotels and apartment towers now.

The Vipol Muine (4-star) is in the tallest building on Ham Tien Beach. It’s on the main road, but you will get a good view of the sea from here.

[Vipol Muine (in the background) on Nguyen Dinh Chieu.]

The sandy beach section at Ham Tien goes up to about Sunny Beach Resort.

[Sunny Beach Resort.]

Beyond Sunny Beach Resort the beach thins out dramatically and there are sand bags trying to rebuild the coastline. I went for a coffee at Cafe Sunset on the beach, and this section is a seawall with no beach.

[Seawall at Cafe Sunset on the beach.]

Despite the lack of beach, there are many bars and restaurants in this area and I noticed foreigners who looked like long-termers. If you find a place to stay further along, just know that there is no beach.

Ham Tien Market

Ham Tien Market (Cho Ham Tien) is further along the coast towards Mui Ne. It has a different vibe to the resort area of Ham Tien so I am giving it its own section. Ham Tien Market has a more local feel as it’s the site of the central market of the ward. There are little alleys off the main road with home stays and garden villas. It’s just a shame about the beach.

I stayed here on my first visit to Phan Thiet, and there was a beach lined with fishing boats. I hadn’t been there for a decade, so I was surprised to find that there is now a seawall and most of the beach has gone. At least they have made a walkable seaside promenade here, which is lacking at the resort end of the beach.

[The seaside promenade built along the seawall in Ham Tien.]

This area is popular with backpackers, and it includes the Pineapple Mũi Né beach bar. iHome Backpacker Resort is one of the main backpacker hostels, and there are other guesthouses in this area.

[iHome Backpacker Resort.]

The thing with Phan Thiet is that there are activities in the area such as the sand dunes and fairy stream. If the beach isn’t your priority then this is a place to meet fellow travellers on your Vietnam trip.

Fairy Stream

The Fairy Stream (Soui Tien) is a stream that flows on a sandy river bed through a canyon. The stream is only centimetres deep and it feels more like a walk on a pleasant beach. It is a highlight of visiting Phan Thiet.

[Walking through the fairy stream in Phan Thiet.]

On the main road near the stream are numerous guest houses (look for the “Nhà Nghỉ” signs). I’ve not stayed here before as it is not near a beach. I put this here as an option if you have your own transport and are looking for a cheap room. For example if you are doing a motorbike trip around Vietnam you could just turn up here and ask for a room.

Mui Ne

Mui Ne is the fishing port town at the other end of the bay. Mui Ne is a typical Vietnam fishing township and there are very few places to stay in the town itself. The beaches of Mui Ne aren’t as good as Ham Tien, but the highlight of Mui Ne is the Red Sand Dunes area.

[Red Sand Dunes of Mui Ne.]

Mui Ne starts at Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne. This overlooks the bay with the fishing boats, and there is no beach here. The resort is rated for being family friendly, so it attracts people looking for a villa with access to kid-friendly swimming pools.

[Centara Mirage Resort Mui Ne.]

There are some hotels and resorts that are along the coast on the other side of Mui Ne town. These are popular with domestic tourists, and on the weekend the roads can be jammed with buses parked on the side of the road.

There are some big resorts being built along the coast, and like so many places in Vietnam, there are abandoned hotel projects everywhere. At far end of Mui Ne (and the northern boundary of Phan Thiet) is the incongruous Mandala Cham Bay Mui Ne, Phan Thiet. The hotel complex has four towers standing high on top of a sand dune overlooking the sea. They have built a platform on the roadside cliff to access the beach.

[Mandala Cham Bay Mui Ne, Phan Thiet.]

Phu Hai

Phu Hai is the area between Phan Thiet City and Ham Tien Beach. The coastal section is off the main road and it has a rocky coastline compared to Ham Tien. There are small beaches that are broken up by retaining walls to hold the sand.

[Beach road in Phu Hai, Phan Thiet.]

There are mainly resorts along here, such as The Cliff Resort and Residences and Victoria Phan Thiet Beach Resort & Spa.

On the other side of the main road is Sea Links City. This is the largest resort complex in Phan Thiet (or Mui Ne as they refer to themselves). This complex includes hotels, villas, apartments, and an 18-hole golf course (Sea Links Golf Country Club). The beach is accessible via a pedestrian overpass.

Hotels in this complex include Ocean Vista Resort & Residence Mui Ne (4-star) and Sea Links Beach Resort (5-star), which is better positioned for the gold course.

At the top of the hill there are some new urban areas being built. One of the big projects is Mui Ne Summerland. These are future residential areas that are being promoted as second homes or holiday homes. There is nothing here of interest for short-term visitors, though its fortunes may change in the future. The Summerland project sits about midway between Phan Thiet City and the future Phan Thiet Airport.

Phan Thiet City

Phan Thiet City was the capital of Binh Thuan Province before it was merged into Lam Dong Province in 2025. I have stayed in Phan Thiet before, mainly because I am an urban connoisseur that likes to explore provincial cities. There is a seafront, but it’s near the mouth of a river that is home to a fishing fleet.

The Phan Thiet train station is on the outskirts of the city, and most people just get a taxi to the beach area.

The main reason to come to the city of Phan Thiet is for the markets and street food. It’s hard to find proper street food in the beach resort areas. Apart from that, there is no reason to stay here for the casual visitor.

TTC Hotel – Phan Thiet is by the coastal part of the city.

Tien Thanh

Tien Thanh is the ward to the Southwest of Phan Thiet city. You might be looking at the map of Phan Thiet wondering what the beaches are like there, and why there are some familiar brand-name hotels. I don’t recommend this area but I place this here for your understanding.

This stretch of coast is mainly made up of small houses in villages that stretch along the coastal road. It’s a beautiful coastline, and the big property developers have staked out beachfront land for resorts and new urban areas.

The big project in this area (and I mean BIG) is the NovaWorld Phan Thiet development by Novaland. This is a new urban area that is being built from nothing. It looks like a suburb from Florida was placed on the coast, and the main beach here is called Bikini Beach.

At the entrance to NovaWorld is Mövenpick Resort Phan Thiet. This is a family-friendly hotel that features a pirate ship as the centrepiece of swimming pool area. There are theme parks being developed in this area, so it might become a theme park area, even if the residential area remains empty for years.

[Check rates for Mövenpick Resort Phan Thiet.]

The other familiar name here is Radisson Resort Phan Thiet.

The coast of Tien Thanh is littered with unfinished projects, ruining what might have otherwise been a great area to stay if it had been planned better.

Bao Loc is a city in Lam Dong Province in the Central Highlands region of Vietnam. Bao Loc is the closest highland city to Ho Chi Minh City, and the construction of a new expressway has made it more accessible.

I was reading about some recent tourism developments in Bao Loc, which are being built to cash in on weekenders from Ho Chi Minh City.

There are frequent local buses from the popular tourist city of Da Lat, so I got the bus to Bao Loc to see what is happening.

[Local bus from Da Lat to Bao Loc.]

I thought it would be a short ride as Bao Loc is in the same province as Da Lat. It ended up taking 3 hours, not including the time it took driving around Da Lat to pick up more passengers. I should have looked at the time and distance on the map.

From a tourism perspective, there is not a lot going on in Bao Loc. It is pleasant yet unremarkable town. It doesn’t have the old French villas like Da Lat, and the mountains are not as dramatic as in Da Lat. Like Da Lat, Bao Loc has an artificial lake in the city centre, though the lake was being dredged when I visited.

There are nice tree-lined streets, and you can walk around without worrying about getting mown down when trying to cross the road.

If you are stuck for things to see, look on the map for a pagoda.

[Phuoc Hue Pagoda.]

Phuoc Hue Pagoda is not far from the main lake.

Whenever I am in a small city or town in Vietnam, I look for cafes hang out at. There are plenty of cafes in town to chill out in.

In addition to the lake being restored, the 28/3 Park was was also closed for renovation.

I had been travelling around the South Central Coast and Highlands in March of 2025, and every city had 30/4 posters to commemorate the upcoming liberation day anniversary. Each southern city has their own liberation day, and I was in Bao Loc leading up to the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Bao Loc (28 March). If you are in a southern city and see a park with a date in March or April, then you can guess that this is a liberation park.

Bao Loc in 1975 was known as B’Lao Town, and it was the capital of Lam Dong from 1958 to 1975. The provinces and capitals were reorganised after reunification, and Da Lat became the capital of Lam Dong.

It’s hard to imagine now that Bao Loc could have been the capital, but there was a time when Da Lat was not the tourism juggernaut that it is today.

I walked around the peaceful streets of Bao Loc and wondered if this is what Da Lat felt like 30+ years ago.

Bao Loc is starting to get more local media attention, with such headlines as, Is Bao Loc the new Da Lat? It’s also being called a hidden gem, which is probably a sign that it’s no longer a hidden gem.

Most of the tourism activity is outside the city, so the city doesn’t feel like it is becoming the next Da Lat. I didn’t see any westerners when I was there (not even a stray English teacher), and there are no signs in Korean or Chinese.

There are holiday home developments in the surrounding hills with names like Sky Hills and Sakura Gardens, aimed for the short-break market from HCMC. I keep a list of developments in Da Lat and Lam Dong if you want to see more.

[Sky Hills Bao Loc.]

In my previous research about Lam Dong province, I found some plans for various railways in the Central Highlands. One railway was planned to connect a mining project in the highlands to a port, via Bao Loc. I made a map of all of the proposed Central Highlands railways, and this is what Bao Loc would look like if it was connected to a passenger railway system.

[Bao Loc in a futuristic Central Highlands railway network.]

This map has now changed because in July 2025, Binh Thuan province was merged into Lam Dong province. This means that Lam Dong is now a coastal and highland province.

There was also a plan to build a commercial airport on the site of the old Loc Phat airfield.

The railway and airport plans are extremely unlikely to happen, so for now, Bao Loc will retain its sleepy small city charm.

I stayed at the Camellia Hotel, which is located in the city centre near the lake (hopefully filled with water again if you plan to visit).

Further reading

2 days amid the mist and clouds of Bao Loc
“Set amid coffee hills and mist, Dai Binh Mountain in Bao Loc has become a favorite with travelers seeking to swap phone signals for clouds, forests and mountain air.”

On the railway to China, the hidden ancient citadel, and visiting the Koreatown and Chinatown in this booming manufacturing hub of Northern Vietnam.

Bac Ninh is the capital city of Bac Ninh province, neighbouring Hanoi. Bac Ninh province is part of the Hanoi Metropolitan Area, and on the drive to Bac Ninh it’s hard to tell where Hanoi ends and Bac Ninh begins. At least there is still some farmland in between that stops Hanoi fully merging into Bac Ninh.

Bac Ninh is an industrial powerhouse of Vietnam, so it’s not exactly high on the list of places to visit for leisure travellers. Apart from the fact that I am making my way through the list of provincial capitals in Vietnam, there were some things here I wanted to see.

The Hanoi-Dong Dang Railway passes through Bac Ninh (the train line to Nanning in China), and I noticed there is a citadel next to the station. I also read that Bac Ninh has a large Koreatown and Chinatown area, which seemed unusual for a provincial city.

[Map of Bac Ninh Ancient Citadel.]

I visited Bac Ninh in July 2024, and these are my travel notes.

Bac Ninh Station

Bac Ninh is on the Hanoi-Dong Dang Railway, though there were no trains running at the time of my visit. The Hanoi-Nanning train was cancelled during the pandemic and had not been restored.

[Bac Ninh Station]

Even without this international connection, it seemed like a missed opportunity to not run local trains on this line. I couldn’t find the bus stop for the local bus, so I ended up getting a Grab taxi from Hanoi to Bac Ninh.

For rail nerds, the Hanoi-Dong Dang Railway has a dual-gauge track. There is a metre-gauge track for local trains, and the standard-gauge line is for the train to China.

The line goes through the urban area of Bac Ninh, and I wondered if any of these streets would become famous like Hanoi Train Street if the train was running.

Bac Ninh Ancient Citadel

The Ancient Citadel of Bac Ninh is next to the train station, so this geographical advantage had me wondering if the citadel could become a tourist attraction in the future. I already knew the answer was going to be no, but I had to see for myself.

There are several citadels like this in Vietnam, and most of them have been absorbed into the cities they are part of. There is a citadel in Dong Hoi that has a major road through the middle of it, and you wouldn’t you were driving through a citadel unless you looked at a map.

The Bac Ninh citadel is accessible by a bridge and there is no through traffic, so it has the right geographical ingredients to be a tourism attraction.

The citadel is a residential area that is shared with an active military base, so that explains why it’s not a tourist attraction. Thus I had to be careful of taking photos in this area.

Inside the citadel it is residential area that could be anywhere in Vietnam. There are a few hints of it being a fortress, but it is not filled with architectural marvels.

Being inside the citadel doesn’t feel like you are in a citadel. This is partly because you can’t see the water from most places inside. If there was a walking path around the citadel perimeter it would be the gem of Bac Ninh.

A fair chunk of the citadel interior is off limits, so there wasn’t much to see here.

Old Bac Ninh City

There isn’t really an old town in Bac Ninh, but I discovered that there are two distinct areas of Bac Ninh: normal provincial city Bac Ninh, and the new international boomtown Bac Ninh.

I had a wander around “old” Bac Ninh, and it’s a typical provincial capital city of Vietnam with tube houses built next to each other and market vendors on the street. I enjoy wandering around provincial cities to reset after being in more touristy places.

There are some lovely tree-lined streets here that defy the stereotype of Vietnamese cities being chaotic. It feels distinct from Hanoi, even if Hanoi is gradually creeping up to Bac Ninh.

If you ever find yourself in a provincial capital, look for the provincial bao tang (museum). The museums almost always have some war remnants such as an aircraft or tank.

[War-era jet at the Bac Ninh Museum.]

And even in the seemingly unremarkable cities there is always something to see by wandering around.

New Bac Ninh City

The older area of Bac Ninh follows the train line, while the new area is a few blocks to the south and follows Ly Thai To Street.

[Ly Thai To Street in Bac Ninh.]

There are more modern apartment towers in this area, and there are many shopfronts with Korean and Chinese signage.

I was interested to visit this area after reading an article about the tech worker Chinatown that is emerging here. It is noticeable from walking around that Bac Ninh is a manufacturing hub with ties to China.

Bac Ninh has an established Koreatown here as there are numerous Korean factories in the province.

The most well-known Korean brand in Bac Ninh is Samsung. There is a special Samsung bus that goes from the city centre to the factory. This reminded me of the Google Bus that runs from San Francisco to Silicon Valley.

As the aforementioned article mentioned, there is now also a visible Chinatown area.

There isn’t a demarcated Koreatown or Chinatown, and there is an overlap between the two cultural areas.

What makes Bac Ninh so distinct from other cities in Vietnam is that the Chinatown area is so visible. Most Chinese businesses in Vietnam are low-key, and there are no Chinatown arches like in other cities in Southeast Asia. Bac Ninh feels like a boomtown where everyone is coming to make money.

Despite its economic success, the city is still too provincial for international hotel brands to consider, so there are these big local hotels to serve business travellers.

Chain stores have not arrived in Bac Ninh yet either (apart from Lotteria and Jollibee). I saw a Luckin Coffee (the massive chain from China), but Luckin have not arrived in Vietnam yet so I don’t know what this was (it was closed when I went by).

Future Bac Ninh

A year after my visit, Bac Ninh merged with neighbouring Bac Giang province (so I never got to visit Bac Giang on my province list).

Bac Ninh continues to thrive economically, with the province topping the list of exporters from Vietnam.

While I was researching this article, I discovered Bac Bling by Hoa Minzy, which was released after my visit to Bac Ninh.

I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Vpop, so I had never heard of this song. I was intrigued by the title, so I clicked through and was staggered to see that this song has a quarter of a billion views after only 5 months! Even if this music isn’t your style, the video production is outstanding, so it’s no wonder it has found a global audience. I ended up watching the “making of” video that was recommended after watching this.

Hoa Minzy is from Bac Ninh, and this video is a homage to her home province. The video made me want to visit these parts of Bac Ninh that I didn’t see. This video would do more for tourism than running ads on CNN, and a local news site has made a map of the places in Bac Ninh that are featured in the video.

I was in Bac Ninh city to visit the Koreatown and Chinatown areas that are serving the industrial boom of the province. Bac Bling seems like an appropriate name for modern Bac Ninh.

There are some grand transport plans for Bac Ninh that might see me back here in the future. Bac Ninh is building a new airport, and the plan has been revised to make it larger than Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport. This will be the second airport of Hanoi, so the planned second airport will be the third airport.

There was also talk of a 12-line(!) urban railway. I have not seen any maps for this, but presumably it would be integrated with the Hanoi Metro railway. Another useful railway would be a commuter line to Hanoi, and perhaps there will be international train services from Bac Ninh to China when the Hanoi-Dong Dang Railway is upgraded.

Meanwhile there there is also a new tourist train that will run from Hanoi to Tu Son (in Bac Ninh), helping to elevate the Bac Ninh name beyond its association of being a manufacturing hub.

Maybe I will be hanging at a cafe in Bac Ninh sooner than I thought.

The best areas to stay in Quy Nhon, including the city beach, Phuong Mai Peninsula, and beaches to the south of the city centre.

Quy Nhon is a city in the South Central Coast region of Vietnam. The city has similarities to Da Nang and Nha Trang in that it has a municipal beach in the city centre. Unlike Da Nang and Nha Trang, it has yet to be discovered by international mass tourism.

There are some occasional international news articles that proclaim that Quy Nhon is Vietnam’s next big beach destination, but you still have time to get here before it goes mainstream.

Quy Nhon is an unusual city in that it has covers a large area with distinct geographical features.

[Quy Nhon city area outlined in red.]

If you’re visiting Quy Nhon for the first time and just want to find the main area to stay, then stay near the beach in the city area of Quy Nhon.

Search for hotels near Quy Nhon City Beach

If you are looking to learn about all of the different beaches, then read on. This where to stay guide breaks down the main areas to stay in Quy Nhon, including the city beach, Phuong Mai Peninsula, and beaches to the south of the city centre.

Where to stay in Quy Nhon guide

Map of Quy Nhon hotels
Quy Nhon City (the beachfront city)
Phuong Mai Peninsula
Nhon Hai (fishing village near Coral Island)
Merryland Quy Nhon (under-construction tourism area)
Nhon ly (fishing village and beach resorts)
Bai Dai (Long Beach) (small beaches south of city centre)
Bai Xep Fishing Village (beach hotels in a fishing village)
Bai Dai Resorts (beach resorts packaged with Vietage luxury train)

Map of Quy Nhon hotels

Hotels and other locations mentioned in this article are pinned on this map of Quy Nhon.

[Map of hotels in Quy Nhon.]

Note about addresses: In July 2025, Vietnam merged provinces and cities across the country. Quy Nhon was the capital of Binh Dinh province, but Binh Dinh has now been incorporated into Gia Lai province. Quy Nhon is now the capital of the enlarged Gia Lai province, but many maps and online addresses still show Binh Dinh province.

Quy Nhon City

The city of Quy Nhon has a beach that faces Quy Nhon Bay. The total seafront is about 6 km in length, with about 4.5 km of sandy beach (the beach disappears at the northern end). While the beach sand isn’t quite as soft as the beaches of Da Nang and Nha Trang, the beachfront park and promenade makes for a scenic seaside city.

One of the great aspects of coastal cities of Vietnam are the beach parks, and the beach park of Quy Nhon is one of the best in the country.

[Quy Nhon Beach Park.]

The centre of Quy Nhon is on the beachfront at Quy Nhon Square. There is a giant statue of young Ho Chi Minh (then known as Nguyen Tat Thanh) with his father (Nguyen Sinh Sac). The beachfront area is very walkable, so picking somewhere near the beach is fine. If you want to be nearest to the centre, then use Quy Nhon Square as the central point.

[Quy Nhon Square.]

Guesthouses and budget hotels

Quy Nhon is still mostly a domestic tourist destination, so there are cheap hotels everywhere. I usually look for budget hotels close to the city beach, and see what the deals the hotel booking sites are offering.

The Green Park Hotel (2-star) is typical of what to expect with a budget hotel in Vietnam. It’s no frills but it’s clean and everything works.

The Green Park Hotel is named after the park it is in front of. The park along Nguyen Tat Thanh Road is a linear park that runs alongside the road, and it makes Quy Nhon feel green and civilised.

[Nguyen Tat Thanh Park.]

I visited Song Suoi Homestay to rent a scooter. This guesthouse feels like a travellers hostel where guests mingle in the lounge area. The homestay also has travel information for the surrounding area, which I have not seen in any other budget hotel in Quy Nhon.

[Song Suoi Homestay.]

Mid Range

HAKU Boutique Hotel (2-star) is near the beach and around the corner from the best cafe in Quy Nhon (Adiuvat Coffee Roasters).

Mento Hotel (3-star) is centrally located near Quy Nhon Square.

[Mento Hotel.]

Fleur De Lys Hotel Quy Nhon is a 4-star hotel at the northern end of the beach (before the sand disappears). The hotel is opposite East West Brewing and Surf Bar 1, which are cool bars that are on the beach.

[Fleur De Lys Hotel Quy Nhon.]

Odin Hotel Quy Nhon (4-star) is 4 minutes walk inland from the beach.

Sala QuyNhon Beach Hotel (4-star) opened in 2025, and its contemporary architectural design stands out among the boxy tube hotels that are common in provincial Vietnam.

[Sala QuyNhon Beach Hotel.]

A’dor Hotel & Spa (4-star) is opposite Nguyen Tat Thanh Park.

[A’dor Hotel & Spa.]

The southern end of the beach features several large blocks that have been redeveloped. It has a different feel to the old city core, but it’s a pleasant walk along the beachfront to get to the old city area.

This area is notable as there are some older hotels that are on the beachfront (between the beach and the main beach road). Other beach cities like Nha Trang and Da Nang have been actively removing hotels on the city beachfront. Most of the Quy Nhon beachfront is now a city park, so these hotels are an exception to the rule. These hotels look like they are from a bygone era, and their main selling point is that they are on the beach.

Ocean View Hotel (3-star) and Binh Duong Hotel (Khach San Binh Duong) (3-star) are two hotels on this beachfront area.

[Binh Duong Hotel.]

The Seagull Hotel (4-star) looks like one of the original seaside hotels of Quy Nhon, and it only has the Vietnamese name on the building (Khach San Hai Au).

Anya Hotel Quy Nhon (4-star) is one of the new hotels among the cluster of new towers on this section of the beach.

Luxury Hotels

Grand Hyams Hotel – Quy Nhon Beach is in the tallest building in Quy Nhon (168.8 metres) and it’s one of the landmark buildings of the city. The hotel is one street away from the beachfront, and there are no other tall buildings nearby to obstruct its view.

[Grand Hyams Hotel – Quy Nhon Beach.]

In the same building as the Grand Hyams Hotel are the TMS Residences. There are numerous apartments for rent, and the apartments are listed separately on booking sites.

Note that this building was originally going to be the Pullman Quy Nhon, but the Pullman pulled out some time during the pandemic years. Some old news sites and booking agents still show the Pullman name, in case you were wondering why you can’t find the Pullman on current booking sites.

FLC City Hotel Beach Quy Nhon is the landmark hotel at the south end of the beach. FLC Group are a Vietnamese conglomerate with interests in real estate, aviation, and tourism. The group owns Bamboo Airways, and they plan to turn Quy Nhon into an international tourism hub. Part of that plan is to develop luxury hotels in Quy Nhon.

Behind the FLC City Hotel Beach is the FLC Sea Tower, which is part of the FLC Group’s redevelopment of this area.

FLC Sea Tower is an apartment tower that has individual apartments for rent. If you search for FLC Sea Tower you will be presented with numerous options, such as FLC Sea Tower – The Beach Quy Nhon.

[FLC Sea Tower.]

Anya Premier Hotel Quy Nhon is also on the main beach road in this redeveloped area of the city.

[Anya Premier Hotel Quy Nhon.]

Phuong Mai Peninsula

The Phuong Mai Peninsula is separated from the city centre by the Thi Nai Lagoon. The peninsula is reached via the Thi Nai Bridge (2.477 km), and the peninsula area is a mix of sand dunes and rock formations. It is technically in the boundary of Quy Nhon City, but it couldn’t be more different to the city.

Quy Nhon is developing the peninsula into an industrial estate, and the coastal areas with beaches have various tourism projects. There are some lovely fishing villages here, as well as some examples of tourism development gone wrong.

I’ve never stayed on the peninsula as I only visit by motorbike when I stay in the city. It’s not easy to get around by public transport, so I would only consider staying in this area if you are touring by motorbike or if you are ok with just getting a taxi from the airport to sit on a resort beach.

Nhon Hai

Nhon Hai is a fishing village at southeast corner of the Phuong Mai peninsula. Nhon Hai is set in a beautiful location that is worth a visit even if you aren’t staying.

The village has two beachfronts that form an L shape. The first beach is the working fishing area. Depending on the time of day you are here, you will see fish being hauled onto land and nets being mended. It’s not a leisure beach, but the boats look great on the dazzling blue water on a sunny day.

[Nhon Hai Fishing Beach.]

Around the corner is a longer beach that is more conducive for leisure. There is a play area for kids, and this beach is where day trippers come to get boats the nearby Hon Kho Beach on Coral Island.

[View of Coral Island.]

This beach also has a rubbish problem, which a problem with fishing villages in general.

At the south end of the beach is the Nhon Hai Beach Restaurant, which is literally on the beach. Here you can put your feet in the sand while enjoying a beer or ca phe sua da.

[Nhon Hai Beach Restaurant.]

Opposite the Nhon Hai Beach Restaurant is the Nhon Hai Beach Hostel. The hostel was open when I last visited, but it’s showing as closed on some sites and I can’t find any website or social media presence.

[Nhon Hai Beach Hostel.]

Some of the homestays and guesthouses in Nhon Hai are bookable online, or just look for houses with “nha nghi” signs (guest house) if you are riding around by motorbike.

[Guest houses in Nhon Hai.]

There are few amenities in Nhon Hai, and most of the restaurants are seafood places that cater to groups of day trippers.

Sometimes people say they want to stay in an authentic fishing village without thinking of what that would really be like. Do you really want to stay in a village where there are no convenience stores or cool cafes? On the other hand, a stay in a rustic fishing village is the antidote for the big city beaches that Vietnam is known for.

[Nhon Hai fishing town.]

I will be interested to see what happens to Nhon Hai in the future. It’s one of those places that could break out, and maybe it will be filled with boutique hotels and hipster cafes in the future, and we will all be moaning about how it became too touristy.

Merryland Quy Nhon

Merryland Quy Nhon is a new leisure area at the southern end of the Phuong Mai peninsula. The project is still under construction, but I place it here in case you see advertisements for it in Quy Nhon. ⁠There are billboards all over Quy Nhon promoting the project, and advertisements have been prominent at airports across Vietnam.

[Billboard promoting Merryland on the road to Merryland Quy Nhon.]

Nhon Ly

Nhon Ly coastal commune is about 20km northeast of the Quy Nhon city centre. this area has a long stretch of rugged coastline with hidden beaches, fishing villages, and luxury resorts.

This area is still being developed, and there are lots of new roads with hardly any traffic. There are big sand dunes and wind farms on the surrounding hills.

FLC Luxury Resort Quy Nhon (5-star) is the main resort in the Nhon Ly coastal area. Like many coastal resorts in Vietnam (such as in Da Nang and Cam Ranh), FLC Luxury Resort is isolated from the city centre, so this is the sort of place you go if you just want a relaxing time at a beach resort.

[FLC Luxury Resort Quy Nhon.]

FLC were planning to turn parts of the Phuong Mai Peninsula into a major tourism and resort area, but some corruption scandals in the company have derailed the plan. As a result, there are lots of half-finished buildings in the new urban area near the FLC resort. There are a few shops that are open in this area, but overall it’s a depressing site to see abandoned concrete shells.

FLC did manage to complete the FLC Quy Nhon Golf Links which is connected to the resort, and there is also the FLC Zoo Safari Park Quy Nhon. I’ve been to enough zoos in Southeast Asia to know that I don’t need to go to this.

The FLC Resort is near the Nhon Ly fishing village. There is another nice beach here that is used by fishing boats, and there are some homestays and guesthouses in the town.

[Beach at Nhon Ly fishing village (FLC Resort to the left).]

The Nhon Ly fishing village doesn’t show correctly on Google Maps.

[Google Map of Nhon Ly fishing village.]

here is the same map using Google Map satellite view.

[Google Map satellite view of Nhon Ly fishing village.]

This area is also referred to as the Eo Gio Tourist Area, and the branding between Nhon My and Eo Gio is confusing. One of the main sites here is the cliff walk along the coast.

South of Nhon Ly village is the KyCo Peninsula Quy Nhon Resort (3-stars). This hotel is famous for its location on a secluded beach. It’s the only hotel on the beach and there are no other facilities nearby, so you come here to get away from it.

There are lots of interesting things to see on the peninsula, but you will need a motorbike to get around. Alternatively, a day trip from the city would cover the main sites.

Bai Dai (Long Beach)

Bai Dai is a beach to the south of the city centre. It includes the Bai Xep Beach (a fishing village popular with budget travellers), and the southern end of Bai Dai Beach is home to exclusive resorts.

Bai Xep

[Bai Xep Beach.]

Bai Xep is a fishing village on a peninsula 12 km south of Quy Nhon city centre. Bai Xep is technically part of Quy Nhon, though it doesn’t feel like it.

[View of Quy Nhon skyline from Bai Xep fishing village.]

The village of Bai Xep clings onto the rocky coastline, and it’s a steep walk from the main road down to the beach. There is a village well at the main intersection of the small streets, and there is an assortment of accommodation options among the seafood restaurants.

Mira Bai Xep (2-star) is at the entrance to the beachfront next to Haven Vietnam (2-star).

Casa Marina Resort (4-star) is the most luxurious option on Bai Xep Beach.

I stayed at Life’s a Beach Bai Xep, but the hotel has since moved 3.4 km down the coast in Dak Lak province (former Phu Yen province). This is technically not in Quy Nhon but I place it here because some sites still list Life’s a Beach as being in Quy Nhon. Here is the new listing for Life’s A Beach.

Bai Xep can be reached by Bus T11 from Quy Nhon.

Bai Dai Resorts

Next to Bai Xep Beach is Bai Dai Beach. Some sites list Bai Xep as Bai Dai, and to add to the confusion, there are also Bai Dai beaches in Nha Trang and Phu Quoc. Bai Dai Beach is a private beach for resorts, so I am listing Bai Xep and Bai Dai separately to distinguish between the public and private beaches.

Avani Quy Nhon Resort (5-star) is a luxury resort located on Bai Dai Beach.

Next to Avani is the Anantara Quy Nhon Villas (5-star), both of which are brands of Minor Hotels.

The Avani and Anantara can be booked as part of a package with The Vietage by Anantara luxury train between Da Nang and Quy Nhon. The train service are luxury carriages attached to the back of a regular train, and the train goes to Dieu Tri Station (near Quy Nhon).